Case StudyPropTech · Social Platform

Flatshare

A social flatmate-matching web platform that connects people looking to share property, with good profiles, real-time messaging, smart listing filters, and location-based search built for speed, safety, and genuine human connection.

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5Core Modules

4QA Engineers

5designer & Developers

13+Smart Filters

30+Screens

Real-TimeWebSocket Chat

2Platforms

8+Total Engineers

LocationBased Search

About the Client

Scalabu Digital

Scalabu Digital is a Lagos-based digital marketing and web development agency that helps businesses grow their online presence through services such as SEO, social media marketing, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, content marketing, web development, and e-commerce solutions.

Founded in 2017, the company focuses on delivering data-driven marketing strategies and customized digital solutions that improve brand visibility, website traffic, and business growth.

Scalabu DigitalProduct Owner

Project Overview

IndustryPropTech & Social Networking

ProductFlatmate Matching & Property Sharing Platform

PlatformsWeb Application, Admin Dashboard

Tech StackNextJS · Laravel · Vite · Proxy Pattern · MySQL · Redis · Tailwind CSS · WebSocket

Core ModulesSearch · Listings · Profiles · Messaging · Request Management

Team4 Engineers, 1 UI/UX Designers, 4 QA Specialists

Delivered BySmartTech Solutions

About the App

The smarter way to find your perfect flatmate.

Flatshare is a social property-sharing web platform built to replace the broken, trust-deficient process of finding a flatmate. Users create rich lifestyle profiles, signal their preferences and deal-breakers, and discover compatible people through an intelligent, filter-driven discovery engine, not random listings from strangers.

Hosts who already have a property can list their spare room with full control over pricing, move-in dates, and applicant criteria. Seekers looking to live in expensive areas can find and connect with potential co-renters to split costs intelligently, with in-app messaging, structured applications, and request management tools keeping the entire process organised and transparent. Flatshare is engineered for speed, security, and the kind of social trust that turns a platform visit into a signed tenancy.

NextJSLaravelReactJSTailwind CSSViteMySQLRedisWebSocket

flatshare.app/dashboard

Find Your FlatmateMatch · Connect · Move In

The Challenge

Turning the most personal of searches into a scalable platform.

Building a social flatmate platform means solving trust, speed, privacy, and real-time communication simultaneously; for users making one of life's most personal decisions. These were the six hardest problems we solved.

Building Trust Between Strangers

The core challenge: convincing users to share a home with someone they met online. The platform needed profile verification, trust signals, interest matching, and transparent reviews that genuinely reduce the risk of bad flatmate experiences.

Real-Time Messaging at Scale

Engineering a low-latency WebSocket chat system that handles concurrent conversations, read receipts, typing indicators, and notification delivery without lag, across a distributed server environment.

Complex Multi-Dimensional Search

Location-based filtering had to account for radius, budget range, move-in date, lifestyle, pet tolerance, gender preference, and shared interests, all composited in real time with sub-100ms query responses.

Privacy & Data Compliance

Handling sensitive personal data, home addresses, income ranges, lifestyle preferences, and identity documents, while maintaining GDPR-aligned policies, granular privacy controls, and secure storage patterns.

Proxy Architecture & Session Management

Designing a reverse-proxy pattern between the Next.js frontend and Laravel API to avoid CORS issues, centralise authentication, manage session state at the edge, and rate-limit abuse across shared-IP environments.

Real-Time Listing Freshness

Flatshare listings go stale fast. Redis-backed caching strategies, automated expiry rules, host dashboard notifications, and re-listing flows had to keep the live inventory genuinely current without burdening hosts.

User Engagement

Crafted for how people actually search for home.

From onboarding and interest profiling to live search and real-time messaging; every screen was built to reduce friction and build trust at each step of the flatmate discovery journey.

The Process

How we turned a complex idea into a live platform.

Six structured phases took Flatshare from a research insight to a production-ready social platform design-first, research-led, and built with no shortcuts in performance, security, or user experience.

Discovery & User Research

In-depth interviews with prospective flatmates and property hosts mapped the exact pain points of traditional flatmate search, trust anxiety, search friction, and communication failures. Output: full product spec and user journey maps.

System Architecture & API Design

Architects designed the Next.js + Laravel proxy pattern, MySQL schema, Redis cache strategy, WebSocket message broker, and the modular listing engine that powers all search and filtering logic.

UI/UX Design & Prototyping

From onboarding to profile creation, listing browsing, and live messaging, every flow was wireframed, iterated, and validated in high-fidelity Figma prototypes before a single line of code was written.

Full-Stack Development

Next.js frontend and Laravel API built in parallel sprints. Vite-powered build pipeline for fast HMR during development. Every feature shipped behind feature flags, tested in staging before merge to production.

Real-Time Systems & Integrations

WebSocket server for live messaging, push notification delivery, location services for radius search, and Redis pub/sub for real-time listing updates, user presence indicators, and application status tracking.

QA, Security Audit & Launch

End-to-end testing across all user flows, search, match, message, apply, list, manage. Penetration testing of auth and messaging layers. Staged rollout with live monitoring before full public launch can take place.

Enhancing Experience

UI craft that makes finding home feel effortless.

Flatshare operates in one of the most personal decision spaces a product can occupy, choosing who you share your home with. Every UI decision was made knowing that trust, clarity, and warmth are not optional extras, they are the product itself.

SmartTech Solutions brought world-class UI precision to Flatshare, the same level you expect from the best consumer social platforms, with profile-forward layouts, frictionless search flows, and a visual language that communicates safety and community from the very first screen.

Human-Centered by Design
Every interaction, profile creation, interest tagging, browsing, was designed around real human behaviour and the emotional weight of choosing a person to share your home with.
Trust-First Visual Language
Verification badges, transparent profiles, and review systems are woven into the visual hierarchy so users feel safe and informed at every decision point, not as afterthoughts.
Speed-Optimized for Discovery
Listings load instantly, filters respond in real time, and the entire search experience was engineered to surface the right match in as few clicks as possible.
Responsive & Screen-Adaptive
The full product experience, browsing, messaging, managing listings, works flawlessly on desktop and mobile without feature compromise or layout degradation.

Smart Matching12+ Filter Dimensions+ Interest Compatibility

Real-Time ChatWebSocket PoweredInstant messaging

Solution & Results

A complete flatmate-matching platform, live and trusted.

SmartTech Solutions designed, architected, and shipped the full Flatshare platform, from the Laravel API and Redis-backed search engine to the Next.js frontend, WebSocket real-time messaging system, and host management dashboards.

The result is a social platform that makes the traditionally stressful, opaque process of finding a flatmate feel modern, safe, and genuinely human, with the engineering depth to scale alongside its growing community.

Build With Us

Advanced Flatmate Matching Engine

Multi-dimensional search combining location radius, budget, move-in date, lifestyle preferences, and shared interests, surfacing genuinely compatible flatmates, not just nearby ones.

Real-Time Messaging System

WebSocket-powered chat with typing indicators, read receipts, and push notifications, enabling fluid, in-context communication between hosts and prospective flatmates.

Full Listing Management Suite

Hosts create, manage, and refresh property listings with rich media, pricing controls, availability settings, and applicant tracking from a single organised dashboard.

Interest & Lifestyle Profiling

Deep preference mapping lets users signal who they are and how they live, enabling matches that go far beyond geography and budget to genuine lifestyle compatibility.

Request Management Dashboard

Hosts receive, review, and respond to flatmate applications in one organised space, with status tracking, shortlisting tools, and full communication history preserved.

Scalable PropTech Infrastructure

Built on a proxy-pattern architecture with Redis caching and a Laravel API, a foundation engineered to handle growth without performance degradation as the community scales.

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Martha Maldonado

Executive Chairman @ Google

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Flatshare

Scalabu Digital

The smarter way to find your perfect flatmate.

Turning the most personal of searches into a scalable platform.

Building Trust Between Strangers

Real-Time Messaging at Scale

Complex Multi-Dimensional Search

Privacy & Data Compliance

Proxy Architecture & Session Management

Real-Time Listing Freshness

Crafted for how people actually search for home.

How we turned a complex idea into a live platform.

Discovery & User Research

System Architecture & API Design

UI/UX Design & Prototyping

Full-Stack Development

Real-Time Systems & Integrations

QA, Security Audit & Launch

UI craft that makes finding home feel effortless.

A complete flatmate-matching platform, live and trusted.

Advanced Flatmate Matching Engine

Real-Time Messaging System

Full Listing Management Suite

Interest & Lifestyle Profiling

Request Management Dashboard

Scalable PropTech Infrastructure

Let's bring your vision to life.

What People Are Saying About Us!

Martha Maldonado

Michael D. Lovelady

Valerie J. Creasman

Hannah R. Sutton

Pearl B. Hill

Mandy F. Wood

Mildred W. Diaz

Christopher H. Win

Martha Maldonado

Martha Maldonado

Michael D. Lovelady

Valerie J. Creasman

Hannah R. Sutton

Pearl B. Hill

Mandy F. Wood

Mildred W. Diaz

Christopher H. Win

Martha Maldonado

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