Nest Find

Inspiration Finding student accommodation is stressful — scattered listings, no price transparency, and no direct way to communicate with hostel owners. We wanted to fix that by building something as smooth as Booking.com but designed specifically for students.

What it does NestFind is a hostel marketplace where students can browse verified listings, filter by price, location, gender, and amenities, book a room with payment proof, and chat with owners in real time. Owners get a dashboard to manage listings, track bookings, view analytics, and respond to students instantly.

How we built it We used Flutter for a single cross-platform codebase that runs on both mobile and web. Supabase powers the backend — handling authentication, PostgreSQL database, real-time messaging, and file storage. The app is deployed on Netlify for web access.

Challenges we ran into Configuring Supabase Row Level Security policies correctly for message deletion and file uploads took significant trial and error. Managing real-time chat streams without memory leaks was tricky. Making the UI fully responsive across mobile and web from one codebase required careful layout work. We also hit Flutter Provider assertion errors during async initialization that needed careful handling.

Accomplishments that we're proud of A fully working end-to-end booking flow with payment screenshot upload. Real-time chat with message delete working on both student and owner sides. A live analytics dashboard with charts, leaderboards, and dynamic insights. A clean responsive UI that works on mobile and web from a single Flutter codebase.

What we learned How to structure a multi-role Flutter app cleanly. Supabase RLS policies and storage bucket configuration. Building responsive layouts in Flutter without separate codebases. The importance of async safety when using ChangeNotifier with Supabase streams.

What's next for NestFind Push notifications for new bookings and messages. In-app payment integration with JazzCash and EasyPaisa. Map view for hostel locations. Admin panel for platform moderation. Verified badges for top-rated hostels.