Homedot: Disruptive Real Estate App

Based on the concept and designs provided, we turned our client's idea into a complete digital product with pristine UI.

Challenges

Thanks to the client’s dedication and commitment, the project was less challenging than it could have been. A big part of the crucial first phase of the project – design, prototyping – was done by the client before we started cooperating.

Implementing main business logic – marking available homes with dots on a map

Chat functionality – enabling interested buyers to ask about homes

Cross-platform compatibility on Android and iOS

01

Project Overview

Scope

Mobile application

The app has been built for both iOS and Android platforms.

Back-end

We developed a dedicated back-end solution that encapsulates the app’s business logic.

Back-end

We developed a dedicated back-end solution that encapsulates the app’s business logic.

Technology

iOS and Android

We chose Swift and Kotlin as core programming languages for this project.

Team

Up to 8-10 members

Depending on the stage of the project, there were at least 5 developers, a QA tester, a PM and a UX/UI designer.

Duration

6 months

Our team completed the project in approximately 6 months.

02

Solution

The idea behind Homedot is one that both property owners and property seekers could definitely appreciate. If you were selling, you let the app know what’s the address. If you were buying, you placed a dot on streets that you were interested in, and the app notified you about available homes. No calls or emails necessary, you could just chat with homeowners or buyers in-app. Homedot tried to expand your real estate opportunities with just a few clicks in the app. Unfortunately, the app has been discontinued.

03

Technology

Homedot needed to be available both on iOS and Android, so we developed two native applications, respectively in Swift and Kotlin.

One of the most important features of the mobile application is the in-app chat. To ensure quick and secure messaging, we used Twilio and their Programmable Chat API. It allowed us to seamlessly add chat features into both native apps without the hassle of building the chat backend from scratch.

We combined forces when it comes to testing, starting with QA on our side, and solid beta testing on the client’s side. This was a great approach to ensure that end users would be happy with how the app works. And it seems that it worked – Homedot is already collecting 5-star reviews on the App Store and Google Play.

Swift

Kotlin

Twillo

Firebase

04

Workflow

The Homedot app took 6 months to complete, with up to 10 people working on the project in different phases: Project Manager, Android and iOS developers, Backend Developers, QA tester, UI/UX designer.

It started with the client contacting us, and showing us the idea along with initial designs. Our designers added a bit of UI magic to those designs, and we started building the app in 2-week sprints with a demo after each sprint. We stayed in touch with the client on a daily basis to quickly solve any arising issues.

05

Result

At the moment of writing (January 2022), Homedot is closed. To us, it was an awesome new way to handle real estate sales, and it had the potential to disrupt the market for home buyers and sellers.

The process of scaling up and acquiring more users is always difficult, and few start-ups get through it. Any entrepreneur knows it. Nonetheless, it was a great pleasure to work on this project, and we’re grateful that we were entrusted with building Homedot.