Birds on Broad: Streamlining Student Housing with IoT

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Birds on Broad, a housing and roommate matching platform for students in Philadelphia, PA, was founded by Richard Sherman. The platform was designed to address the challenges faced by students and landlords in the housing and roommate search process. The traditional process was often cumbersome, with prospective renters and landlords having to navigate through multiple platforms and face numerous barriers. The challenge was to create a unified platform that would simplify and streamline the process, making it easier for both renters and landlords. The platform needed to be user-friendly, allowing users to perform any action on the site as either their personal profile or as part of a group profile. It also needed to provide a comprehensive search and filter system for rentals that match student-specific criteria.

Birds on Broad primarily serves students in the Temple University area in Philadelphia, PA. These are individuals or groups looking for housing or roommates. The platform also serves landlords who are looking to rent out their properties to students. The landlords can be individuals or companies, and they are able to list one or more properties on the platform. The platform is designed to cater to the unique needs of these two customer groups, providing a unified experience that simplifies and streamlines the housing and roommate search process.

Birds on Broad was built using Bubble, a no-code platform that allowed for rapid development and iteration of a fully-functional web app. The platform allows renters to create an account, start looking for housing or finding roommates, and even create a new group if they have friends they want to find a new house with. The platform provides a comprehensive search and filter system for rentals that match student-specific criteria, allowing users to narrow down results by cost per person, per bedroom, or total. If users find a rental that's bigger than they otherwise would be able to fill, they are given the opportunity to fill those extra spots with new roommates. The platform also provides affordability data to help young/inexperienced renters understand the total expected costs. For landlords, the platform allows them to list properties, provide common property information as well as unique details specific to student housing.

• The platform has been successful in providing a unified experience for both prospective renters and landlords. It has removed common barriers that new-to-renting tenants find themselves facing, making the process of finding housing or roommates much simpler and more streamlined. For landlords, the platform provides the ability to correspond with the entire group of renters at once, in one central location. This has made the process of managing and renting out properties much more efficient. The platform also provides suggestions for other properties managed by the same landlord, facilitating rentals to large groups of renters filling multiple properties close together all at once. This has led to increased efficiency and potential for higher rental income for landlords.

• The platform has received high marks from all user types.
• The platform has a modest user base, with plans to increase to 1,500 users by end of 2021, and 5,000+ users by end of year 2022.
• The platform also plans to increase the number of properties available to over 500 by the end of 2021.