Assignment 7A- You have an opportunity, now what?

• Easier and more accurate ways of finding living spaces
• Opportunity: Many people who are searching for a place to live have to deal with constantly changing prices and inaccurate information online and in person.
• Who: Anyone who is searching for a new living space that needs accurate and up to date information.
• What: Many websites and other resources available to use to find living spaces are often inaccurate or out of date and going to the physical location is a hassle for many people and the prices told constantly change.
• Why: The market for living spaces is one of ever shifting and changing demand and availability, so accurate and up to date information is often hard to come by.
• Testing the who: In many cases providing information for everyone will be difficult. Not only do people have their own preferences on how they acquire their information, but in some cases people may not be able to access this service. In general this service can apply to anyone searching for a new living space. However, it can be used by competitors to check prices, availability, and other factors that would bring in people interested in living in a new place.
• Testing the what: This is a market that has many services like this already available. This can cause many issues with people trusting the service and preferring it over another. However, many of these services are not as reliable and just add to the confusion of this process. This service can also have issues with the providers side as they may not want to divulge information on their properties.
• Testing the why: Many websites and services have issues keeping accurate information because of the nature of the market. It is constantly changing and adjusting to not only overall trends in the pool of possible consumers but also because of a reaction to the individual. In many cases those offering a place to live will change their mind about allowing certain customers to live in their area if their financial backing isn't strong enough, if they have had issues in the past, or any number of other reasons. For this reason an accurate service needs to be created so that people don't get into a situation that causes issues for not only themselves but also those attempting to provide the living space.
• Interview 1
• In this interview I talked to an executive of an apartment company. The first thing she told me when I told her my idea is that it would be difficult to pull off because of how the market is constantly changing not only from broader guidelines, but also many state and even county regulations on the way in which living accommodations can be managed and charged. Another point she brought up was the fact that many apartments have varied ways of charging based on the applicant that wants to live there. She did agree with the idea that many places from which you get information are not wholly accurate all the time. She did also say that not everyone will use websites or outside services to find the information they are looking for, many will still go straight to the source for information.
• Interview 2
• This time I interviewed a person on my floor that recently signed a lease to live in an apartment next year. When I asked him how he went about finding his information he told it was primarily through finding prices on the internet and then visiting the apartment himself to check and see if the information was accurate. He also had some concerns about the service I was offering. The primary concern was how people would know that the information is actually accurate. He told me that many places he looked had conflicting prices and information and this was true for the actual location and websites. He also said that the idea of a website or service like the one I am describing would be a very useful tool.
• Interview 3
• In this interview I talked to someone who was not currently looking for a new place to live. After I told him what the service would offer he asked if there wasn't something like that out there already. As I talked to him more I realized that for those not currently searching the preconceived notion is that all the websites out there have accurate information. He told me that he  would assume that creating a service that I was describing would be difficult because of the amount of information you would be providing and keeping up to date.
• Interview 4
• In this interview I interviewed someone who is in the midst of searching for somewhere else to live. She told me the same thing as the person from interview 2. She told me that many of the resources she is using do not match up and are often confusing. She also said that obtaining and maintaining the amount of information required for my service would be quite difficult.
• Interview 5
• This was an interview with someone who has owned a house for nearly twenty years. As I talked to him about how he found his house he told me about his limited options due to the time. While there was some internet to aid him, he primarily had to go to real estate agents and look at postings in the newspapers and other sources of information. He has thought about moving since getting this house and has looked at websites and traditional methods of finding a house. In his case many of the places he checked agreed on prices and had pretty accurate data. He told me that my service is possible but is going to be hard to succeed with because of how many sources are available in this field.
• New things I have learned from the interviews
• I was surprised by the amount of people that told me that information did not match from source to source. I was under the impression that it was an issue but didn't think it would be as severe as it is based on my interviews. These sources serve one purpose and that is to provide information that is accurate and reliable, but most seem to be unable to do that. Many of the people I interviewed were frustrated by this fact and wondered why it is so hard to do this.
• I learned from my interview with the executive that maintaining the information can and most likely will be much harder than obtaining it in the first place. I also learned that with all the restrictions that are place on and removed from how owners can manage and charge their properties how fluid and dynamic the market is. This adds a degree of difficulty when it comes to providing accurate information.
• I was also surprised to learn about the search for houses being seemingly easier from the one example I was able to obtain. The fact that information not only matched up source to source but also source to actual surprised me. Based on this it leads me to believe that houses prices and the information provided on them may be easier to maintain than those of say an apartment.