*please note this video tour has audio.

Summary:

Moverable is the main piece of my portfolio. It is a For Sale By Owner real estate website that uses electronic locks and scheduling to allow buyers to view a listed house on their own – when nobody else is there.

Explanation:

I conceived, designed and implemented Moverable. Implementation was with a tutor’s guidance. It is a real estate listing site, which allows creation of users, listings, comments, appointments, and favorites. It allows for purchases using Stripe. It is fully responsive through Bootstrap, and so uses your computer or phone camera depending on how the user accesses the site. I implemented search using ThinkingSphinx, and I’m now building a map-based search by incorporating the Google Maps API. ActionMailer with SendGrid is used for email notifications, while the Twilio API is used for text (sms) based notifications. Geolocation is implemented using Geocoder. Images are currently stored on Amazon AWS.

I conceived of Moverable long before I started in web development. It seemed odd that the internet hadn’t yet disrupted the field of real estate. The problem with disrupting the real estate market is that agents serve gate-keeping, security, and recommendation functions. However, those functions come expensively and may now be made redundant because of the affordably-priced internet-of-things: electronic locks, sensors, cameras and smart phones are no longer science fiction. To replace the gatekeeping function of real estate agents, Moverable uses electronic locks, small purchases, and smart-phone cameras to show houses when no one but the potential buyer is present. This approach could mean potentially removing 5-7% off the purchase price of a house – which may be tens of thousands of dollars.

My first use of an outside API is with Lockitron’s electronic locks. It was a simpler process than I thought it would be. My next issue was how to get photographic evidence that the person entering the home is who they say they are. This is solved by requiring a “selfie” from a smartphone’s camera, along with geolocation of that phone, and a fee per showing. The site is currently live, for portfolio purposes. But it is still a work in progress. Creating value for buyers is now the main question the site and business has to solve.

View it here: Moverable

  • Bootstrap
  • Responsive Design
  • Thinking Sphinx
  • Devise
  • Stripe One-time Payments
  • Stripe Subscription Payments
  • Stripe Variable (cart) Payments
  • Web Camera
  • Chron Jobs
  • Lockitron
  • Active Mailer
  • Google Maps Static
  • Google Maps Street View
  • Carrierwave
  • Amazon AWS
  • Heroku
  • Twilio
  • Cookies
  • O-Auth2

Services provided by the site: 1) Search: Using ThinkingSphinx and Google Maps API 2) Use of camera: HTML5 3) Listing: CRUD 4) Appointments: CRUD deleting by both individual appointment and by day 5) Favorites: Crud 6) Multiple Photos: Carrierwave 7) Responsive Design: Bootstrap 8) User Authentication: Devise 9) AWS Hosting 10) Heroku Hosting 11) ActionMailer: For notifications of appointments 12) Google Maps: Static and Not 13) Store with Cart system 14) User Avatar Images 15) Font-Awesome 16) Offers 17) Service Providers 18) Brief Social Media Marketing 19) Commenting system per property 20) Suggested Prices 21) Showcase Home’s 22) Working Electronic Locks 23) Geolocation 24) Rails Admin Pages 25) Stripe Payments for store and appointments 26) Sticky Nav 27)Automatic PDF Generation 28) Twilio Sms Notifications