Online Marketplace for Apartment Leasing

CIBER’s Streamlines Product Development Cycle With Automatic Updates

This client is one of America's largest online marketplaces for apartment leasing connects renters and property owners in a web-based community with over six million residential properties. The client's database-driven system offers consumers a comprehensive yet easy-to-use interface and powerful property search and comparison tools. When renters find their new place through the online service, participating properties offer cash rebates. Property owners benefit from a no-risk, performance-based solution for filling their vacancies; rather than pay for advertising, they pay for leases.

Business Challenge

A comprehensive application was needed to manage the entire leasing process, including modules for the client's customer service organization and property managers as well as renters. At the same time, the application had to be robust enough to support heavy traffic and a large volume of listings. The client's service organization wanted content publishing capabilities, while property owners needed the ability to manage their respective property details, and consumers required an intuitive and reliable resource to search online for suitable apartment places.

Solution

CIBER’s knowledge experts and developers streamlined the product development cycle by automatic updates from the property management companies via automatic RSS feeds directly into the database. This greatly helped the online enterprise reduce time-to-market with improved services. The newly-created application was robust enough to manage a database of over 6 million property unit listings, with an open Linux-based platform for application hosting, and PostGreSQL database hosting with backend process support for continuous updates to listings in real-time. We used AJAX to enhance the end user experience, offering speed, reliability, convenience and ease of use for both property owners and renters. Effective management of the entire rental process included accurate tracking of user behavior using Web Analytics.

Technology

• The application was developed using J2EE standards and Model View Controller (MVC) architecture
• An FC4 Linux server was used for application hosting and Redhat Linux for database hosting
• SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005, Oracle
• PostGreSQL functioned as the backend database and ResinJ2EE as the application server
• Interactive mapping capability was developed using AJAX

Benefits

The rental process application management solution became the core of the client's web services business model. By reducing time to market, the online enterprise maintained its leadership with first-in-market new service offerings. The improved user interface led to increased user interactions with the site, from initial inquiry and short-listing properties to lease signing. The user behavior tracking tool, a feature available for individual websites for property management companies, was a definitive value-add, which helped the client analyze customer behavior and adapt sales and marketing initiatives to meet changing needs.