Rental Management for Small Landlords

This project took around 6 months, with weekly meetings involving myself, the customer, a project manager, and a developer. Throughout the process, we had calls with future landlords to test the solution and gather feedback. Our goal was to create a booking platform that would simplify property management for landlords with 1-10 rooms or apartments, which most existing platforms did not cater to.

The Problem

In 2023, most booking platforms were designed for big property management companies, making them overly complex for smaller landlords who manage just a handful of properties. These landlords needed something more straightforward—something that could handle a few properties but still offer enough flexibility for their unique needs. Kamuh's focus was on creating a solution tailored to landlords with 1-10 apartments/rooms.

At the start, there was a basic draft of the platform, but it lacked many of the necessary features and screens. We used it as a foundation, taking inspiration from it, but we knew it needed much more to become a complete, easy-to-use tool.

Exploration

We started by focusing on the calendar, as this was going to be the core of the platform. Managing bookings in a simple and clear way was the top priority, so we spent a lot of time defining the calendar's functionality. We mapped out all the essential features and discussed how to make them as user-friendly as possible.

Since there were already a lot of similar platforms on the market, we conducted a competitor analysis, comparing Kamuh to others in the space. We looked at features like Channel Management, PMS (Property Management System), Booking Engines, Rates Synchronization, and Guest Communications, among others. These comparisons helped us figure out what we needed to include, but we also knew that smaller landlords had very different needs from big property owners.

To get a deeper understanding, we spoke directly with small landlords and asked them about their pain points. We learned that one of their biggest challenges was pricing—things like managing different rates for children, offering breakfasts, handling local taxes, and creating custom deals (e.g., taxi or sauna packages). They also needed flexibility in choosing where to list their properties. Some landlords wanted to sync their listings with multiple platforms (Airbnb, Booking.com, etc.), while others preferred to manage everything manually using just the internal calendar.

Scoping

We needed to strike a balance between offering enough functionality to handle complex needs while keeping the platform simple enough for landlords who aren’t necessarily tech-savvy.

Which platforms should landlords be able to sync with automatically?

Syncing with multiple platforms was crucial, but some landlords might only want to sync with one or none at all. So, we needed to build in that flexibility.

How do we handle complex pricing?

Many landlords needed to set different rates for kids, local taxes, and add-ons like breakfast or sauna. We had to make sure the platform could handle this easily without overwhelming the user with too many options.

Can landlords choose to manage bookings internally, without syncing to external platforms?

Yes, some landlords just wanted to use the calendar to manage bookings manually, so we had to make sure that was an option.

User Interface

We kept the design clean and neutral, using color accents to differentiate between different booking states (e.g., new bookings, errors, confirmations). The goal was to make sure landlords could quickly see what was happening with their rentals without getting lost in the details. The calendar was central to the design, giving landlords an at-a-glance view of their bookings, availability, and any important alerts.

To keep things simple and user-friendly, we focused on straightforward navigation and clear visuals, making sure even non-tech-savvy users could easily manage their properties.