Luxury Digital Real Estate: The Finelli Team Platform

A Strategic Approach to Digital Growth Through Design & Technology

Overview

In New York's competitive luxury real estate market, The Finelli Team faced a critical challenge: their digital presence was constrained by their broker platform's limitations. As their product designer, I transformed their online presence from a standard profile into a sophisticated, lead-generating platform that matched their market expertise.

Key outcomes include a significant reduction in property marketing time, improved lead generation capabilities, and a seamless content management system, allowing the team to have a competitive edge in NYC’s luxury real estate landscape.

My Role

As Product Designer for The Finelli Team's digital platform, I spearheaded the end-to-end design process, driving user research, competitive analysis, and stakeholder alignment to inform product strategy. My scope included UX/UI design, frontend development, and implementation of a modular component system. Through cross-functional collaboration with stakeholders, and agents, I ensured a platform that unified brand vision and transformation.

Problem Statement

The Finellie Team, a prominent real estate team in NYC specializing in luxury real estate sales and apartment rentals, faces significant challenges in lead generation and tracking, managing high client expectations, handling a growing portfolio, and navigating complex marketing efforts. These inefficiencies drain time and resources, preventing them from focusing on delivering exceptional client service and closing deals.

Client

The Finelli Team

Timeline

06/02/2024 - 09/12/2024

The Team

Designer, Front-end Developer, Project Manager, Project Stakeholders

Role

Product Designer, UX Researcher, UX & UI, SEO Content Strategist

Activities

  • Research
  • User Flow
  • Mockups
  • Iteration
  • Prototype
  • Usability Testing

Tools

Figma Design
Google Meet Video Calls
Spline 3D Design
Maze Usability Testing
ProtoPie
Webflow
HubSpot
Make.com

Project Background

Bridging the Gap Between Exceptional Expertise and Digital Excellence

In NYC's luxury real estate landscape, The real estate agents and teams are limited to a standardized broker platform, creating a disconnect between their elite service and online representation. Operating in a market with just 1.4% vacancy, their experienced agents spent over 10 to 20 hours marketing each property through manual processes, without tools to showcase their expertise, track leads, or measure marketing effectiveness.
Like many other growing teams, they needed a comprehensive digital ecosystem that could match their reputation for excellence while delivering quantifiable results in lead generation and property marketing efficiency—a solution to transform their brand presence and position them for sustained growth in NYC's competitive market.

The Challenge

Breaking Barriers to Growth in NYC's Competitive Real Estate Market

  • Lead Management: struggling to qualify, track and generate quality leads, resulting in missed opportunities and wasted time.

  • Managing a Growing Portfolio: As the team expands, managing a large portfolio leads to difficulty scaling operations, hindering growth.

  • Wasted Marketing Efforts: Existing marketing efforts are costly and time-intensive, lacking the tools and metrics to measure efforts, leading to inefficient results.

The Solution

A Scalable Digital Platform Bridging Sales and Marketing

To address The Finelli Team's challenges, I delivered a scalable, user-centered design system that aligns with the client’s business goals, ensuring consistency, adaptability, and long-term impact.

A mobile and laptop mockup showcasing the Finelli Team's luxury real estate platform design. The screen displays a high-end property listing with elegant visuals and user-friendly interface elements, emphasizing the platform's focus on premium real estate transactions. The text "We Represent 100s of Buildings & Transactions" highlights the team's expertise in the luxury market.

Figure 1. The Finelli Team's tailored platform design

Understanding User Needs

Crafting Experiences to Meet the Needs of NYC Renters

The Finelli Team's clients are working professionals and individuals seeking rental apartments in NYC, valuing personalized service, and seamless transactions. They expect exceptional attention to detail, quick responsiveness, and a curated experience tailored to their unique preferences. These clients often have demanding schedules and rely on trusted advisors to simplify the process of buying, selling, or renting properties.
User persona of a NYC renter, highlighting goals like affordable rent, convenience, and amenities. Includes behavior patterns such as online searches on Zillow and StreetEasy, and pain points like high competition and lengthy rental processes. Ideal for real estate platform design and SEO optimization.

Figure 2. A NYC renter navigating a competitive market faces challenges like high demand, limited inventory, and lengthy application processes.

  • Renter Needs: NYC renters prioritize convenience, premium amenities, and a seamless leasing experience. They expect quick access to high-quality listings, transparent communication, and a hassle-free process to secure their ideal apartment.
  • Agent Needs: Agents need efficient tools to showcase properties, understand client preferences, and provide personalized service. Their success depends on matching clients with properties while maintaining a reputation for exceptional service.

The Design Process

Turning Goals into a User-Centered Solution

My design approach balanced luxury aesthetics with conversion optimization through the following

1. Research & Discovery

The process began with research and strategy, working with stakeholders to define user's goals and address agent pain points. Customizable subpages and trackable tools were prioritized for marketing and campaign measurement. Competitive analysis guided the platform’s design and middle-funnel content to optimize both SEO and lead generation and meet audience needs.
Competitive analysis of real estate companies including OpenDoor, Findigs, and EliseAI, highlighting value propositions, target audiences, strengths, and key differentiators. Ideal for understanding real estate platform competitive landscape.
Figure 3. This analysis provided insight into tools and AI-driven solutions for fast transactions, tenant screening, and property management and platform’s innovative design.
Information architecture diagram for the front-end during the research and discovery phase, showcasing structure and organization of content.
Detailed information architecture diagram for the backend, illustrating the organization and flow of server-side and client-side components. Ideal for backend development and system design optimization.
Comprehensive sitemap diagram showcasing the structure of a real estate platform, including sections for search listings and agents dashboard. Ideal for UX design and website navigation optimization.

Figure 4.A comprehensive structure was developed to seamlessly connect the platform’s front and backend systems, ensuring smooth client and server-side functionality for an optimized user experience.

Crispy Style Guide
Figure 5. UPDATE CAPTION

2. Design & Iterations

This approach balanced functionality and aesthetics. After organizing the information architecture, I developed low-fidelity wireframes with a focus on CMS integration for dynamic data management. Customizable templates and layouts were designed for property listings and agent profiles, enabling future implementation of prebuilt components.
UX process illustration depicting the creation of low-fidelity wireframes and strategic content placement, highlighting the initial stages of design planning and layout organization. Ideal for UX/UI design and workflow optimization.
Low-fidelity wireframe design for agent profile pages, featuring sketches and CMS content placement, including cover photo, customer reviews, CTA, and footer. Ideal for UX/UI design and content strategy optimization.
Low-fidelity wireframe sketches of property display cards, showcasing UX testing for card scanning using Z and F scanning methods. Designed to optimize user interaction and visual hierarchy. Ideal for UX/UI design and usability testing.

Figure 5. Initial sketches showcasing content placement and scanability, establishing the foundation for structured content and device responsiveness.

Working closely with Ricardo, we refined key questions for qualifying leads and introduced multistep forms to improve efficiency and align with business goals. This iterative process ensured the form evolved to meet the team’s needs while capturing high-quality leads effectively.
Initial intake form design for lead qualification, tailored to business objectives, featuring fields for current living situation, apartment size, price range, and contact information. Ideal for UX/UI design and lead generation optimization.
Design ideation for a multistep contact form, showcasing layout and structure for creating user-friendly forms. Ideal for UX/UI design and form optimization.
Low-fidelity wireframe sketches of a newly designed multistep intake form, tailored for different client bases including buyers, sellers, and landlords. Ideal for UX/UI design and client-specific form optimization.
Feedback on the design of a multistep form, highlighting property information and preferred call date fields. Ideal for UX/UI design and form usability improvement.
Design revision and refinement for a multistep form, showcasing property information and preferred call date fields, in collaboration with project stakeholders. Ideal for UX/UI design and stakeholder feedback integration.
High-fidelity design and user flow of a multistep form, tailored for renters, buyers, sellers, and landlords. Ideal for UX/UI design and seamless user experience optimization.

Figure 6. The slides illustrating the iterative design process of multistep intake forms, customized to qualify leads for the four main categories: renters, buyers, sellers, and landlords/property owners.

3. Feedback & Optimization

While high-fidelity designs are complete, tailored branding for The Finellie Team is still in progress. The current designs emphasize user-centered solutions, and scalable architecture, prioritizing intuitive UX and SEO strategies to drive growth and maximize the platform's potential. Finalized branding will unify the brand’s visual identity with its product strategy and goals.
High-fidelity mockups of the Finelli Real Estate platform design, showcasing the landing page and blog page. Features include luxury listings, agent services, and featured stories. Ideal for UX/UI design and real estate platform optimization.
High-fidelity mockup of the search listing page and property listing details page for a real estate platform. Features include filter options, rental unit details, amenities, and open house schedules. Ideal for real estate SEO and user experience optimization.

Figure 7. The desktop designs showcases the implementation of structured layouts and dynamic content sketches into high-fidelity drafts.

The Development Process

Crafting Features that Educate and Engage Users

This process focuses on the development of features that aim to educate, engage, and empower users, providing them with resources in making the home buying or selling process more accessible and informed.

Development process of a home payment calculator inside an IDE, showcasing HTML and JavaScript code for calculating monthly payments based on loan terms and interest rates. Ideal for real estate tech development and financial tool optimization.
Development process of a home evaluation tool calculator inside an IDE, showcasing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code for calculating property value based on area, bedrooms, and bathrooms. Ideal for real estate tech development and property valuation optimization.
Development process of a mortgage payment calculator tool inside an IDE, featuring JavaScript code for calculating monthly payments, total loan cost, and input fields for loan amount, interest rate, and down payment. Ideal for real estate tech development and financial tool optimization
Brainstorming session for lead generation ideas, showcasing concepts like "Buy or Rent Assessment," "Neighborhood Quiz," and "Affordability Calculator," which translate into interactive website features. Ideal for UX/UI design and real estate marketing strategy optimization.

Figure 8. These images show the development of our real estate tools, like a mortgage calculator and home evaluation tool, inspired by engaging client interaction ideas such as 'Buy or Rent Assessments' and 'Neighborhood Quizzes.'

Methodology

Researching the Finelli's Team Business Processes

My approach combined multiple methods to validate design decisions and ensure market fit. By collaborating with project stakeholders, and deeply understanding the Finellie Team’s business processes and challenges, I focused on reducing friction and addressing pain points through tailored solutions. This methodology ensured the platform aligned with their goals while enhancing efficiency and user experience.

Service design blueprint illustrating the Finelli Team's business process and customer journey, detailing frontstage and backstage actions, timelines, and tools used. Ideal for understanding service workflow and customer interaction optimization.

Figure 9: The service design blueprint visualizes the customer's journey and agent interactions throughout the rental or buying process, and identifies key touchpoints and opportunities for enhancement.

Analyzing the Competitive Landscape

  • Analyzed 5 leading platforms (StreetEasy, Zillow, Redfin, Trulia and Realtor)
  • Reviewed 20+ luxury real estate agency, and agents websites
  • Mapped competitive platform features and market gaps
  • Research driven SEO strategy, leveraging CMS tools to optimize keyword placement, metadata, and structured content for improved search visibility

Iterative Refinement via Needs, Testing and Feedback

  • Conducted 7 moderated user testing sessions to gather actionable insights and validate design decisions—view Maze results here
  • Conducted interviews with 4 NYC renters aged between 24-40
  • Refined features based on behavior data and feedback to ensure the solution align with both agents workflows and user expectation
  • Measured task completion rates and engagement to gauge prototype's usability and effectiveness
Heat map testing of the user interface, showcasing areas of interest and text visibility to improve user engagement and design effectiveness. Ideal for UX/UI optimization and user experience enhancement.
Alt text: Heat map testing of the user interface for the team section, highlighting areas of interest and attention insights to optimize design and user engagement. Ideal for UX/UI improvement and team profile visibility.
High-fidelity mockup of the Finelli Team agents page, designed by Design Buddy UX, showcasing detailed profiles and professional layouts. Ideal for real estate team presentation and user experience optimization.

Figure 10. AI-generated heatmaps used to test and refine UI elements and readability to enhance user's engagement.

Features

Driving Efficiency and Growth

The platform features multistep lead intake forms, CMS-driven SEO blogs, property listings and customizable agent profiles. Prioritizing UX as a guiding principle, refinements were made to enhance engagement and usability, aligning with The Finellie Team’s growth goals.

High-fidelity mockup of the agents CMS user page designs, showcasing a clean and intuitive interface for managing real estate listings and client interactions. Ideal for real estate agent workflow optimization.

Customizable Agent Profiles

The customizable agent profiles feature empowers real estate agents to showcase their expertise and personal brand, enhancing client trust and engagement. By allowing personality to shine and personalized presentation, these profiles equip agents marketing tools to attract high-quality leads a the competitive NYC real estate market.
High-fidelity mockup of CMS-driven blog pages designed for SEO growth, featuring curated luxury listings, customer reviews, and exclusive off-market opportunities. Ideal for real estate content strategy and search engine optimization.

CMS-Driven Pages for Growth Through SEO

The CMS-driven pages are designed to optimize growth through targeted SEO strategies. Pre-designed templates create middle-of-funnel content like neighborhood guides and market trends, enhancing visibility, driving traffic, and attracting high-value leads.

View Prototype

iPhone mockup showcasing the Finelli Team mobile interface, featuring curated luxury listings, customer reviews, and a user-friendly design. Ideal for real estate mobile user experience and engagement.
Interactive Prototype: Preview The Finelli Team's Mobile Design Here

Results

Quantitative Outcomes

  • 100% task completion rate in usability testing
  • 78.6-second average engagement time
  • 9.3% drop-off rate
  • 4/5 average rating for agent profile clarity

Qualitative Improvement

  • Streamlined CMS functionality for targeted marketing
  • Advance filters functionality for property search
  • Improved lead quality through targeted capture
  • Automated analytics for measuring KPI's and marketing efforts

Reflection

System Thinking Over Visual Design

Initially focused on visual design, I transitioned to system thinking, recognizing that design is not merely about aesthetics but about building a system that supports the client's business goals. Through this project, I learned the importance of developing adaptable templates and scalable solutions, ensuring it could evolve alongside the client’s growth.

Lesson Learned

Documentation as Strategy

This project taught me the critical importance of documentation and communication in building effective design systems. By meticulously documenting design decisions, file organization, and the rationale behind each choice, this reinforced the value of creating scalable solutions that align with both immediate needs and long-term goals.

Next Steps

Design, Develop, Measure and Refine

The project continues to evolve through:

  • Finalized aesthetics and style guide to create a cohesive brand identity, ensuring consistency across all touchpoints
  • Integration of IDX and MLS API for automated listing updates
  • Refine lead capture workflows and functionalities
  • Implement SEO strategy, roadmap and action plan

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