Online Calculator for Real Estate Marketplace

• Project: legacy Excel app migration to the cloud
• Duration: 2 months
• Technologies: Microsoft .NET Core, Angular 6, Bootstrap, AWS, HubSpot
• Target audience: high-net-worth individuals, real estate investors

Realized Technologies runs an online marketplace — the world’s first scalable tax-optimized real estate solution for individual real estate investors, advisors, and elite owners or operators.

The Realized Marketplace helps its audience to defer or eliminate capital gains taxes with Delaware Statutory Trusts (DST) and Opportunity Zone Funds (OZ Funds) options.

Challenge

Velvetech needed to develop a web calculator looking at an existing Excel-based application plus integrate it with Realized’s website and HubsSpot account. The company works exclusively with elite real estate sponsors and investors, and so it was essential for the calculator to offer its users the expected white-glove UX and UI.

Process

Besides the user-centric polished UI development and the necessity to integrate with HubSpot, Velvetech also had to account for the company’s rapid growth and, therefore, architect a scalable cloud-based solution. So that when Realized decided to add more options to the calculator or implement new calculators, they wouldn’t have to rebuild the architecture from the ground up.

Online Calculator: Robust Lead Generation Tool

The online calculator allows Realized’s web visitors to use it as a real estate investment analytics software tool. Users can fill in their details and get a quick analysis of QOF vs. non-QOF investment options. And if they want to see a more detailed report, the app asks them to register. Once visitors have registered, their contact details immediately become available in the company’s HubSpot account.

Unlike the legacy Excel app, the online calculator, built on web technologies, offers its users some advanced features. The user can save his or her calculations and review them at a later time.

They can also export the output to a PDF document and share it with their financial advisors, attorneys, accountants, or any other professionals that can help them understand and assess the risks associated with an investment opportunity.

In addition, the calculator dynamically adjusts to the user’s inputs and hides some fields, not applicable to certain choices.

Learn more about How to update legacy software

Technical Challenges

The number one priority for Realized was to make the online calculator 100% accurate and, at the same time, user-friendly. Our team had to reverse engineer the legacy Excel app to get to the bottom of quite a few formulas that had to be replicated in the web version of the calculator app.

Security Considerations

Since the solution invites users to input details about their real estate investments, it’s vital that the calculator app instills a sense of safety. We helped Realized address that challenge in several ways.

First of all, we brought up and implemented the use case when users might need to restore access to their accounts with a “forgot password” feature. And we also assisted the company with obtaining and installing an SSL certificate, which makes sure a browser doesn’t scare the hell out of users when they land on the calculator page.

UX & UI Considerations

One of the gripes with the initial versions of the calculator was a long horizontal scroll. The solution offered a lot of data that was hard to squeeze in a single screen. And so, our team came up with an idea of presenting data sets in chunks using a carousel view.

Outcome

With the online calculator ready, Realized is well prepared to increase its conversion of site visitors into prospective subscribers and secure a steady flow of new leads.

Compared to the legacy Excel application, the calculator provides Realized customers with more functionality and will keep them coming to the company’s real estate marketplace to find a replacement property and defer capital gains taxes.

What’s Next

Velvetech and Realized are discussing the next phase of the project, which involves developing more robust functionality for the calculator and some other advanced marketplace tools for real estate investors and owners or operators.