Project 3 | Report
Tool for real estate brokers: Customer support and task management. S. Manojkumar, 166330006 Sr. Interaction Design Prof. Pramod Khambete Project Guide Prof. Venkatesh Rajamanickam Project Co-guide IDC School of Design Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. 1
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Declaration I declare that this written document represents my ideas in my own words and where others’ ideas or words have been included. I have adequately cited and referenced the original sources. I also declare that I have adhered to all the principles of academic honesty and integrity and have not misrepresented or fabricated or falsified any idea/data/fact/source in my submission. I understand that any violation of the above will be cause for disciplinary action by the Institute and can also evoke penal action from the sources which have thus not been properly cited or from whom proper permission has not been taken when needed. Manojkumar S 166330006 IDC School of Design, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay June, 2018
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Approval Sheet The Interaction Design Project-3 titled “Tool for real estate brokers: customer support and task management.” by Manojkumar S, roll number 166330006 is approved, in partial fulfillment of the Masters of Design Degree in Interaction Design at IDC School of Design, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.
Internal:
Guide:
External: Co-Guide:
Chair-person:
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Project 3 | Report
Tool for real estate brokers: Customer support and task management. S. Manojkumar, 166330006 Sr. Interaction Design Prof. Pramod Khambete Project Guide Prof. Venkatesh Rajamanickam Project Co-guide IDC School of Design Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. 7
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Acknowledgements I thank my guide Prof. Pramod Khambete and Co-guide Prof. Venkatesh Rajamanickam for their valuable guidance and support throughout the project. Working under Pramod sir was a great experience and taught me many things. I thank the IDC Interaction Design faculty Prof. Anirudha Joshi, Prof. Girish Dalvi, Prof. Ravi Poovaiah, and Prof. Jayesh Pillai for all their inputs and feedback. I would like to extend my special thanks to real estate brokers at coimbatore, pollachi and udumalpet for giving me their valuable time for discussions. Their inputs helped me a lot to gain clarity on my project’s scope. Most importantly, I would like to thank my family and friends for their help, support and encouragement. Manojkumar S June, 2018
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Table of Contents Abstract....................................................................................... 2 1. Introduction........................................................................... 3 1.1 Real estate.......................................................................... 3 1.2 Real estate business.......................................................... 3
7. Design concept....................................................................... 35 8. Service ecosystem................................................................... 36 9. Service level diagram............................................................. 37
2. Real estate brokers.................................................................. 4 2.1 Land brokerage................................................................. 4 2.2 RERA.................................................................................. 5
10. Brokt: Tool for real estate brokers....................................... 38 10.1 Objective.......................................................................... 38 10.2 Need for the application................................................ 38 10.3 Phases in the application............................................... 38
3. What is the problem?.............................................................. 6 3.1 Pros of real estate broker profession in india................ 6 3.2 Cons of real estate broker profession............................. 6
11. Information Architecture.................................................... 39
4. Primary research.................................................................... 7 4.1 User journey map of real estate consumer.................... 8 4.2 Problems of real estate consumers: problem map...... 15 4.3 Artifacts.............................................................................16 4.4 Key findings from customers’ journey.......................... 18 4.5 User journey map of real estate broker......................... 19 4.6 Artifacts............................................................................. 25 4.7 Key findings from brokers’ journey................................ 29 4.8 Insights from journey of broker and buyer................... 30 5. Design brief............................................................................ 31 6. Personas.................................................................................. 32 6.1 Persona 1........................................................................... 32 6.2 Persona 2 .......................................................................... 33 6.3 Persona 3 .......................................................................... 34
12. User Interface design............................................................ 40 13. UI Mockups.......................................................................... 41 14. Existing real estate apps vs brokt......................................... 46 15. Feedback answers..................................................... 47 16. Usability evaluation.............................................................. 48 16.1 Qualitative evaluation.................................................... 48 16.2 Quantitative evaluation................................................. 48 16.3 Inferences from the quantitative evaluation............... 54 16.4 Evaluation of the project outcome............................... 54 References............................................................................. 56
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Abstract In real estate business, property buyers-sellers who seek assistance in dealing with the property. Apart from giant builders and agents, individual real estate brokers plays key role and assist them till closing the sales deed. In this unorganised sector, many brokers have it as a secondary profession which doesn’t need any qualification. Since they get payment only after successful transaction of property, they need to offer timely assistance to their customers (buyers-sellers) till completing the paperwork. Those brokers have task management issues as they handle many parallel transactions. They used to postpone/reschedule the tasks, may forget the important assistance in their busy schedule. Due to lack of time management, brokers may lose many customers. So, the service tool has been proposed to offer task, time and customer relations management for individual real estate brokers.
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1. Introduction 1.1 Real estate: Real estate is the property, land, buildings, air rights above the land and underground rights below the land. The term real estate means real, or physical, property. “Real” comes from the Latin root res, or things. The Indian real estate market is expected to touch US$ 180 billion by 2020.
1.2 Real estate business:
It is the profession of buying, selling, or renting land, buildings, or housing. In India, real estate is the second largest employer after agriculture and is slated to grow at 30 per cent over the next decade. The real estate sector comprises four sub sectors: Residential real estate: It includes both new construction and resale homes. Commercial real estate: It includes shopping centers, strip malls, medical and educational buildings, hotels and offices. Industrial real estate: It includes manufacturing buildings and property. Land real estate: It includes vacant land, working farms and ranches. The subcategories within vacant land include undeveloped, early development or reuse, subdivision and site assembly. 3
2. Real estate brokers:
2.1 Land brokerage:
They assist property owners, businesses and investors buy and sell all above four types of properties. Brokers are of two kinds who work for seller and buyers or for both.
It is a complex and multi-faceted niche in the business of real estate. Unlike most improved property, land value analysis is complicated by the multitude of uses to which a given tract might be put. The land broker will have knowledge about local land ordinances, zoning and environmental issues. Land brokerage is a highly specialized niche in the real estate business.
Seller’s brokers: They help find buyers through their professional contacts. Brokers’ tasks include: • Find a buyer for their land • Price their land competitively and sell their land within a specific time frame:Using comparative listings of recently sold properties, they can help you spruce up your property so it will look its best to customers. • Negotiate and deal with buyers: They assist in negotiations with the buyer, helping you get the highest price possible. • Help with paperwork, inspections and preparing for settlement.
There are 4 types of land transactions: • • • •
Farm lands. Undeveloped tracts of land. Land in transition & early development stages. Plots.
“The Indian Real Estate Brokerage market is unorganised, fragmented; while there are no published figures, we estimate that there are ~2,00,000 brokers across the top 10 cities of the country”, says Times Of India.
Buyer’s brokers: They provide above similar services for the property purchaser/ buyer. They know the local market. That means they can find a property that meets your most important criteria. They also compare prices which allows them to guide you to areas that are affordable. Buyers’ agents negotiate for you, pointing out reasons why the seller should accept a lower price. They help with the legalities of the process, including title search, inspection and financing. 4
It is a large market with the commissions earned by brokers estimated to be in the range of ~Rs. 14,000cr a year. Brokers operate in all segments of the property market cutting across new projects, resale, rentals, commercial, paying guests, plots, etc. Before there had been no registration or special qualifications needed for anyone to become a broker, so it was common to see new brokers springing up; while a large number of brokers in the market are 1st generation entrepreneurs, there is a sizeable chunk of brokers who have been in business for several decades.
2.2 RERA: But now, under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act 2016 (RERA), which came into force on 1st May, all property brokers must register with regulators in their states. The law has also made them liable for any misinformation about the projects they sell or in case of default by developers they represent. They will have to pay a fine of up to 5% of the total property cost if they fail to comply with rules. In current scenario, this act become so dumb and not strictly implemented across india.
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While brokers offer following services such as: finding, advice, matchmaking & logistics, now technology came to competition in offering listing services about properties available. Buyers can simply search using smartphone apps such as housing, magicbricks, 99 acres etc. Even some offers brokerage services which are agents for builders. But, the majority of individual brokers who had extensive knowledge over hyper local information still act in ground level.
3. What is the problem? All the real estate brokers are not full time professionals and they have secondary profession such as temple priest, night watchman, political party member, evening street food seller, astrologer etc. Also, they can earn only at the successful property transaction. There is no standard income from this profession. Their educational qualification ranges from 10th standard to degree level.
3.1 Pros of real estate broker profession in india: 3.2 Cons of real estate broker profession: • Education qualification is not needed. • Can have it as a part time profession. • Will get a commission of about 1-2% after successful property transaction. • Will get a chance to meet people of diverse background.
• • • • • • • •
There is no standard income. It is hard to complete property transaction. It takes time to complete single property transaction. It is highly stressful job for part time workers as they have to manage their primary job. Need to travel a lot to show the properties to customers. The travel expenses are covered many times by themselves. Its difficult to earn trust of the customers. They won’t get exact 1-2 % commission as the customers will negotiate after property transaction.
Let’s explore deeper into the land broker’s job and find the nuances, experiences tasks and relations with stakeholders.
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4. Primary research: To know the key stakeholders of this real estate ecosystem, the journey of real estate consumer (buyer), real estate broker whose interviews are tabulated as user journey map. 1. User journey map of real estate consumer. 2. User journey map of real estate broker. Here, the need of consumer (buyer-seller) are predominant and routine tasks of brokers are framed over it to offer timely service to them. The journey map of both the stakeholders are taken from the different scenario and the insights got from their journey are listed out which tells about the importance of tool for customer service than merely facilitating the real estate brokers.
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4.1 User journey map of real estate consumer: Consumer journey map includes how their normal journey of buying the property will occur. It includes: touchpoints, user goals & expectations, challenges & opportunities.
Fig 4a
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Fig 4b
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Fig 4c
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Fig 4d
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Fig 4e
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Fig 4f
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Fig 4g
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4.2 Problems of real estate consumers: problem map.
Fig 4.2a 15
4.3 Artifacts: In the existing online property listing services, the easement information are missing.
Fig 4.3a
Fig 4.3b
Fig 4.3c
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The olden days’ hand written title deeds and other legal documents are difficult to read even for legal advisor.
Fig 4.3d
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Fig 4.3e
4.4 Key findings from customers’ journey: • People don’t wish to spend more time on searching and educating themselves about real estate properties. • They need someone to assist till closing the sales deed. • They have less trust over online assistance on real estate property dealing. • They don’t want to have dispute over easements and minor measurement with nearby plot/land in future. • It is just once or twice in their lifetime to buy/sell property for normal family person. So they need credible real person to assist the transactions. • “Around 30% out of three lakh secondary market listings are by individuals,” says Jayakumar of 99acres.com. • Pai of Magicbricks.com says,”1.8 lakh listings out of the total eight lakh on our website are by individuals.” • Time constraints are reflected in real estate decisions. Surabhi Arora, Associate Director, Research at Colliers India, says,“Property transactions take time. Do not equate real estate with the stock market in terms of exiting.” • Reference Groups: They have strong influence over a consumer’s intention to purchase.Reference group includes: neighbours, friends and previous owners/buyers etc. • Word of mouth is so far considered having strongest credibility in buying property. • The deals are closed offline: While these sites can do a good job on listing homes, they do not have the infrastructure to successfully close the deal. There are no end-to-end online sales yet. 18
4.5 User journey map of real estate broker: Next, from the user journey map of real estate broker, whole day routine tasks were documented & categorised as generic tasks, specific tasks, challenges and opportunities.
Fig 4.5a 19
Fig 4.5b
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Fig 4.5c
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Fig 4.5d
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Fig 4.5e
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Fig 4.5f
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4.6 Artifacts: Real estate brokers save the contacts with prefix or suffix as ‘site’ which helps for quick search.
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Fig 4.6a
Real estate brokers share the property related files to their own whatsapp number or to their family members’
Fig 4.6b
Real estate brokers browse the survey map, layout map in the digital document format.
Fig 4.6c
Real estate brokers read the government orders’ (market value guidelines) pdf copy shared by his fellow broker.
Fig 4.6d 26
Real estate brokers save the contacts with prefix or suffix as related keywords of their need. (spelling mistakes are usual)
Fig 4.6e 27
Notice displayed in stamp vendor office tells about the list of documents to bring while online registration is introduced from november 01, 2017.
Fig 4.6f
Fig 4.6h
Fig 4.6g
Fig 4.6i
Real estate brokers have the site map of the area they manage and other legal documents in the file. They carry this file along with them always while going out. 28
Pocket note book of the real estate broker. They write mostly the contact numbers and names.
Fig 4.6j
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Fig 4.6k
4.7 Key findings from brokers’ journey: • Most of the individual land brokers have secondary profession. • Most of them use pocket notebook for taking quick notes and contacts. • People need to rewrite important contacts everytime they change new pocket notebook or carry all the old notebooks with them. • Another set of brokers use whatsapp as all-in-one tool to save and share details about real estate transactions. • They miss the important points to note down and they call back customers again and again. • Many time they forget appointment dates except registration date. • Brokers remember that because, they will get payment after registration. • Brokers need to travel a lot to share the photo copies of legal documents to customers. • They also acts as a mediator between document writer and customers. • They have the past registration copies to show to new customers as portfolio for marketing. • They have handy area map of land/plot that they manage to buy & sell.
4.8 Insights from journey of broker and buyer: After analyzing the current scenario of the real estate industry, key findings from the journey of customers and brokers, following insights came to light which helps to map the relation among them.
The usage of pocket note for scheduling and task management whose elements can be used to create a new service tool along with utility features which enables better access to property brokers.
There is a need to regulate the tasks of individual brokers whose Majority population work in an unorganised manner. But, in their experience They sculpted their own network and structure among them.
Since it is an once or twice in a lifetime act of buying/selling property for property buyers-sellers, there is no need to create a separate tool for them. But for brokers, it is their profession and they need to use better tool for providing better service to their customers.
Since brokers have it as a secondary profession, they need all-time handy tool to organise their tasks and reduce their cognitive load. They also need to manage their routine profession along with this real estate broker job. Time management is the key factor for making successful property transactions. So, it is necessary to create an elements in service which helps them to offer timely support to their customers. Also to keep in mind is that, mere smart work without better human experience will not add value to the service. There is a need to strengthen the community of land brokers, So that they can get the trust of property buyers-sellers and they can serve in need. Also it is a symbiotic relation which helps brokers from different regions to share the details of buyers and sellers.
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5. Design brief: To design a service tool for real estate brokers which helps them to manage their tasks and offer timely support to their customers.
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6. Personas: I came up with the three distinct personas to represent the individual real estate brokers in recent days.
6.1 Persona 1: Muthukumar (Age 42) He is a part time temple priest in a small town in tamilnadu. He did HSC(+2) and now he works as morning time temple priest for 3 roadside temples. His work time is from morning 5.00 am to 9.00 am. and in special occasions in the evening. In remaining time he works as real estate broker. He can operate smartphone and uses whatsapp mostly. He learnt to use whatsapp from his son while he was in home for summer vacation. After his priest job, he will go to home and start to think about that day’s task. He is very poor in organising & planning the tasks. He will travel a lot to meet customers and spends a lot in taking photocopies of legal documents. He have only bicycle and travels to site by the customer’s vehicle or by bus. The sub-registrar office & document writer office is too far from his house to manage the official tasks.
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6.2 Persona 2: Balu (Broker balu) (Age 38) He is a political party member in tamilnadu. He did HSC and works as real estate broker for around 10 years. His works starts from 8.00 am and he will return back to home at 9.00 pm. His political contacts make customers to trust him much and also he got in to the network of fellow individual real estate brokers. He normally uses pocket notebook as utility tool for his business. He have the important contacts in his notebook which had political party symbol in the cover. He will change new notebook once in two months. He misses some contacts from old pocket books, as he can’t carry all of them. He will rewrite the important contacts from old to new pocket book. Sometimes, due to heavy rains, pocket book will be damaged. He might write the wrong contact number or miss the digits in hurry. He might get confused with same name and different contact number. He has smartphone and usage is less. He believe in calls and not text messages as it looks passive. He forgot the postponed schedule and important dates except registration date. (As he get payment after registration). If he goes to political party work and it was difficult to reschedule the tasks.
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6.3 Persona 3: Sakthivel (Age 40) He is a full time real estate broker. He have rental house. From that, he gets monthly standard income. He uses smartphone. His daily routine starts from tea shop nearby. There, he think about that day’s tasks on meeting with customers, field visit. He have contacts with tea shop owners near every land/plot areas who are the informers. He used to travel a lot for field visit. He shows at least 15-20 sites for a customer.Most of the time, he will get customers in parallel and it is difficult for him to handle all at a time. He will delay or postpone the tasks such as meeting with sellers, visiting new site etc.due to workload. Due to this, he lost many customers. Even though he have a fellow broker’s network, it is so hard to maintain the information about customers they share in the call and in whatsapp group. The whatsapp group gets loaded with info and difficult to organize it. He uses whatsapp as he found that customers are easily accessible through it than phone calls.
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7. Design concept The design concept is the mobile application for real estate brokers which connects with fellow brokers. It includes following features: • Brokers will create user profile for the customers (buyers and sellers). • Enters the details of requirements, preferences etc. about the property from the customers. • Brokers can schedule the meetings with customers, can schedule time for field (land/plot). • Brokers can share files(legal documents, samples, site photos, scanned documents, local maps etc. with customers through email or through whatsapp. • Brokers can reschedule the meetings, tasks, field visits if they have high priority tasks in front. • They can set reminder for tasks and postponed task can be added to the new schedule automatically. • Brokers can create fellow broker’s network and share the customer profile with them to get their task done. • Brokers can share the documents, customer details to document writer and sub-registrar officials. • Brokers can trace the task timeline and get to how many tasks have been completed, pending, postponed and reschedule. • They can create a profile page for themselves (to show how many successful transactions he had done in less time) which will be the portfolio for them to share with customers and earn their trust. 35
8. Service Ecosystem
Fig 8 36
9. Service level diagram
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Fig 9
10. Brokt:
Tool for real estate brokers customer resource and task management.
10.1 Objective:
10.3 Phases in the application:
This mobile application “Brokt” which is task and customer resource management tool for real estate brokers which supports them in offering customer service from finding till registration of property and other end to end services.
There are two phases in this application: Task & customer resource management.
10.2 Need for the application: From the primary user research, I found that majority of the real estate property brokers have secondary job as backup. They need to manage household chores, secondary job and the real estate brokerage too. In this commotion, they forget or postpone the schedule related to real estate services. As the field is already populated by numerous brokers and adulterated by amateur brokers. Retired government servants and workers all call themselves as real estate brokers. In this competitive world, the professionalism in the work helps to attract the customers.
Task management: Tasks are the list of work to be done with respect to date and time. Since the tasks are numerous and random, they need to be organised and displayed to plan and act quickly. There are guiding materials: layout maps which helps user to instantly find the location of plot/site, land and other materials. Customer resource management: The buyers and sellers will be missed, the transcation may be incomplete if broker delays or forget to provide information about property at right time. They need to track and trace the tasks performed by broker to facilitate the buyer and seller.
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11. Information architecture of the ‘brokt’ application:
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Fig 11
12. User Interface design:
Notes:
The screens which quite resembles whatsapp’s user interface as the Notes menu is for immediate note taking in order to avoid missbrokers are widely using whatsapp for communication. But the question arises why can’t users can use whatsapp itself effectively. ing any information while discussing with customers, others and can quickly Attach any pics along with notes related to it. But, there are issues: Revisiting the content that posted long days Normally brokers have the pocket note which they miss to note down key points or just note down the contact details. Brokers before and there is no continuity in the group about topic. can link to customer profile which helps them to organise notes. The attachments also unorganised. Users normally miss the important notes and attachments in the whatsapp. Unable to recover if chats are deleted accidentally. The Main menu are categorised as : tasks, notes, profiles and tools. Tasks: Tasks are the organised daily schedule including time. The tasks are like cards sorted based on priority levels. The task cards shows kind of attachments: image video, docs, map etc. Brokers can edit, postpone and reschedule the tasks. The task cards includes heading, subtext - task brief, Customer profile which is connected to profile page of type of customer: buyer, seller, fellow broker & officials. The editing of task cards includes 3 main classifications: basic information, checklist and attachments.
Profiles: Profiles menu includes organised customers’ profile: buyers, sellers, fellow brokers and officials. Except officials’ profile, others include: task timeline, details, notes, tasks and attachments. Task timeline tracks the task completed and pending tasks from the problem. Tools: This application includes essential tools such as guideline value calculator, quick reference materials such as layout maps, government orders, sample legal documents, fill-up forms etc to share with buyer, seller and fellow brokers.
Basic information includes: Customer contact, profile page link, Location, date & time. The checklist is just an option to create quick sub-tasks. The attachments in the last are to organise and revisit the media attachments related to task. Those media attachments helps broker to get detailed view of revisiting the task after concurrent list of tasks. 40
13. UI Mockups:
Tasks with priority levels (default view):
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Buyer profile list view:
Tools & reference documnets - list view:
Action of postponing the selected task:
Editing the buyer profile:
View of the task timeline of the buyer:
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Editing the details of the buyer:
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Customising the seller information:
View of the organised notes of the specific buyer profile:
Editing the basic level task information:
Creation of checklist under tasks:
Uploading attachments along with the tasks:
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Guideline value calculator under tools:
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View of layout maps under tools menu:
Creation of new notes:
14. Existing real estate apps Vs Brokt: Existing real estate platforms such as 99acres, housing, magicbricks, nestaway, nobroker etc. which provide the listing services for direct buyers of the property. They provide details such as facilities, easements, photos, videos about the property. The listings are posted by individual sellers or by big promoters. The buyers get filters such as area, cost, facilities etc.in their web portals to filter out for their need.They just shortlist and won’t decide by simply seeing those details. Some existing portals offers contact details of brokers. That’s all the information got from them. After that only real scenarios are there. Aftermath tasks such as property visit, enquiry, paper work, till registration are handled and assisted with the help of brokers. They are the resource for hyperlocal information such as easements, practical issues in getting legal documents from seller, handling registration officials, stamp vendors etc. that web portals don’t have. But this customer resource and task-time management application for brokers which is handy tool for them. They help them in managing the paper work, organising the property related information, maintaining the task timeline etc.
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15. Feedback answers: Why broker need an app to perform few set of tasks for few live customers? Brokers routine includes searching for the property, gathering details about property by meeting various informers, people & friends known and unknown circle. They need to travel a lot for visiting and confirming the availability of land/plot. Out of those many will not be sold or bought that time. But they may be available in future. They also need to know the current valuation apart from guideline value of particular place. It differs from place to place. Customers believe them if they know the land valuation of particular area. Successful transactions may be less but the resource gathering for future transactions must be done. As the live transactions are few and has less no.of tasks till closing the deal. But for other routine tasks they should be noted, maintained and tracked for future transactions. In this way, this mobile application helps broker in effective customer resource management along with task and time management. Target users are the real estate- land/plot brokers from the outskirts of the city. This application focuses on individual real estate brokers in tamilnadu. The procedure for registration of property and officials hierarchy is same for villages and cities in India. But the stamp duty cost, guideline value and registration fees differs. Also the power of attorney procedures and property laws are same in India.
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16. Usability evaluation: The evaluation of this application had been done in two ways: qualitative and quantitative methods. Testing has been done among five stakeholders (real estate brokers).
16.1 Qualitative evaluation : In qualitative methods, users are given eight usual scenarios and tasks from their routine. Method: Think aloud. Their actions have been observed and listed out the observations for each scenarios and tasks. From the observation, inferences and insights are tabulated along with above information.
16.2 Quantitative evaluation : Incase of quantitative evaluation, it had been done based on the Usability testing tool developed by Prof. Anirudha Joshi. Then they were asked to perform the tasks and each user will be observed that how much time they take to complete the task, where they got stuck, which part they forgot, got confusion etc. Their performance was rated to do further analysis at last and decided the level of usability of the application among actual users. So, based on the tasks given during the qualitative evaluation, the usability levels are graded for rating of about 0-5. The grading has been done by self for the respective goal parameters. 48
Qualitative method:
Fig 16.1a
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Qualitative method:
Fig 16.1b
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Qualitative method:
Fig 16.1c
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Quantitative evaluation:
Fig 16.2a
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Fig 16.2b 53
16.3 Inferences from the quantitative evaluation: As per the graphic result shown, the learnability and ease of use elements which are at high level (2.86) which shows it works in decent manner among less tech savvy users - real estate brokers. Ease of communication is at 2.6 which assures that users whose interaction with this application is manageable. In the next level, speed of use is at 2.45. It reveals that this tool will fit in to the brokers’ routine with quiet level of practice and usage. The subjective satisfaction is at 2.4 which also shows that people have less emotional engagement with the application. Finally, the error free usage level is at 1.8 which means there are frequent misconceptions and diversions that occur in application usage to be recovered.
16.4 Evaluation for the project outcome: The stakeholders were allowed to have an application walkthrough. Post-test questions (after the walkthrough): Comparing the old procedure with new procedure after using the application. Questions were on experiential elements: how they feel, how it helps them in managing their routine tasks (regarding real estate) etc. Based on the likert scale, the users had given the ratings for their experience with the application.
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Inferences from the above evaluation shows that: - Stakeholders are familiar with whatsapp UI and compare with it. - Stakeholders look for quick action icon for taking notes in default screen. - They are able to quickly identify tasks with profile (customer name). - They prefer taking screenshots than sharing through menu. - They prefer attachments than typing text. FInally, the average rating of 4 (aaprox.) which shows that this tool will be better replacement for the current task management methods for real estate brokers..
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References: [1] James Kimmons, “Duties and Responsibilities of Real Estate Broker”, February 03, 2018 https://www.thebalancesmb.com/what-is-a-real-estate-broker-2866372 [2] Saurabh kumar, “Is the end of real estate brokers near?”, Jul 14 2015 https://www.livemint.com/Money/vqUdVmp5z43MXjSnbrf8LO/Is-the-end-of-real-estate-brokers-near.html [3] Sudhir pai, “Real estate brokers: What lies ahead?”, January 23, 2017 https://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/vantage-point/real-estate-brokers-what-lies-ahead/ [4] Jean Folger, “A day in the life of a real estate agent”, March 23, 2018 https://www.investopedia.com/articles/professionals/062713/day-life-real-estate-agent.asp [5] Oscar Waterworth, “7 useful apps for real estate agents”, December 20 https://www.inman.com/2016/12/20/7-useful-apps-for-real-estate-agents/ [6] Tony Bellettieri “Planning on Selling Your Home?”, Mar 08, 2018 http://www.hamlettitle.com/blog/-best-apps-for-real-estate-agents [7] Virendhar Rao, “Career as a real estate broker: Being a broker is not the same anymore!”, October 26, 2016 https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/jobs-and-careers/story/career-real-estate-broker-348762-2016-10-26 [8] Ajay Sethi, “Can I buy Agricultural land in Tamil Nadu”, May 01, 2017 https://www.kaanoon.com/93865/nre-can-i-buy-agricultural-land-in-tamil-nadu [9] Xiao-Bai Li, Luvai Motiwalla , “For Sale By Owner Online: Who Gets the Saved Commission?”, 2009 https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2009/2/19333-for-sale-by-owner-online/fulltext [10] Elizabeth pinkham “Best CRM software for real estate agents”, Apr 19, 2017 https://www.salesforce.com/hub/crm/choosing-best-real-estate-crm/ [11] Edwin van Bommel, David Edelman, and Kelly Ungerman, “Digitizing the consumer decision journey”, June 2014 https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/digitizing-the-consumer-decision-journey [12] Bindu D Menon, “Small brokers worried over impact of new realty law “, April 30 https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/real-estate/small-brokers-worried-over-impact-of-new-realty-law/article9674777.ece [13] Anirudha Joshi, “Usability Goals Setting Tool “ http://www.idc.iitb.ac.in/~anirudha/pdfs/usability%20goals%20setting%20tool%203.3.pdf
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