Expanding Real Estate
Growth Online
one design, three successes
American Village offers residential properties in a quiet corner of Bucharest, for families and professionals who want a peaceful home life with easy access to the city's business districts.
Instead of just building a one-off site to showcase our properties, I focused on creating a flexible and repeatable system that could grow alongside the business. This turned out to be the blueprint we used to scale, allowing us to launch two other major projects faster and more efficiently, while boosting sales leads across the entire portfolio.
Role
Bridged business goals and UX strategy. Translated research, marketing data, stakeholder, and user needs into the site’s information architecture, user stories, and prioritized features for the dev team.
Team
External dev team, UI designer, content writer, marketing manager, sales team
Tools
Trello, Google Ads, Google Analytics, Google Optimize, Internal CRM, Figma, Slack
Timeline
3 months
35%
faster turnaround time was achieved via replication
45%
cost savings by building one base website
73%
increase in lead generation, turned into 300+ clients
the challenge
The existing website layout was confusing and lacked the detail people needed to make a decision. This information gap was a major turn-off for potential buyers, hurting our conversion rates, and preventing our marketing campaigns from reaching their full potential.
the solution
We built a high-conversion website centered on interactive property exploration. I turned a complex property hunt into an intuitive and engaging experience. This directly improved the user journey and led to a measurable lift in sales inquiries.
Every design decision focused on encouraging potential buyers to explore our homes. Features included:
• property filters for efficient searching
• interactive floor/apartment selection
• guided 360° VR tours
• multi-angle project views
• interactive amenity map
These solutions helped people to make informed decisions and gave them the confidence to quickly find their home.
Dive deeper into the project 🧐
Understand
Our users needed better ways to see and understand our properties. They couldn't get enough of the details needed to make a choice.
To build alignment, I started by weaving together the perspectives of our leaders.
I used our marketing data to go beyond the surface, analyzing website patterns and hunting for clues in google analytics, social media conversations, and direct user talks.
After looking at our competitors and other industries, I spotted three major pain points. I also realized that most real estate sites lacked immersive detail, a gap that gave us the perfect opportunity to do something better.
Filters
Finding properties that match specific criteria (size, price, availability, etc.) is challenging due to the overwhelming number of listings.
Layouts
People struggled to visualize the layout of properties. This directly impacts their ability to imagine themselves living in the space.
Location
People stressed the importance of understanding the location, including nearby schools and daily conveniences.
design directions
How might we bridge the gap between browsing a residential property online and actually feeling confident enough to reach out to a sales agent?
Explore options
Make it easy for buyers to filter properties by what matters most to them, so they can quickly find their perfect match.
Visualize every detail
Let potential buyers explore floor plans and virtual tours, so they can get a genuine feel for the space before visiting.
Get the full picture
Provide neighborhood context, transport, and amenity context so buyers can picture their daily life, not just the apartment.
Connect easily
Give potential buyers clear ways to reach out with questions or schedule a viewing, generating qualified leads for the sales team.
Navigating constraints & shaping the concept
To maximize efficiency and impact, I narrowed my focus to the core user journey of property exploration. An impact-feasability matrix helped me prioritize features, ensuring I delivered the most value possible with our available resources.
From concept to creation
Switch view - allows users to toggle between different perspectives of the project plan.
Why
Users struggled to visualize the community layout. Through these views they can see the scale of the neighborhood and find exactly where their home would be, reducing confusion.
Impact
It turned "just looking" into "exploring. This immersive detail built the trust users needed to move forward.
Interactive map - places the project in context, highlighting the local spots that define the lifestyle.
Why
Location is everything. When people buy or rent a home, they aren't just buying walls, they’re buying a commute, a neighborhood, and a daily routine. Our map shows that "peaceful" doesn't mean "isolated" proving how close the city’s essentials actually are.
Impact
By putting the neighborhood context in one place, we answered "lifestyle" questions immediately, leading to more intentional inquiries from people who were already sold on the neighborhood.
Interactive floor explorer - let users hover over building levels to instantly see the floor layout, apartment positioning, and real-time availability.
Why
It provides spatial context and it makes it easy to understand unit location, layout, and availability, creating urgency.
Impact
It delivered fast time to value. People spent more time exploring floors and units, which is a strong indicator of purchase intent. This significantly shortened the sales cycle.
At the same time, the experience made the project feel more premium and trustworthy.
Filtering system - let people quickly narrow down our residential properties by things like price, size, number of rooms, and availability.
Why
Users bounce quickly if they can’t find what they want. While the map and floor explorer provide the spatial context, filters provide the functional utility that moves our users from browsing to a shortlist.
Impact
More engaged visitors and better‑qualified leads, that reduced sales friction.
Allowed hyper-targeted PPC campaigns, using pre-filtered URLs to match specific search intent with 100% relevant landing pages, which lowered bounce rates, and the Cost-Per-Lead (CPL).
A complete property viewing experience with virtual tour (VR) and detailed plans.
Why
When people spend time exploring a space, imagining themselves in it, and understanding how it fits their needs, they naturally become more emotionally invested. That investment makes them more confident and more likely to take the next step
Impact
Our users felt well informed and the inquiries received were more sales-ready.
It reduced the biggest barrier for remote buyers.
A/B testing: mobile-first lead generation
Sometimes the less polished solution wins, and that's exactly what the data showed: 7% increase in inquiries.
The hypothesis: if users land on any entry point (homepage, about, blog), they shouldn't have to hunt for the properties. A persistent, contextual shortcut could capture intent before it drops off.
We a/b tested it against the original navigation. The sticky label wasn't the most elegant solution, but it outperformed the control.
before
after
takeaways
What started as a marketing role grew into full UX strategy ownership. That shift shaped how I work today, bridging business goals, user needs, and product decisions from the start.
Business goals
Aligning design strategy directly to sales goals increased lead quality, not just volume, which freed the team to focus on high-value conversations
Content
It can't be an afterthought. Getting messaging right early prevents late-stage delays and keeps design focused on what users need.
Accessibility
My understanding of accessibility has grown significantly since this project. It's now a core part of how I approach design from the start.
Documentation
I wasn't documenting all of the behind-the-scenes process. Now, it's part of my workflow.
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