The Problem
What the gap looked like
Mid-term housing placement — matching traveling professionals, relocating workers, and insurance clients to furnished properties — was being coordinated entirely by hand. Coordinators contacted property owners through a mix of email, calls, and spreadsheets. There was no unified pipeline, no visibility into placement status, and no way to scale without adding headcount.
Key gaps:
- No platform for property owners to submit or manage listings
- Coordinator needs were tracked ad hoc — no structured intake or matching pipeline
- No secure way to share property options with coordinators without exposing owner contact details prematurely
- Placement status was invisible — no one could see what was New, Matched, or Placed at a glance
- All communications were manual — confirmation, follow-up, and status updates sent by hand
The Build
What I built
- Property owner submission flow — listing intake with availability, pricing, and unit details
- Admin review dashboard — approve, reject, or request changes on submitted listings
- Coordinator need intake — structured form capturing guest profile, dates, budget, and location requirements
- Matching logic — filters available properties against coordinator requirements and surfaces ranked options
- Secure match links — tokenized URLs allow coordinators to view matched properties without exposing owner contact info
- Status pipeline — placements move through New → Matched → Placed with full visibility in the admin panel
- Automated communications — confirmation emails, match notifications, and status updates triggered by pipeline events
- Security hardening — rate limiting, input validation, and access controls on all admin routes
System Flow
How a placement works
Property owner submits listingAvailability, pricing, photos, and unit details captured
Admin reviews and approves propertyListing enters the active pool once verified
Coordinator submits a placement needGuest profile, dates, budget, and location requirements
Matching logic identifies best optionsFilters by availability, budget, location, and guest requirements
Coordinator receives secure match linkTokenized URL — owner contact details withheld until placement confirmed
Status moves: New → Matched → PlacedFull pipeline visible in admin dashboard. Automated notifications at each stage.
Approach
How I approached it
- Designed the two-sided structure first — property owners and coordinators have fundamentally different needs and the system had to serve both without colliding
- Prioritized the matching pipeline over aesthetics — a beautiful site with broken matching logic would be worthless
- Built secure token links specifically to protect owner relationships until the platform had earned coordinator trust
- Used AI-assisted development to accelerate iteration on the matching logic and admin dashboard
- Deployed on a production VPS using AI-assisted tooling, with containerized services for easy maintenance and scaling
- Added rate limiting and input validation throughout — a marketplace with exposed endpoints is an attack surface
Results
What changed
0 → 1
Platform built from scratch — no prior system existed for this placement workflow
2-sided
Marketplace serving both property owners and housing coordinators from a single platform
Full
Pipeline visibility — every placement tracked from New through Matched to Placed
Secure
Tokenized match links protect owner relationships. Rate limiting and access controls on all admin routes.
The platform launched in 2026 and is in active use. Placement volume is the primary growth metric being tracked going forward.
Screenshots
Platform views
All owner contact details, addresses, guest profiles, and private data are blurred in production screenshots.
Ownership
What I personally owned
Workflow discovery
System architecture
Two-sided marketplace design
Matching logic
Security implementation
AI-assisted development
Integration setup
Testing & debugging
Production deployment
Documentation