122 karma · joined April 6, 2010
This was in the early 90's. I wonder how effective this would be now with more automated systems in use.
Extract from the "model":
$yearsBetween = $comparisonItems->created_at->diffInYears(Carbon::now());
if ($yearsBetween <=1) {
$multiplier = 1.08;
} else if ($yearsBetween <= 2) {
$multiplier = 1.12;
} else if ($yearsBetween <= 3) {
$multiplier = 1.15;
} else if ($yearsBetween <= 4) {
$multiplier = 1.22;
} else if ($yearsBetween <= 5) {
$multiplier = 1.37;
} else {
$multiplier = 1.41;
}
The thing is, customers were happy with the result and, as far as I know, still are. Internally it was always called the random number generator.
I've been in this industry (SaaS for agents) for 6+ years. I may even have customer #1 for you (was asked only last week).
I'll ask the question also, if those portions aren't ready yet I'm sure they'll be in the works though.
They have a quick to implement SDK that will take care of licensing, payments, etc. Depending on how you want to price your app the 5% + 50c deal could also work out well.
We were approached to provide a quote, which turned out to be too expensive for them. We liked the idea so offered to do this for a 3 way split (two developers) with the understanding he would take care of sales (his background was sales and marketing). The situation changed after this but that's another story.
He originally came up with the idea from his parents who owned a couple of franchise letting agents and used to do this process with paper, pen and a digital camera.
There are still too many sites that don't make hover actions function as two tap links for mobile users.
These aren't necessarily all applicable/useful to you but some observations/niggles I've had, taking in to account my first two points above, are:
- RM charges extortionate fees (I'm not sure about Zoopla) to agents. They're not happy about it, but feel they have no alternative (there's a reason for that - chicken and egg). This is from numerous comments made by my customers.
- By relying on an API from a major property portal I would be worried - How will you have better data than them? If your USP is UX/ease of use then do you think they would let you get that far before they change their T&C's?
- Because RM/Zoopla are expensive there are still a huge amount of properties not advertised on these portals. From my own experience, I wanted to go with a private landlord rather than an agent… I had to personally visit a huge number of properties that didn't fit my requirements (there was no way to tell in advance because they only advertised on classified sites/local paper) - there's an opportunity here - make it is for private landlords to easily list their properties AND make sure those listings are of good quality (interior photos not just exterior, etc)
- Talking of quality ... Ensure all of your listings are accurate, plenty of photos, floor plans, council tax band, etc. Just forget about low quality listings.
- OR, opposite of that, concentrate on properties that aren't adequately advertised elsewhere… does RM/Zoopla have a property with one low quality photo and a one sentence description? Go out of your way to get that extra information and focus on promoting those properties. When everyone else is looking at RM/Zoopla/etc and seeing the same properties you'll have a different inventory set to the rest with more detail.
- DONT be like everyone else and focus on the entire housing market in the UK (a few other commenters have said the same). Focus on rented, or for sale, or quality listings, unique listings… focus on something you can do better than the rest.
- There have been many competitors to RM/Zoopla. Most of them fail because, in my opinion, they can't solve the chicken and egg problem (either no visitors or poor quality property data) and end up launching an RM/Zoopla clone with a different UI.
None of this is to say it can't be done or you're doing it the wrong way… it can be and I'd love to see someone succeed, but it won't be done just on UI/UX.
1) It's not their machine, or they're not signed in for automatic syncing, so getting a link on their device that takes them straight to the app store listing is easier.
2) I very rarely let a link to the app store open up iTunes on my laptop so again an SMS message is quicker to getting it on my device.
3) With the above points you could just say, "search for the app on the store", but in lots of cases (from an iOS point of view) it can be difficult to find the app.
Any comments or advice would be much appreciated. I'm usually an iOS dev so cutting my teeth on web dev again… a lot has changed in 4 years. If anyone is interested: it's hosted on heroku using flask and SQLAlchemy for the web app, Twilio for SMS and redis for queueing messages.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1965035/Screen%20Shot%202013-02-13%...
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1965035/Screen%20Shot%202013-02-13%...
From a dev point of view it looks lazy (a jqm/phonegap app, using the standard theme with a few colour changes). I wouldn't download it because I'd assume the same amount of effort has gone into the functionality as the interface (not much).
From the average public point of view it doesn't look like a normal iOS app. Rightly or wrongly, design of the interface plays a big part in the success of a mobile app (at least for iOS apps anyway).
Of course, this is assuming that there are users out there who want an app like this and are finding it on the app store.
In fact, with smartphones/apps many letting agents are doing these jobs in-house.
Disclaimer: I'm a co-founder of https://www.lettingcheck.com, so get quite a good overview of what the industry is doing.
There's a long awaited, universal, update coming soon too.
In the UK you need to provide company registration details to register as a company and Apple will give you a quick call to confirm that you personally have the authority to enter in to a contract on behalf of your company.
Edit: It's most likely obvious but worth pointing out that should there ever be a legal issue with any of your apps then these would be aimed at your company rather than yourself if registered as a business. For example, a Lodsys patent dispute would have been sent to a Ltd company in the UK rather than the individual who owns it. This being the better scenario as a Ltd company is limited in liability by its value rather than the owners worth unless a personal guarantee is given.
Like any system, being only as accurate as the data provided to it, that's a given. All we can do is encourage users to input as accurately as possible and make it simple for them to do so.
I'm sure you're aware that not every app out there is 'serious'. Of course, we'll make users aware that this should be no substitute for common sense (i.e. not having any alcohol before driving).