Facebook wants to enter the house hunting business. If you were assigned to develop a product for the new business, what would you build?

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Facebook wants to enter the house hunting business. If you were assigned to develop a product for the new business, what would you build?

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anand mani · Answer 1 · 2020-09-07T17:53:21+0000

Clarifying questions

Why do they want to enter into this industry? - Is it to keep users more services to spend in the platform?
By House hunting do they mean renting, buying and selling or both, or vacation rentals like AirBnB?
Which platform will this service be hosted? Is it a part of facebook website (or) a new platform?
Which geos are they going to be launching this service in?

Assumptions

This service will be a part of the facebook website
This will be launched in the United States first
Assumption is that first they would be launching the buying-selling houses service
The goal is to provide services to facebook users to spend more time in the platform

Users of the platform

There are multiple users of the platform.

The seller - The individual or people who are putting their house in the market. The motivation of the seller is to get the house sold on the best possible price and with least investment (upgrades, servicing etc.) Within that there are multiple sub segments, listing a few
1. The seller who need a realtor or agency or already has one to help with the process of getting the house ready and putting up in the market for sale
2. The seller who already has a license and knowledge to do all of the above services.
3. Seller is in another location and is remotely trying to sell and doesnt want to avail the resources of a realtor as he would have to pay them.
4. The sellers are real estate developers who build new homes to sell.
The Buyer - The individual or people who are looking to purchase a house. The motivation of the buyer is to buy the house at best possible price and with good condition if its not a new house and without any maintenance needed. Within that there are multiple sub segments, listing a few
1. The buyer who need a realtor or agency or already has one to help with the process of buying the house and helping with the paper work
2. The buyer who already has a license and knowledge to do all of the above services and doesnt want to pay the realtor fees
3. Buyer is in another location and is remotely trying to buy and doesnt want to avail the resources of a realtor as he would have to pay them.
4. The buyers are in the business of shorting homes, buying it at a low price, redesigning them and selling at a higher price
Services - Inspection agencies, insurance agencies, flooring, redesigning, remodelling services, realtor matching etc.

This is 2 way market place and a healthy inventory is a mandatory requirement for users to come back to the platform and the assumption is that there is a good repository of houses available.

I would like to focus on the buyer persona as they have the propensity to spend the maximum time on the platform.

Let us walk through a journey of how a house purchase happens and identify the pain points

Step 1: The buyer decides to buy a house and starts investigating the areas based on multiple criteria

Affordability
Location - Safety, commute, school districts
Future potential of growth
House attributes - townhomes, condos, single family (single level, 2L etc.). # of rooms/# of Baths

Step 2: They short list the houses and work a schedule to visit the houses on weekends if they are local or have to fly out to visit the houses. At the most they can cover 2-3 houses a day or have a custom house visit schedule

Step 3: They request for the reports (inspection, title etc.) and try to make sense out of it

Step 4: Discuss on a bid with the realtor

Step 5: Place the bid and wait

Step 6: Get accepted or repeat steps 4,5 or start from Step 2 if not accepted

User Pain Points

The whole process of buying a house can take months to years. The whole experience is delightful as well as dreadful. Identifying the biggest pain points based on the customer journey

-P1 . Narrowing down the search based on criteria - Based on the attributes narrow down the houses. This service is currently provided by other platforms like redfin, zillow etc. Calculating the approximate down payment needed + mortgage + property taxes + insurance costs and building a financial model

-P2. Ability to visit only a few houses a weekend - This reduces the number of experiences the buyer will have and immensely slows down the buying process. If the buyers are working, they can only visit during the weekend and that too not many houses as the visiting hours are short. If the buyers are remote it is even more difficult

-P3. Visualizing how the house will look once moved in, any remodelling views and visualization

-P4. Picking a realtor if the buyer wants one. Matching process based on the profile and preferences of location, reviews & ratings, feedback etc.

-P5. Understanding the different reports and deciding if they want to bid for a house with contingencies, without conditions etc.

-P6. Coming up with a bid without the help of a realtor

-P7. Signing the papers, waiting for the possession. But having no idea at which stage the process is in and who is waiting for what data.

- P8. Services,contractors, movers, and handyman matching if remodelling is needed

Prioritization Framework, Implementation & Solutions Evaluation

P2. Buyers are already overwhelmed with the process and are hard pressed for time. Specially if the buyer is remote. My highest priority will be to make the process of visiting houses easier and specially during these COVID-19 times and future. I would like to offer an alternative solution with the help of Oculus VR where the buyers can view houses by renting out the Oculus VR headset or buying them from FB, or going to nearby libraries or other places that have a VR headset. The content creators (in this case the sellers) will upload the VR format videos on to the Facebook site (details will be shared in implementation) and the buyers can view as many houses as they want. I believe this solution will server dual purpose of keeping the users engaged to the platform and also use the same platform for P3 which is the remodelling visualization pain point. So we get 2 features with one solution. Thinking in terms of value vs effort framework, this will require medium effort

as the headsets are available,
but the renting model has to be worked out which will take some time as we have to identify the channels, partners
content creators will need help and education in building the video format

P4 and P8 - Making it easy for buyers to be matched with services and contractors and realtors. The pain point here is that its difficult to find a trustworthy and good contractors. Currently the process is to ask friends for a refferals, search other platforms. FB can build a database of businesses pages offering those services and curate all the current and past recommendations and answers that have been given and building a recommendation engine.

The value is a better customer experience and more engagement in the platform, more businesses in the platform, more ad revenue. The effort will be medium as it will take time to build the database and review set

After that I will focus on P5 and P7 to improve the buyer experience. For now i will suggest working with other e-signing companies like hellosign, docusign etc for e-signing of papers.

UI/UX

This particular feature will be on the facebook site and mobile app, under a seperate section, where one users will click in will be asked to fill a form to gather their preferences.

The businesses and services offerring entities can create thier pages and fill the data.

Different houses will be listed here searchable by criteria and suggestions for realtors, services, handy man, approximate financial calculators, location data like places to visit, eateries etc.

Metrics

Few of the metrics i would like to track are

Awareness - From the seller side - # of page visits from sellers, real estate individuals, searches in the FB site. Daily, weekly Increase in % of them over a period of 30 days since launch

From the buyer side, # of searches over a period of time, % increase by Day/Week

Activation: Number and % increase D/W over a 30 day period, of buyers, sellers starting to fill the form, finishing the form.

Engagement: # and % increase D/W of number of VR videos posted by Sellers, # of headsets bought/rented (the reason for renting can be got by a survey form), # of views,

# of messages sent to service folks etc.

Referral: # of recommendations to friends on using this service.

Summarizing

I will focus on the buyer persona and specially target the pain point of giving users a good viewing experience of visiting the houses and using their imagination to come up with new decoration/remodelling ideas.

This will increase the user engagement, and also aid in the promoting the uses of Oculur VR headsets.

Over time, i will build the database of services, handyman, and provide a one stop solution for all real estate needs

Rafa · Answer 2 · 2021-09-15T20:43:42+0000

Introduction

Facebook’s mission is to (1) make the world closer together (2) build tools for communities.

Usually, when looking at or a house, people search around the area they are living in. There are benefits of doing on social platforms where people and community members can ask questions and have discussions.

A product that allows finding houses is a marketplace, where users can publish and search for houses to sell, buy, or rent.

One of the challenges of creating a marketplace is to gain the initial critical mass of available houses.

Currently, on Facebook, there are plenty of dedicated groups around houses; there is a Marketplace that includes options to search for a house for renting or buying.

Clarification questions and assumptions

As a product manager, am I responsible for the entire mission of selling, renting, and buying houses on Facebook? (Yes)
I can think of 3 types of products:
1. Improve the Marketplace
2. Improve groups around products
3. Create a dedicated product for house searches

Would you like me to focus on a specific one? (No)

Can we narrow down the scope for a desktop app in the US? (Sure)

Users

Users that search for renting a house for a short period
Users that search for renting a house for an extended period (Year+)
House owners that are willing to rent their property
Users that search to buy a house
Users that search to sell a house
Agents \ Middlemen
Service providers

Decision to focus

(6) + (7) can be addressed as part of future monetization efforts.

I would like to focus on the supply side since a Marketplace must have enough supply to engage with demand.

In the decision between (3) and (5), I would like to focus on (3) and provide a positive experience for people who are willing to rent their house; Once they will have a good experience, they will continue using the platform for the next time.

Pain points

Discoverability – how to increase exposure to the post?
Attractiveness – which information can I provide so the house\post will be attractive? Once someone sees the post, how to encourage them to take action and reach out?
Before the candidate visits the house - Answer questions \ provide additional information.
Schedule a visit to the property.
Closure– providing additional documents, sign on an agreement, and payment.
Next time – reviving the post once the renters leave

Pain Points Prioritization

Lowest to highest

#6 – not such a big problem, usually there is not a lot of information to keep, and you can search for the post\product in the history.

#4 – not such a big problem; there are many tools as Calendly, Bookafy, Doodle, and others that provide solutions for scheduling meetings

#5 – a small-medium pain point – since there are publicly available essential documents and many ways to complete transactions.

#2 – a medium-size pain point – when there are viewers but not enough engagement – it can be tackled using reactions and suggested comments – however, I’m not sure that FB has some major advantage over competitors in this business.

The last two pain points are Discoverability and Answering questions.

#3 - Answering questions – here, there is an advantage to ask questions regarding house in FB, if it is specific questions about the property or the facilities around it. We need to understand whether the questions and answers should be public, private, or a mix.

#1 Discoverability – I feel that the existing FB products make it hard for users to find houses for rent. When posting in a group, if it is an active group, it doesn’t take much time until new posts push the post down the feed. And in the other place, the Marketplace has limited capabilities. Since it is challenging for users to find a house, it affects the engagement with posted houses. I would like to focus on that pain point.

Ideas

Allow defining a group to find houses in a specific region; in such a case, it will be easier for users to find those groups.
Create a new type of post, “A house for rent” \ “A house for sell” so people could use it in dedicated groups or on their feed.
Marketplace search\explore UX adjustments – how to select a filter, when in the process,… \ allow exploring opportunities over a map component.
Allow users to declare what they are looking for and set FB’s alerts or notifications.

Ideas Prioritization

Using the RICE model:

	Reach	Impact	Confidence	Effort	Score
Group Type	50%	1	80%	1	40
Post Type	60%	5	95%	3	95
Marketplace UX Adjustments	40%	5	90%	4	45
Alerts	10%	5	50%	2	12

We are going to focus on the post type.

MVP

When creating a post, allow selecting that it is a “house for rent”
When identifying a group with many posts with the house rent post type, make the post type as a default \ suggested type
The structure of the post should include location, type, number of bedrooms, size, price (all of the things required for a post in the Marketplace)
Unique UI for the post
[if not exist] marking a post as “not relevant”

Metrics

Primary Metric: #of monthly “house for rent” posts created.
Secondary Metrics:
- The median time for a post to become “not relevant”
- Average # of engagements with a post (reactions, comments, and shares).
Counter Metrics \ Tradeoffs:
- #MAU in Marketplace using the property rental category (post and search)
- # of complaints about the new type of post “why do I see that?”

Summary

As a product manager responsible for the entire business area of selling, renting, and buying houses, I would like to focus on improving the discoverability of houses for rent. I’m going to do that by creating a new post type that will highlight the essential parts of the post while adding it as an item to the Marketplace. As a by-product, this will allow an advanced search of properties in the future.

Julia Sepulveda 1 · Answer 3 · 2020-09-11T15:10:52+0000

Clarifying questions:

By house hunting, do we mean only buying and selling, or are we including leasing/subleasing? While I think there’s definitely a market for subletting, I’d prioritize buying/selling before developing functionality for renting/sublets.
Will the product be built as a separate app or within the Facebook app? I’m assuming it’d be an internal Facebook feature given that there are some houses posted on Marketplace already. (This could even be a tab within Marketplace, under “Homes”)

Users

When thinking about house hunting writ large, there are a few people involved:

Buyers
Sellers
Renters (we will forget about these for now)

I’d like to prioritize the buyers because they are likely to face more issues in the house hunting process.

Buyer problems:

It’s hard to find a home meet that meets all your expectations
- Need: ability to filter and sort results
If you don’t know a realtor or want to seek one out, then Facebook can connect you with one
- Need: trust in the seller
Once you find a home, you may want to consult another party (spouse, children, parents, etc)
- Need: ability to be able to save and share a link
Once you find a home, you may want to discuss financing options
- Need: ability to share information regarding potential payment options
Scheduling time to view a home
- Need: easy way to schedule time that is mutually convenient
If you’re a first time buyer, you may not know what the process is like
- Need: education, advice, recommendations

I’d prioritize creating a product that allows buyers to search, save, and share homes. While it is important to build trust with a seller, that seems like functionality that can be added on a “sellers profile/page,” and though in-person home viewing is important during sales, we can build scheduling functionality after ensuring that there’s a product market fit. While financing is important that may be a responsibility delegated to the two interested parties (limiting Facebook’s liability should something go wrong). As far as home buying education, this seems like knowledge that should be up to the buyer/seller to figure out (again, wanting to minimize legal issues). Thus, this tool would serve to connect buyers and sellers. The platform would be a starting point for the buy/sell relationship.

Features

Search: key words/phrases/locations to begin a search
Filters: price, size, location, particular attributes (ie has pool), time on market (maybe?)
Postings should have pictures (maybe at least 4: front of home, back of home, 2 inside of home)
Recommendations: “based on homes you’ve viewed”
In your area: “homes near you”

I’d prioritize ensuring that there is a way for users to (1) see postings, (2) filter postings, and (3) search with key words.

Metrics:

# of users who click on this product
Average time spent on the product
Average # of postings viewed
Average # of posting saved
% of postings clicked on
% of postings saved
Average # of messages sent as a result of interest in a posting
% of messages sent as a result of interest in a posting

I’d probably prioritize the:

% of postings clicked on (this tells us engagement between buyers/sellers)
Average # of messages sent as a result of interest in a posting (indicates actual interest)
Average time spent on the product (can be measure of helpfulness/interest)

NOTE: There are a lot of websites/apps that are dedicated to home buying and selling; Facebook needs to distinguish itself from other products, and one way would be creating the connections that are trustable (more work on the seller side).

Opportunities:

Renting/subletting market is probably big: esp given the number of young people who cannot afford to buy a home, and number of college students who look to lease part-time places.

Summary

If Facebook is looking to create a product targeted at helping people connect during the home buying process, Facebook should consider adding this functionality within the app, allowing users to search, filter, and save homes. Success can be measured by usage and conversions. This added functionality may result in (1) users spending more time on the app, (2) sellers having another platform to build credibility and create connections, (3) Facebook developing more information on user’s demographics/interests (ie income bracket). But this move is not without its risks like, (1) verifying that sellers are sharing accurate information, (2) developing software for scheduling convenient times, and (3) discovering whether it's a feature that will be used enough.