- December 28th, 2007
- by Galen
- Features, Interface Design
Notes: design decisions
We worked hard to make Estately exceedingly easy to jump into and start searching for homes, yet also extremely powerful. This means we limited the myriad of search options we could have added, combined other options, and made the options that only 0.1% of the users in this world “absolutely need” accessible via the text search box. Our goal is to get people to searching and refining in seconds. When we recently added notes, we made some design choices to keep this ease of use.
Make it easy to add a note. And another.
No links, no separate pages. Just click in a box at the bottom of the page, write a note, and post. If you want to add another note, do it again.
Type and add – pure and simple
Make notes accessible
New, unregistered users and old logged in users alike can add notes – we skipped the forced login screens. People who stumble on the site can write as many notes as they want. Of course, we don’t want people to accidentally abandon their notes and lose them to the ether, so we encourage them to sign up or log in. Notes are permanently saved when people log in.
The log in warning appears when you create a note
Make notes easy to search
Don’t add more clutter to the interface – we let you search your notes through the text search interface that a lot of people are using already.
Join the discussion »- December 27th, 2007
- by Galen
- Uncategorized
What are the odds?
Of you being interested in a the same house another client of your agent? Slim to none, but it happened. They’ll describe the outcome this weekend.
Join the discussion »- December 19th, 2007
- by Galen
- Features, Interface Design, New Features
Notable new feature on Estately
I have always had a horrible memory, but recently technology has made it even worse. I only remember keywords now and whenever I want to remember something, I search my computer or my gmail (I write myself memory emails). I think a lot of people are like me in this respect. So when I look at one of the 42,643 homes for sale in Washington (or the 3,388 homes for sale in Seattle alone), I only remember the ones with dramatic photos (good or bad).
There is a better way
Add a note to the property. Once you learn more about it, add another. As you go along, you’ll collect a nice inventory of information about the homes in a neighborhood and you’ll (almost) never forget what you know about a house.
Questions you can now answer:
- “Was this the one that could politely be described as a “fixer?” “Yep!”
- “What did we think of this one when we saw it? It says here we liked it, but our agent thought it was priced about $40,000 too high.”
Your notes are searchable
Full text search already let you search pretty much everything you see on the details page for a home – the agent comments, the amenities, and pretty much everything else. Your notes are included in text search too. Take notes with the confidence you can find them again through a quick, dynamic search.
Step 1: Find a house and type a note
Step 2: Add a note. Rinse and repeat if necessary
You don’t have to be logged in to give it a try – just pull up a home and add a note.
Join the discussion »Estately turns one year old
Estately first launched as ShackPrices a year and a few days ago and we’ve been improving ever since. We’re looking forward to continuing to improve Estately’s real estate search in the coming year.
Thanks for all the support!
Join the discussion »- December 5th, 2007
- by Galen
- real estate
The downside of remodelling to increase the value of your home
According to RemodelingOnline, on average, no major home improvement project yields a significantly higher resale value than you put into it. Here are the stats from the Seattle area and here is a soon to be pay-walled summary. So, as with most things in life, think about what makes you happy first, then think about how much it will cost.
That said, if new siding, a new deck, or a new kitchen would make you happy, it’s 80% off once you sell your home:
Join the discussion »The most profitable project on the national level was upscale siding replacement, recouping 88 percent of costs upon resale. Wood deck additions and wood window replacements also returned more than 80 percent of costs, at 85 percent and 81 percent, respectively. On a national average, the only interior project to return more than 80 percent of remodeling costs this year was a minor kitchen remodel, returning 83 percent of project costs at resale.
