TerraUrbano Home: A Smart Custom Real Estate Platform

Overview: TerraUrbano Home

This project originated through our collaboration with Sarah Katrina, a certified digital vendor involved in government-supported digital transformation programs. Under this initiative, eligible businesses receive digital benefits to modernize their operations, including hardware and online presence.

TerraUrbano Home was a real estate agency that had been approved for this digital benefit. While the laptop procurement was handled directly by Sarah Katrina, we were brought in to deliver the core digital asset: a completely new, modern, and fully customizable real estate website.

At the time of engagement, TerraUrbano Home was using a basic 360° real estate website solution. While functional, it was limited in flexibility, design control, and internal usability. TerraUrbano Home saw the government program as an opportunity not just to “refresh” their website, but to rebuild it properly with long-term control and scalability in mind.

This was not a theme replacement.
This was a custom platform rebuild designed for real-world operations.

Requirements

Once the discovery phase began, it became clear that TerraUrbano Home’s expectations went far beyond a standard real estate website.

Core Requirements

New Website Design
- Modern, professional real estate branding
- Custom UI instead of template-based layouts
- Optimized for both desktop and mobile users
Internal Content Control
- Team members must be able to log in
- Create and manage custom pages independently
- No developer dependency for daily updates
Drag-and-Drop Page Management
- Simple, intuitive page creation
- Flexible layouts
- Reusable content blocks
Chat Support Integration
- Direct communication with website visitors
- Lead engagement in real time
Backend Email Marketing
- Ability to send emails directly from the system
- Manage communication from one platform
- Reduce reliance on external tools
Role-Based Access
- Different access levels for:
  - Admin
  - Agents
  - Vendors

Secure and controlled data access

Challenges

This project was complex not because of scale, but because of expectations vs usability.

1. Custom Without Complexity

TerraUrbano Home wanted a fully custom system, but their team was non-technical. Most custom platforms fail here by being powerful but unusable.

We had to balance:

Flexibility
Simplicity
Stability

2. Replacing an Existing System

TerraUrbano Home was already using a 360° solution. That meant:

The new platform had to be clearly better
Staff adoption had to be smooth
The system needed to feel familiar, not intimidating

3. Multiple User Roles

This wasn’t just a public website. It was an internal operating system:

Agents managing listings and pages
Vendors accessing specific areas
Admins controlling everything

Poor role design would have caused chaos.

Our Solution

We approached this as a custom product build, not a website project.

Step 1: Platform Architecture & Planning

Before design or development, we defined:

User roles and permissions
Content creation workflows
Backend logic for page management
Security and access boundaries

This step prevented rework later.

Step 2: UI/UX Design in Figma

We designed the full interface using Figma, focusing on:

Clean real estate aesthetics
Clear navigation
Admin usability, not just front-end visuals

Every screen was designed with real users in mind, not designers.

Step 3: Custom Backend Development

The entire system was built using Laravel.

Key backend features included:

Role-based authentication (Admin, Agent, Vendor)
Custom page builder logic
Backend-controlled content blocks
Secure data handling
Scalable architecture

This was not a CMS hack.
It was a purpose-built backend system.

Step 4: Drag-and-Drop Content Management

One of the most critical requirements was ease of use.

We implemented a drag-and-drop-style page management system that allowed:

Agents to create pages without coding
Reuse predefined layout components
Edit content safely without breaking the site

This removed daily developer dependency entirely.

Step 5: Chat & Email Integration

We integrated:

Chat support directly into the website for live visitor communication
Email functionality inside the backend so the team could:
- Send updates
- Communicate with leads
- Manage outreach centrally

This consolidated operations into a single system.

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