Spot

Hours of time are wasted searching for housing when we can instead embark on a new adventure in life. What if house searching could be a little easier?

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Inspiration

As students transition back into in person classes, housing search will pile on to the numerous challenges students already face. Sadly, the vaccine does not provide us immunity to the housing crisis students face so we had to generate our own vaccine called Spot. The frustration of messaging multiple landlords on a variety of platforms while keeping track of all the location addresses was the main drive for our project idea.

  • Struggling to find housing due to tedious search process
  • Multi-platform search is a necessity which leads to high time consumption
  • Poor response rates from landlords due to mass application messages

What it does

Spotᵀᴹ is a housing market platform where tenants and landlords can match based on preference and compatibility. By incorporating the simple match system from Tinder, tenants can breeze through housing applications curated towards their housing preferences while landlords get the luxury of a clear tenant application with no text fluff. The instantaneous matching feature and profile customization seeks to condense and simplify the rental process for tenants and landlords alike.

  • Allows tenants and landlords to match based on their preferences
  • Simplifies application process with profile and simple match system
  • Reduces redundancy in application process, only one application is required from both sides

How we built it

We built Spot with React, AWS, GraphQL, Typescript, Amplify, and DynamoDB . We used Amplify throughout as it helped with user authentication, creating GraphQL APIs, and setting up our database.

Challenges we ran into

During this hackathon we ran into various issues, the issue that was prominent throughout the event was merge conflicts between shared tasks. Since we all knew how to code the front-end, we had to make edits which were conflicting with each other. Additionally, we also ran into a lot of issues using AWS and Amplify as we struggled to get the User Authentication to work and there were deployment issues.

  • Merge conflicts between shared tasks
  • Image on deploy not showing
  • User login and authentication from amplify not working
  • Backend functions not outputting as desired

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that in such a short time we can create a slick front-end, that is simple and pleasing to the eye. Furthermore, we're proud that we used new technologies for the first time and were able to complete the project before the demo. Lastly, we were able to develop a solution to a common issue that we can closely relate to as we are students ourselves.

  • Create a Slick front-end, simple and pleasing to the eye
  • Developed a solution to a common issue amongst students and tenants
  • Having a complete project before the demo : )

What we learned

During this hackathon we learned that communication is key as it helped us prevent issues, develop our tasks efficiently and piece the entire project together. We also learned that we couldn't make all the features we talked about in the planning phase and that we need to allocate time for the main features. Lastly, we all learned how to use new technologies, as for some of us is was our first time using AWS, GraphQL, DynamoDB, and Typescript.

  • Time allocation for priority tasks
  • How to resolve merge conflicts
  • Creating an eye-catching UI
  • Using new technologies

What's next for Spot

We definitely want to continue working on Spot as we could not deliver all the features we planned during the hackathon. One of the features we wanted to develop is a premium mode that grants access to greater features for both tenants and landlords. These include a Premium function that automatically suggests tenants and landlords to match based on their compatibility score. Additionally, we wanted to limit swipes and allowing Premium members to swipe more. Lastly, a lease agreement generation that generates a contract based on the tenant and landlords needs.

  • Premium function that automatically suggests tenants and landlords to match based on their compatibility score (calculated from their preference setting)
  • Limited swipes/possible matches per day for monetization. Premium allows for more swipes
  • Lease agreement generation based on the address of the location and user credentials (lease period, agreed rent price etc.)

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