Show HN: Shiny Buildings – GitHub for Buildings | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Shiny Buildings – GitHub for Buildings

shinybuildings.com

43 pointsddubski24 comments

This is an interesting personal project, but as someone who would want to sell a house why would I want potential buyers to know issues that I have had with my property? If I don't legally have to disclose something about the house when selling, odds are that I would want the buyer to not know about it unless it was something beneficial like a new roof (which I would list anyhow).

This is an interesting idea, but if you are planning to try to make a business out of this (it's unclear if you are to me) I don't believe that people will be on the same wavelength as you about the history of a house.

I really appreciate that, and this is one of the main pieces of feedback I was looking for. I would like to make it a business, so I've been studying the issue and it seems there is a gap in the market for homeowners who want to plan and document their work outside of Excel, paper, etc. I've also heard that there are some sellers who would like to transfer detailed "knowledge" about a house to future owners, and certainly many buyers who would value that information. But I certainly don't plan to force anyone to share anything about the house (issues, work done, etc.) that they don't want to share. Your perspective is extremely helpful.

If it doesn't make sense for homeowners, I'm also wondering if there's an interest in using a tool like this for the upkeep of buildings and structures in the public interest (schools, infrastructure, etc.), in which case transparency and ability to transfer knowledge might make more sense. But I know that's a completely different animal altogether.

i think its great for hoa and leasers, really. or people owning multiple apartments and their leasers.

As someone who would want to buy a house, I would like to know what issues you had with your property.

I don't like surprises after the selling.

I agree!

I'm someone who's still getting surprises from his property purchase (UK leaseholder, converted Victorian terrace).

I would have loved to know ahead of time about forthcoming issues I'd have to deal with that the survey didn't pick up.

Would likely still have gone ahead with the purchase (I was in a baby-induced rush), but with a stronger bargaining position. It's not as if UK property prices are reasonable in any case.

I _personally_ feel that not declaring serious flaws just because it's not legally required equates to lies by omission.

Exactly, in France when you're asking for a loan to buy a house, banks include the repair/whatever costs into the loan on top of the selling price.

If the buyer hides problems from me, I will still have to deal with it, and it won't be included in my loan, so it will be out of my pocket.

An advice from my father: Visit houses in winter and not in summer, you can't check the isolation in summer.

In my experience, honesty in any business works better than lies.

Yes totally agree with this. I renovated a house recently and got in all sorts of problems (plumbing electricity) i certainly didnt want the buyer to know about the details... Mostly because he can use the information against me!!

And the buyer would be right.

What if your renovations aren't good enough and the buyer has to spend 1/3 of the buying price to repair your work?

If you want to sell a shithole, at least, be honest about it, you'll do everyone a favor.

It’s not a shithole, but I employed a person who screwed up the plumbing, I had to have the bathroom completely redone, it’s perfect now. On paper though, it looks like shit cause we had to lawyer up to get money back from the guy who screwed up...

Hi HN, thank you for the chance to share. Shiny Buildings is meant to be a tool to tell the story of your house: how it got to where it is today, and where you'd like it to take it. It's inspired by both GitHub - which I (like many) think is an extremely fun and functional tool - and Stewart Brand's "How Buildings Learn", which I discovered on this site a couple of years ago [0]. Growing up, I was always completely enamored with actual "shiny buildings" - fancy looking glass boxes that I found downtown and on college campuses, which I've always thought were super exciting, new, technological marvels compared to all these clapboard relics up here in New England... With time though (and especially after reading this book), I came to realize that almost any standing building is somewhat of a miracle, and well-maintained, well-loved buildings that get patches and extensions and upgrades and just seem to grow organically are nothing short of awesome to look at and enjoy. I'd like to think there's some value in documenting all of these changes and sharing it with other people who help take care of your home, etc., but I'm mostly hoping this tool can just provide another source of pride and satisfaction for anyone who enjoys where they live and wants to keep making it better.

Anyway, this version definitely falls far, far short of the quality, functionality, and concepts of GitHub, and the ideas in the book, so any feedback and criticism is extremely appreciated. Here's a video if you'd rather not try it directly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGbqgmrv8m0

[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21087901

Awesome! Having recently bought half of a 100 year old duplex building in new england, I've frequently wanted something like this - why is there minor fire damage in one corner of the basement? What year was this porch updated into a full room? Is this window an original? Is there a reason the previous owner bought an electric dryer when there's gas hookups?

As a potential user, my biggest concern would be the longevity of the platform. Investing in using this platform might pay off for me after 5 to 10 years, much longer than the average startup or side project lasts.

Thank you for the feedback! Obviously if I could get this to a place where enough people find it valuable, I would like to make it work for as long as possible... But in the meantime, I'm definitely planning to prioritize full data export functionality (and other ways of making sure you're not locked-in or empty handed after investing in it.)

Well done. I assume there is an option to keep the property mostly private? Many reno projects are simply band aids, or replacement w substandard material, where prospective owners may scoff and want a discount for wanting to redo the project. Aside from that, I love the idea of version tracking (not control) of a property, though I doubt my neighbors would know what github is.

Each property is completely private by default unless you want to make it public (and currently that feature isn't ready anyway).

Thank you also for your clarification on version tracking vs. control - I will change that now! And I do plan to describe it as something other than "GitHub for Buildings" eventually, but assumed that description might register more effectively here while I hunt for feedback.

This might be most useful in something like a condo that has board that handles collective repairs etc. Hell, something like this should be the law for something like that.

In my condo association (of 2 units) we have a shared google doc folder

I think something like this could theoretically be much more useful

Small nit on your copy: I don't think that the average homeowner is going to know what GitHub is, what it offers, or why it's useful.

Super interesting nonetheless.

I completely agree - at the moment I'm focused on getting feedback from "tech savvy" early adopters, so I thought this description might help express what I'm going for most effectively here on HN. But once I nail down the features that make sense for buildings and real estate, I'm hoping I can come up with a more approachable way to describe the functionality (even though I would like to incorporate and build on the more sophisticated concepts that GitHub has made pretty standard for code.)

This is great but are there any plans for a self-hosted option? There's potentially a lot of VERY sensitive data to be stored and I wouldn't be comfortable just putting it up there (no offence) but would happily run it myself.

I've been looking for something like this for a while and this a very slick interface that covers pretty much all the bases.

No offense at all - this is the part that makes me the most nervous too, and I'd be very glad to help you self-host it (if you wouldn't mind emailing me at dstein@shinybuildings.com to discuss further).

Thank you for making this, it is really useful! I'm currently saving for a house and I will keep an eye on this to use when I actually buy it.

this is a really cool idea!! It would definitely help organizing knowledge for upkeep, even for myself let alone for others. I may or may not use it because I'm just renting, but I'll keep this in mind and may pick it up. It's kind of like a house-specific wiki

Thanks, it would be awesome to hear if you use it! I'm actually a renter myself and use it for cleaning and managing some of my stuff. My email is dstein@shinybuildings.com if you have any feedback or suggestions.

This is really cool.

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