Design and Development of VK Application for Housing Search Process Optimization

This paper investigates the current housing search process in Russia. It focuses on the rental market analysis, urgent problems of tenants and lessors, existing tools that are used by them. According to the statistics of the financial institution for development in the housing sector DOM.RF, the vast majority of rental transactions prevail in the shadow sector. Many lessors are unwilling to leave the shadow market since there are no distinct advantages of this. Therefore, the relationship between tenant and lessor is based solely on mutual trust. The purpose of the study is to develop an application for the users of the largest Russian social network VK. The application is aimed to help the users to find the most reliable tenants, lessors, roommates by using a social graph during the search process. The design thinking methodology is used to identify the real users’ issues and provide the most appropriate solution for them.