Helping people find homes during Covid-19
You would be hard measured to find someone or some industry that was not affected by the pandemic. One sector that took a major blow was real estate. I lead design as part of a small specialized team focused on supporting the facebook community and housing experience.
Our goals as a team was focused on safety, education, and tools to reduce the economic impact the pandemic had on housing.
Safety First
Renters or home buyers want to see a home in detail and completely, traditionally with a physical tour, and be able to ask questions in real-time before making a decision. Prior to lockdowns and more comprehensive understanding of the affects of COVID-19 the first priority was education.
People Problem
Renter or home buyer wants to see a home in detail and completely, traditionally with a physical tour, and be able to ask question in real-time before making a decision about signing a lease.
Agents want a comparable experience to in person showing, with the ability to do group / individual experiences and answer real time questions.
Research
We observed strong latent behavior with agents that would use either their personal profile or business page to create live Facebook events and invite individuals that showed interest in a specific listing. Community and communication is a core differentiator of commerce on Facebook compared to other classifieds. Based on this, we saw an opportunity to build a live open house experience.
Creating a Live Open House event.
Going Live Experience
Discover your new home
We met the buyers where they were at and built custom units within their primary discovery feed to not only highlight current open houses that matched their criteria but also allowed for the individual to get reminders for upcoming open houses.