Roomzy: An Affordable Accommodation Platform for Students

More students are shifting their base from rural to urban areas or cities, which is increasing the need for affordable, safe and accessible accommodation. However, housing industry continues to remain fragmented, with most people dependent on local real estate agents, unverified ads and multiple websites for accommodation. The fragmented housing market not only makes it susceptible to fraud, but also less transparent and increases the search time for students. Roomzy is an online portal that seeks to make the task of searching for accommodations easy and fast for the students. Roomzy was developed using MERN stack technologies (MongoDB, Express.js, React.js and Node.js). Some of the unique aspects of Roomzy include location-based search, budget filter, verified property listings and direct communication between students and the owner of the property. With the elimination of the role of real estate agents altogether, it eliminates dependence on real estate brokers completely. The use of 3-tier architecture and modularity in Roomzy enables effective usage of information/data and communication between users and the platform. The experimental evidence shows that Roomzy offers an effective way to reduce the period of time starting from searching until a student takes possession of the property, while at the same time offering greater transparency and access for both the students and property owners. In other words, Roomzy can be considered an innovative, convenient, and practical tool for addressing students’ accommodation issues.