About Broker2Broker
In the world of commercial real estate, price comparisons (comps) are hard to come by. Unlike residential real estate, there aren't public MLS listings showing what's on sale or for lease, the price per square foot, and all the amenities to a building.
Today in the US, commercial real estate brokers have to be well connected to be able to share information with each other. One broker may have knowledge on certain properties but want more information about others for price comparisons. All this is commonly done via email.
One commercial real estate broker saw this opportunity to build a platform to make comp trading easier between brokers and needed UX expertise to build out his vision. Through the advice of the accelerator he was working with, he came to Mutations Ltd with a vision and a PowerPoint presentation with mocks he made within PowerPoint.
With Liana Ris's excellent project management skills and my UX education, we were able to provide Broker2Broker with an interactive prototype they could bring with them to investor pitches.
Designs
The designs and interactive prototype were made with Figma.
Two videos were requested, one to show the individual features of exploring and finding comps that could be traded, other brokers on the platform, and analytics of your own sales and leases. Then, there was the process of trading comps with another broker on the platform.
Design-wise, there was a master design with all the features then two additional designs for the two different sides of the trading process.
Map Filters Iterations
Broker2Broker saw searching the map as the basis of its app. It's from the map from where you find comps to trade, get a better feeling of the landscape, find other brokers based on comps, etc.
We wanted to make sure we got the map and filtering right, so I made a few iterations:
| Drawer | Top bar | Full page search |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
We went with a bottom pull-out drawer of filters. The most used filters would be at the top and simply pulling up the drawer would let you see all of them. Then after applying, you could pull it down to see the results.
Broker2Broker came to us as a new, untested idea with nothing more than a PowerPoint presentation. I can happily say that about 2 years after we worked with them, they are now funded and out of stealth, and they attribute much of that to my UX work:
We worked with Karina and her team at Mutations to prototype an app that we are developing for the commercial real estate industry. I would absolutely recommend Karina as we were very happy with her ability to take our concept and give it the professional look and feel that we had envisioned. In addition to the prototype, we asked her to put together a short video of how the app worked which was very helpful in our next steps to fully developing the app for commercial use. If you are trying to get an app out of the concept phase to something that is commercially viable and visually appealing, I would definitely recommend Karina and her team. – Chris Crabtree, Commercial Real Estate Broker and Founder of Broker2Broker
Karina can help you turn an app idea into a design that developers can start building. She took our product concept - and powerpoint screens from my partner - and created a fantastic Figma design of our app as well as a demo movie. I plan on hiring Karina again in the near future. – Jeff Starr, Principal & Founder at Growth Accelerators
You can see the actual recommendations on my LinkedIn.