Design a way for people to find apartments.

Question

Design a way for people to find apartments.

Asked at Airbnb over a year ago

3.4k views

Product Design category

& 1 other company

Asked at

& 1 other company

3.4k views

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Chloe C · Answer 1 · 2025-04-21T18:55:23+0000

1. Ask clarification questions

- rent or buy an apartment? Rent

- am I designing this product or a startup that has no other product or for a company that has other products (eg. the company owns apartments, agents, and other apps)? Startup

- is it global or a specific geolocation? I will start with a metroarea in US if there is no preference. If the pilot product is successful, then we can expand it to other markets.

- what is the biz goal for this product? if it's a new product in a startup, then I will choose acquisition as the biz goal

- who are the people, agent or apartment hunters? apartment hunters

2. Set (or confirm with the interviewer) the objective of the product

- Finding an apartment can be overwhelming, the objective of this product is to provide an easy and (possibly) hand-holding way to help apartment hunters to find their dream place.

3. User groups

We already touched a bit in step 1. We focus on apartment hunters. Within apartment hunters, they can be segmented into

- short-term (monthly)

- long-term (6month, annual,...)

I will focus on long-term as I think this group has limited tools and options, while the short-term can stay at hotels, airbnbs,.. Therefore, for long-term ones, the app has more value.

4. Needs for the long-term apartment hunters

- locate an apartment. There are so many options. They need a tool to help them narrow down

- rent the apartment. This includes document preparation, transactions, etc

- property management. Something happens during the rental (eg something needs to be fixed, safety issues)

I will focus on "helping people locate an apartment" because 1) as a startup, there is limited resources to do the other 2. 2) locating an apartment is the top of the funnel, where people need most help; 3) it can be helped digitally

5. Solutioning

Here are some potential solutions for the user

a. a landing page showing all available apartments

b. filters that users can use to narrow down the search

c. an AI assistant to service 3-5 options and list pros and cons for each options

d. real customer feedback to help user understand more about the place, neighborhood, etc

e. virtual tour for the user to "see" the place

6. Prioritize the solutions

Based on impact and effort

P0:

a (I = large, E= small), b (I = large, E = medium), c (I = large, E = medium)

P1 (differentiator):

d (I = medium, E = large)

P2 (nice to have):

e (I = medium, E = extra large)

7. Metrics to meausre

Primary: acquisition, MAU

Secondary: customer satisfaction score (CSAT)

Tanu Mehrotra · Answer 2 · 2020-03-24T03:37:13+0000

Design a way for people to find apartments via facebook.

Clarifying Questions:

1) Is it for people who are trying to rent an apartment or for the purchase of an apartment? Renting

2) Is this specific to any geography i/e it needs to be built only for locations in the US or this feature needs to be built across the world whoever uses Facebook.

It is for anyone who uses Facebook.

3) Is it for all kinds of apartments e.g. 1 BHK, 2 BHK, studio or specific to any kind of an apartment search?

All sorts of apartments

Goal: TO find any kind of apartment for rent via Facebook.

Users:

1) Students who need an apartment for renting near there university.

2) Families who need an apartment for staying near their workplace or near the place of their kids’ school

3) Servants who need low-cost apartments near the area they are working in.

4) Working Bachelors who needs an apartment for sharing.

5) People listing advertisements who want to rent their apartments.

I will prioritize the families who need an apartment.

Use cases:

1) Finding apartments near the vicinity of there working place and school for kids with a high rating.

2) Finding an apartment in a society which has parks for kids to play and park for dogs to take them out.

3) Find an apartment in a society that has a library, swimming pool, gym.

4) Finding an apartment that has shaded parking.

5) Finding an apartment big enough so that kids can have their own room or there is a study room or for working professionals to set up an office.

6) An apartment in a society having people of the same culture for e.g. a person from "XYZ" country will prefer to be around the people from the same country.

7) An apartment having a security guard for safety purpose.

8) An apartment which is not close to the road as there will be a lot of noise.

Prioritize use cases: Finding an apartment near the vicinity of the working place and school for kids with high ratings.

Solution:

1) Facebook should introduce a feature to give advertisements to people to suggest the societies, apartments near the location where they are living.

2) Facebook should suggest the societies mentioning the nearby offices close to those societies for e.g. telling the miles how far the companies are from this society.

3) Facebook should suggest the schools which are in the near vicinity of the location updated in Facebook and should suggest the societies near those schools by mentioning the miles and mentioning the rating of those schools.

4) Facebook should suggest the average prices of the societies so that people know if it is within their range or not. Facebook can suggest the average prices of different kinds of apartments like 1 bhk, 2 bhk, studio etc.

5) Facebook can also display the neighborhood facilitoes whether there is a public transport service near the apartments suggested for e.g. bus service, metro station, light rail.

6) Facebook can also suggest the location of the area for e.g. how luxurious the area is if there is a shopping mall, or there are nice fine dining restaurants or there are mountains near that place so that people with high status can afford to look at those places.

7) Based on the likes of the person( which facebook already knows) as people like the pages it can suggest the nearby societies by highlighting, “walking trail is 10 miles away”.