Idea: 131
Monday, 11 May 2015
By. Alex Foster

Property.ai

— An AI Virtual Assistant For Finding Your Next Home

Cheeky
Cheeky
Jul 30, 2017 · 2 min read

The idea for Property.ai stemmed from several experiences of renting, it’s a massive pain and the existing online systems mostly still just bait and switch you to real estate agents — it’s not a simple UX flow at all and requires multiple sessions, terrible expectations setting and a whole bunch of UX no nos.

What if I could make it just a chat interface?

Alan:
“Property Bot — I want to live within 4 miles of work by public transport and my maximum budget is $5,000 per month.”

Property Bot:
“Hi Alan — Great, well here are 20 places I’ve picked out from Zillow, Trulia and the others that match your requirements, click the ones you want to arrange viewings for (and when) or let me know and I can bring you some more.”

The tricky part is that most properties aren’t actually there, they’re just bait. And that’s where my previous cheeky idea submission comes in. REAL property. We create 500 fake people that do all of the ‘checking’ for us, emailing and texting around agencies finding out if properties are available using a large suit of templates that we grow over time.

That last part no one is going to know about. It’s just a massive secret recipe that will make it feel like property robot is much more than just a chat interface on top of Zillow. The UX will be 1000x better. Property Robot scours all the sites for you, checks availability, shows you the best options, then arranges viewings for you.

— Conversation is seamlessly continued by email, can be started by email, continued by email… people who leave can be chased *by email* You’re not chasing — you’re just continuing the conversation.
— It can expand results based on criteria
— It can handle complex iteration flows
— plots things on maps, has all the normal features
— more photos, details, basket, all exposed by clicking as usual, just in a chat interface
— But it’s a seamless single page website
— It’s darn cute. And while it works for free for 10 minutes, after that it requires fuel to keep going. Money is one option — but it is also powered by LOVE. Fuel it by tweeting Property Robot some LOVE. [click to check]
— Schedules viewings using a Calendly-esque interface. Seriously why is that not already being done?

? How do we get around the IP problem that we are scraping content long term?
? How do we get away from charging the user long term?
? Could we, after a certain time add a ‘sell your house’ feature as well? Become a marketplace?
? What other barriers stop this from working?

Cheeky: Ideas

Ideas make the world a better place.

Cheeky

Written by

Cheeky

Tools of thought.

Cheeky: Ideas

Ideas make the world a better place.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade