Our experienced team of web and mobile app developers was assigned for the house renting app development. The main feature of the app was to connect university students with house landlords. This application connects students directly with private landlords through a simple, secure, and attractive mobile app. We were able to deliver an engaging house renting app for college students and landlords. View our PORTFOLIO to know more about our latest projects. After thorough market research, we found out that the house renting app is quite a new concept and is still gaining popularity. So, in order to make our app more popular, we decided to focus on the features that would make our app stand out from the rest. Once the design and UI were finalized, it was time to get started on the coding phase. We divided the app into modules and started coding each one of them. We used the latest and innovative technologies to develop the app and we reached a level of perfection that our users will love. In the end, we not only delivered an amazing house renting app, but we also achieved great success in the market. Thanks to our experienced team of web and mobile app developers.
The Challenge
To build a mobile application that effectively handles house renting in order to overcome the common problems of disputes about amenities, deposits, and tenant liability.
Our team has to build an application that connects university students with private landlords.
Objectives
- Manage the user types so that the university students and landlords can use the same app.
- Create a document verification system for landlords in order to permit them to publish the homes.
- Post the homes with the location, description, price details, amenities, and pictures by landlords.
- List the homes based on the user location.
- Proper management of requests for home from students the acceptance or declination from landlords.
- Properly managing the rent agreement with validity details.
- Create a payment system to manage the tenant occupancy in the landlord’s home.
- Implement a rating system for both the students and landlords.
- Create a proper communication channel between students and landlords.
iLeaf's Process
In order to solve the objectives for the mobile application, our team decided to build it on native android. The primary objective was to provide a user-friendly experience to the users. For that, the application must be very simple but should deal with all the concerns of tenants and landlords.
User Verification Process
To effectively handle the users in the system, a verification process is needed for both user types.
For the landlords, 2 steps of verifications have been made mandatory; email verification and document verification in order to publish the homes. We have used is_verified status to make a landlord eligible for posting the homes. This verification status is managed by combining the document verification status and the email verification status. Id proof, House Insurance, and Home Ownership certificates of landlords are stored on the server. After the admin verification is completed, this status will be changed. If the email verification is done, the landlord can publish their homes. Tenants in this application are university students and so the university-related student information has been stored along with the university email id in the database. The admin verifies the university student and then the status is changed. Then a verified student was able to request particular homes from a list of nearby homes.
Quickblox Chat
We needed a chat service to communicate with the tenants and to participate in the group chat of a particular home. When a home request is accepted and the terms & conditions are agreed upon between them, the students turn to be a tenant. One tenant needs to be part of the group communication channel and one to one chat with the landlord. We used the quickblox chat service on which customizations were made to satisfy our needs. Quickblox chat session needs a logged-in state of qbusers. This qbuser is generated by the signing process by using a QB id and a password. Since this qb_id generation at the front end is overhead, we decided to create a unique qb_id in the backend server immediately after a user registers in the app. In order to use the abilities of QuickBlox SDK, we need to authorize our app on the server, log in to the user account, and create a chat session. When a student/tenant enters the chat screen, they were assigned a common password and the unique qb_id in order to log in to the chat account. As a result, one qbuser is generated. Having connected to the QuickBlox server and authorized with a user, a chat server connection was established with chat module functionality. Then we created a chat dialog to fetch the recipient list and previous conversations of one-to-one chat and group chat. Thus each student could connect with the landlord and other tenants through group chat. This chat SDK has no inbuilt support for encryption. We implemented a custom algorithm for the encryption of the data.
The Result
Managed the verification process effectively with supporting docs and email verifications.
Implemented the home publishing, request for homes, and accepting the requests with the support of Firebase Push Notification Service.
The integration of the Stripe payment gateway made it easier to handle the payment flow for next-time payments.
Through the custom, Quickblox chat students are able to communicate directly with the landlords and in the group.
Collaboration and Communication:
All project communication was done using email, and Skype.
Technology Stack
- Native Android
- FireBase Service
- Stripe Payment Gateway
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