OpenHouse
My Role
UX/Product Designer
(Self-Initiated Case Study)
Project Type
Self-Initiated Project
TOols
Figma
CreatewithPlay
Timeline
Q4 2024
DesCription
OpenHouse is a concept platform for licensed real estate agents, available on iPhone, iPad, and web. It helps agents manage listings, client needs, showings, and peer collaboration in one place. Designed for speed and flexibility, it streamlines daily tasks through a clean, connected interface.
context
This self-initiated case study explores how agents manage listings, showings, and matchmaking with disconnected tools. Based on interviews, I designed a centralized system focused on visibility, smarter matching, and simpler coordination throughout the real estate process.
Problem
Agents today rely on a patchwork of tools such as MLS systems, spreadsheets, calendar apps, text messages, and internal brokerage software. These tools often don’t integrate, creating scattered workflows and friction when trying to match clients with listings, coordinate showings, or communicate with other agents.
On top of that, there’s no centralized platform focused exclusively on agent-to-agent collaboration, where realtors can share listings, track interest, post client needs, and streamline the logistics of the job.
Challenge
Design a unified platform where real estate agents can manage listings, schedule showings, match listings to client needs, and collaborate with peers. The tool should work seamlessly across mobile and web with a clean interface that simplifies daily workflows.
(Note: This was a conceptual project developed during my internship to explore future design opportunities for the app.)
Goals
User
Give agents a central hub to manage listings, client profiles, showings, and communications.
Reduce the friction of manually matching listings to client preferences.
Improve agent collaboration through shared listing visibility, client needs posts, and messaging tools.
Automate key tasks (like syncing listings via MLS ID or surfacing matched homes) while retaining full agent control.
Business
Position OpenHouse as the go-to mobile platform for real estate agents to stay productive, organized, and collaborative.
Increase daily active usage by centralizing core real estate workflows.
Create an agent network effect by making collaboration easier and more discoverable.
Enable future monetization opportunities through brokerage-specific tools, analytics, or integrations.
Process
Research Insights
To better understand the modern real estate agent’s workflow, I conducted interviews and informal discovery sessions with 12 real estate agents across 2 U.S. states and 2 Canadian provinces, ranging from new agents to seasoned brokers. I also audited 6 commonly used tools in the space (including MLS portals, BrokerBay, ShowingTime, and CRMs) to identify key gaps, inefficiencies, and points of overlap.
Here’s what we learned:
Too Many Tools
Agents consistently mentioned toggling between 5–7 different tools daily: spreadsheets for client specs, calendar apps for showings, MLS systems for listings, plus text and email for communications. This fragmentation makes tasks harder than necessary and prone to error.
Client Matching Is Manual
Agents often have to memorize or re-reference a client’s wishlist each time a new listing comes up. Many keep notes in their phones or CRM, but few tools proactively surface listings that match client specs in real time.
No Agent-Centric Collaboration
While MLS tools share listings, there’s no “real-time” agent network for posting client wants, asking questions, or seeing what other agents are working on. This limits visibility and makes collaboration inefficient or entirely informal.
Key Insights from Survey Results
68% said they’ve missed potential showings or listings due to uncoordinated workflows
72% use more than 4 tools daily to manage listings, showings, and clients
63% said they want a better way to collaborate with agents outside their brokerage
User Persona
To ground the design in real needs, I created a focused user persona based on interviews with agents across North America. This persona highlights common pain points that guided key product decisions.
Jordan
Independent Real Estate Agent
“I’ve got my listings in one place, client notes in another, and messages buried in my inbox. There’s no system that brings it all together.”
Key Frustrations
Scattered Tools, Scattered Focus
Agents juggled listings, showings, and messages across multiple tools with no single source of truth.
Manual money tracking
Remembering which clients fit which listings was manual, slow, and easy to miss.
Disjointed payment experience
Without a way to browse other agents’ needs, collaboration stayed stuck inside the office.
These pain points echoed across agent interviews. While tools existed for specific tasks, none brought everything together. Especially for agents juggling busy pipelines across multiple clients.
“I’m always jumping between apps to prep for a showing. Half the time I’m digging through old emails just to find the lockbox code.”
- Ashley ,Toronto Agent
“We have so many listings in the office, but I have no idea who’s working with which clients unless I ask around.”
- Survey Participant
These insights helped shape OpenHouse as a platform built not just for task management, but for visibility, connection, and control in every part of the agent workflow.
Competitive Analysis
In reviewing current real estate tools used by professionals in the U.S. and Canada, several patterns emerged that OpenHouse can leverage. While many solutions focus on one aspect of the agent workflow, none provide a single, integrated mobile experience for listings, showings, client matching, and collaboration.
Key Insights from the Competitive Analysis
Fragmented Agent Workflows
Most existing apps focus on one part of an agent’s work (showings, leads, or transactions), requiring agents to toggle between systems.
Limited Collaboration Tools
There is no dedicated, structured space where agents can post “client wants,” share listings, and collaborate across brokerages in real time.
Mobile Experience Gaps
Many tools excel on desktop but do not offer a unified, mobile‑first interface that agents can rely on during showings or client meetings.
Design Opportunity
Create a cross-platform agent workspace complete with listing management, client matching, showing scheduling, messaging, calendar integration, and agent-facing profiles. The goal is to streamline daily real estate workflows by bringing essential tools into one connected system. OpenHouse helps agents move faster, stay organized, and discover new opportunities through seamless agent-to-agent collaboration.
Iterations
Early Concepts
The first version of OpenHouse focused mainly on listing uploads and detail management. While it handled property data well, it became clear that agents needed more than just a place to post listings. It lacked a central space to manage showings, conversations, and daily tasks, which meant agents still had to rely on external tools and inboxes.
As we iterated, we reimagined OpenHouse as a true command center for agents. Drawing from modern productivity platforms, we introduced a unified dashboard that brought listings, messages, showings, and to-dos into one connected workspace. This shift helped support the full day-to-day workflow of real estate agents without fragmentation.
Listing Details
The listing detail view evolved significantly through design iterations. The earliest sketch focused on layout and media upload, but didn’t account for the agent’s full workflow. As feedback came in, we started layering in more context, things like client matches, market stats, showing tools, and communication shortcuts.
By the second iteration, the page had become more modular and task-oriented, introducing live MLS data, agent actions, and at-a-glance insights. The final version brought everything together: a listing card that acts as both a marketing tool and a control panel for engagement.
This structure lets agents:
• Review and edit synced property data and photos
• See relevant client matches, showing activity, and analytics in one place
• Take action directly, from booking showings to sharing listings with peers
The result is a listing page designed not just for display, but for daily decision-making.
What is OpenHouse
OpenHouse is a concept platform built exclusively for real estate agents to streamline daily workflows across listing management, client matching, showings, and internal collaboration. Available on desktop, iOS, and Android, it serves as a centralized workspace where agents can view listings, manage appointments, message peers, and track their client needs in one place. It eliminates fragmented tools and replaces them with a connected, collaborative system designed for speed, clarity, and agent-to-agent utility.
Why We Built It
Modern real estate tools are siloed, often forcing agents to manage listings in one system, showings in another, and client notes somewhere else entirely. This fragmentation leads to duplicate work, missed opportunities, and inconsistent client experiences. We saw the opportunity to merge these touchpoints into one seamless product, purpose-built for agents, not consumers or generic CRMs.
What Makes OpenHouse Different
Unified Workflows
Agents can manage listings, showings, and client specs in one system, replacing multiple disjointed tools.
Networked Agent Feed
A private, professional space where agents can post updates, make requests, and discover new opportunities through shared activity.
Smarter Matching
Listings are automatically matched to saved client preferences, surfacing qualified opportunities in real time.
Why It Matters
Great real estate work is rooted in communication, timing, and shared context. When agents can’t see each other’s listings or client needs clearly, deals are delayed and connections are lost. OpenHouse helps agents move faster and collaborate more effectively by removing the friction of outdated workflows, so they can focus on closing, not just coordinating.
Key Features
Listing Management + MLS Sync
OpenHouse makes it easy to manage and publish listings in one place, whether you’re syncing from MLS or starting from scratch.
• Manually add listings or pull in via MLS ID for instant visibility
• Listings automatically appear on the universal agent feed, filterable by status or price
• Track updates, approvals, and inquiries without switching platforms
Listing Management + MLS Sync
Quickly match the right homes to the right buyers using smart filters and AI-backed suggestions.
• Add detailed client specs like budget, must-haves, and location preferences.
• AI suggests relevant listings the moment they hit the feed.
• Save listings to custom client boards and track interaction history.
Feed & Collaboration
A scrollable, filterable activity feed keeps you plugged into what’s new and who’s looking.
• View listing updates, agent activity, and posted inquiries in real time.
• Collaborate directly by booking showings, messaging, or tagging listings.
• Filters help you hone in on what’s relevant to your clients or team.
Calendar + Showings
An integrated calendar turns chaos into clarity with smart scheduling and showing insights.
• Book, approve, or manage upcoming showings from a single calendar view.
• Access lockbox codes, client notes, and confirmation status in context.
• Distinguish between your listings and third-party listings with color-coded events.
Messaging
Built-in messaging designed for real estate workflows, not inbox noise.
• Keep agent conversations tied to listings, showings, or specific client needs.
• Start private or group threads without losing context.
• View shared listings and showing times directly in the chat thread.
Agent Profiles
Every agent has a presence, bringing transparency and opportunity to your network.
• See brokerage affiliation, active listings, and posted Wants or Needs.
• Message or collaborate with agents on listings or client fits.
• Build trust and visibility in a private, agent-only workspace.
Analytics & Market Insights
Track what’s working, what’s trending, and how you stack up, all in one dashboard.
• View personal metrics like match rates, listing views, and average time on market.
• Compare local and regional market trends by price, DOM, and activity.
• Make smarter decisions about pricing, timing, and strategy.
Outcome
OpenHouse delivers a more streamlined and purpose-built experience for real estate agents by centralizing core workflows such as listing, showing, client matching, messaging, and analytics into a single, integrated platform accessible across mobile and desktop.
By reducing the need to toggle between disjointed tools, agents can focus on what matters most: finding the right listings for their clients, communicating clearly with other agents, and closing deals with less friction.
Although this is a concept project, the opportunity is clear. OpenHouse demonstrates how professional tools in real estate can benefit from thoughtful UX to improve productivity and collaboration.
Key Insights from Survey Responses:
Agents often rely on a patchwork of tools like MLS portals, spreadsheets, chat apps, and email threads to manage listings and showings. This fragmented setup creates confusion, slows response time, and makes client management harder than it needs to be.
Agents were not looking for automation for its own sake, but for more flexible and smarter ways to handle communication, listings, and client fit. They wanted a platform that understands their workflows and moves as fast as they do.
These insights led to a solution that blends visibility, speed, and simplicity into a focused experience for agents managing day-to-day tasks.
64% said managing listings across multiple tools made tracking client fit difficult
58% said they lose valuable time switching between messaging apps and MLS platforms
72% wanted a simpler way to match listings to saved buyer specs
Takeaway & Reflection
Designing OpenHouse gave me the chance to explore a highly specific, professional workflow and reimagine it through the lens of UX systems thinking.
So what went well?
• Strong feature integration. Each part of OpenHouse supports and connects to the others
• Clear interface language based on real agent tasks, not abstract tools
• Early concepts tested well with agents in interviews and feedback sessions
That’s nice, but what needs improvement?
• Spend more time designing animations and microinteractions to reinforce user actions
• Explore how a tablet-first layout could better support agents during live showings
• Conduct more hands-on testing with small teams to fine-tune visibility and privacy features
That’s it!
Designing OpenHouse highlighted how even the most routine, industry-specific workflows can benefit from clear structure and thoughtful UX. The goal was never to reinvent the role of the agent but to remove unnecessary barriers, reduce context switching, and create a more connected workspace. By aligning tools to real tasks, OpenHouse gives agents more time to focus on serving their clients, strengthening relationships, and closing more deals with confidence.
