CircleStay

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Inspiration

In 2026, the housing crisis for students in the Tri-Cities is no longer just a financial problem; it’s a trust crisis. We saw students at Douglas College and SFU struggling to find anything under $1,100, while many local homeowners had empty rooms they were too afraid to list on public, scam-ridden marketplaces like Craigslist. We wanted to build a bridge that turns a student's existing contact list into a "Reliability Passport."

What it does

CircleStay is a social-graph housing platform and "Survival OS."

Trust-Based Listings: It syncs with your contacts to surface $700 rooms vouched for by people you actually know.

The "Vouch" System: Landlords offer "Referral Rates" because the tenant comes with a social guarantee.

The $10 Pool: A subscription management layer where "vouched" housemates split essential bills (Netflix, Costco, Internet) to drive monthly costs down further.

How we built it

We built CircleStay using a modern web stack designed for speed and scalability:

Frontend: Next.js for a fast, responsive user interface.

Mapping: Google Maps API to visualize affordable listings near Coquitlam transit hubs.

Logic: A custom "Vouch-Matching" algorithm that cross-references a user's contact list with listing metadata.

Design: Mobile-first approach focused on clear "Trust Badges" and budget transparency.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest technical hurdle was architecting the "Contact Sync" logic. We had to figure out how to represent "Friend-of-a-Friend" connections without compromising user privacy. Additionally, integrating the Google Maps API within a tight 9-hour window while managing environment variables in .env required careful debugging of the Next.js lifecycle.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We successfully created a working prototype that demonstrates a "hidden marketplace." Seeing a listing's price "unlock" or a "Vouch Badge" appear because of a mutual contact was a huge win. We also managed to integrate a functional "Subscription Pool" ledger that mathematically proves how students can save over $450 a month.

What we learned

We learned that social proof is a stronger currency than a credit score for the student rental market. We also deepened our knowledge of Next.js state management and how to use environment variables safely to manage API keys for location services.

What's next for CircleStay

Open Banking Integration: Automating the $10/month "Survival Pool" payments using APIs like Plaid.

University Partnership: Beta-testing the "Vouch" system exclusively with different school emails, such as SFU and Douglas College student emails.

Work with the Government API so that the verification ID can be confirmed and the site is ready for use.

We are committed to a 'Security-First' roadmap. Our future infrastructure will implement Zero-Knowledge End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) using AES-256 and SHA-256 signatures to ensure that only the users involved can access their sensitive data. Furthermore, we are integrating an AI-driven Moderation Layer that uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to detect and filter fraudulent reviews, maintaining the integrity of our marketplace through sophisticated spam and sentiment analysis.