Country
AUSTRIA
Domain
Real estate
Timeline
2 years

Austrian-based commission-free renting web portal

Our customer is an Austrian-based company involved in numerous branches of the real estate business in Vienna. They provide a platform for commission-free renting options. Our main goal was to modernize legacy software and create a user-friendly solution to streamline the rental process while maintaining a positive user experience.

We collaborated closely with Austrian teams and transferred legacy code to the modern ASP.NET Core MVC framework. We also implemented revenue optimization strategies, which significantly increased the client’s user base and income.

task set
  • Refactor legacy code
  • Extend the development team’s capacity
  • Add testing services
  • Implement Agile Scrum approach
  • Implement Test Driven Development
  • Setup CI infrastructure
team
2 Full Stack (.NET) Developers
1 QA
1 Project Manager
technology
.NET Core
ASP.NET Core
Angular
MS SQL
Serverless
WebForms
WCF
Entity Framework Core
Telerik
Elastic Search
Amazon Web services
Docker

Challenges

  • Our main task was to create a new real estate renting web portal that charges no unnecessary commissions or fees. It was expected to become Eresnet company’s third and biggest web portal.
  • We needed to transfer all the features of the existing two portals, create new functionality, and migrate legacy software to new technologies (e.g., a new version of the .NET framework, ASP.NET Core, etc.).
  • The biggest challenge was dealing with 7-year-old legacy code and predefined but non-changeable API behavior. We needed to learn how everything worked to support legacy software while developing new features from scratch.

Solutions

Team collaboration 
Team collaboration 

Our team worked closely with Austrian development and test teams to learn how the existing API works. We conducted requirements investigation and daily meetings to discuss how new features should work. We also regularly visited the client’s location to meet the tech team and our client in person.

Agile Scrum approach 
Agile Scrum approach 

The Agile Scrum approach allowed our tech team to focus on development while the PM covered all business concerns, such as requirements, specifications, and responsible features. Our PM operated as a single point of contact and feature owner, which allowed the development team to spend most of their workday on technical tasks. It allowed us to optimize the process and finish the development early without a quality decrease.

Parallel development
Parallel development

We divided our development process into three areas: payments, search, and real-estate advertisement. Each developer worked on their part of the application. Our work became fast and productive, and everyone knew who was responsible for which part.

Adaptive ads
Adaptive ads

We needed to avoid overloading the search results with ad banners, so we optimized the search criteria and made the ads display responsive. For example, a user who sees less than five search results will not see an advertisement due to the low number of results. At the same time, a user who sees more than ten search results will see one ad banner integrated into the search results.

Additional features
Additional features

To increase the number of unique visitors, we implemented a referral bonus system, weekly news, and FAQ, which taught users how to use our portal and create ads. We also added e-mail notifications on newly added real estate that matched the user’s search and time criteria.    To increase the number of unique visitors, we implemented a referral bonus system, weekly news, and FAQ, which taught users how to use our portal and create ads. We also added e-mail notifications on newly added real estate that matched the user’s search and time criteria.

Quality assurance
Quality assurance

After carefully elaborating on the requirements and completing the development process, we provided thorough testing and bug fixing. The team managed to meet all the deadlines and deliver good-quality code. As a result, the portal is functioning, and the number of unique users and revenue is constantly growing.

results

  • A brand new web portal where people can rent or lease apartments without any extra commissions or taxes
  • Fast and high-quality development
  • Amazon Web Services as a cloud solution
  • Optimized database requests
  • Migrated legacy software to new technologies
  • Prepared all supporting technical documentation like user and development guides, use cases, and unit test examples
  • Portal’s compliance with the latest security standards
  • Adaptive ads
  • Additional functions to help users navigate and use the portal