Rent-to-Own Listings Management Web App — Case Study
RentOwnHouses.ca
Project Size: 1.5 person-months

In April 2007, two creative minds approached us looking to turn their vision into reality. They wanted to give people who couldn’t otherwise qualify for a mortgage a chance to own their dream home immediately, while the market was still hot. An innovative 3-year rent-to-own program was born that consisted of flexible terms which would allow the existing owners to leverage the equity in their home without the hassles of selling while giving purchasers immediate possession in the home they desire. Rent to own real estate had been utilized in numerous markets around the world, but was relatively new to Canada.
Upon describing their business model, we went about the task of turning their rough requirements into a refined list of features. We broke these features into phases; phase one contained items that were absolutely necessary to the basic requirement of offering a usable real estate website; later phases included functionality that would offer superior process streamlining but were not immediately necessary. Upon review of the list, they chose the features they wanted to see in the first phase of what would become the RentOwnHouses.ca web-application.
Now that we had a list of requirements that needed to be developed, we estimated what each feature would cost, breaking them into logical chunks such as the web front end, basic administrative control panel and the home listing features. We then presented our estimate to complete the project, and once approved we began work.
At the end of phase one, we delivered a professional, easy to use website with a similarly easy to use administrative control panel. The administrators have the ability to create listings with all relevant information including up to 12 pictures, edit and delete listings. We also developed a tenant application that allows the ROH administrators to effectively manage the time they spend with clients by reducing the following of dead end leads. The site also boasts top rankings for relevant queries with major search engines.
Project Screenshots
Click an image thumbnail below to enlarge
Administrative Web Control Panel
Deversus developed a custom web application for ROH that provides web-based administration of their rent-to-own properties.
Real Estate Property Management Component
Deversus developed a custom Content Managmeent System (CMS) for ROH to easily mange their rent-to-own properties online.
Image Upload Component with Auto Formatting
Deversus developed a custom Image Upload Component that allows ROH to take images directly from their digital camera and upload onto the website with automatic formatting and resize optimized for the website.
Floor Information Management
Floor Information Management allows ROH to easily specify the layout of each property listed on their website.
Dynamic Property Listings Component
The Dynamic Property Listings Component displays available properties from the RentOwnHouses.ca database, which are updated on the fly.
Dynamic Rent-to-Own Property Browser
ROH’s Dynamic Rent-to-Own Property Browser displays rent-to-own properties administered by the web-based CMS.
Google Maps Integration
Each property listed on RentOwnHouses.ca is automatically displayed on Google Maps.
Online Tenant Application
Deversus built a custom tenant application for a simple online screening process to maximize the yield of leads sent from RentOwnHouses.ca.















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