Metro-Home needed a website that would let customers window shop apartments by replicating the experience of a visitor strolling the streets of Manhattan, sight-seeing, getting a feel for each neighborhood's character, and even attending open houses to check out the views.

Another must: The often week-long process of securing a rental from identifying a favorite unit to requesting confidential details about the apartment to mailing a security deposit and signing a lease would need to be chiseled down to minutes.

We built a website that is elegant, automated, secure, and tailored to Metro-Home's business needs all with our signature personal touch.

Metro-Home.com offers visitors virtual walkthroughs of New York's boroughs and available pied-à-terre. An interactive map offers a bird's-eye view of all available units (indicated by thumbnail icons) in real time, as they are put on the market.

But the power lies in the back-end. Every step of the sales process, from emailing customers private hyperlinks of property details to invoicing to accepting credit card payments, is solved for via a single portal.

Visual Information
Site visitors see a polished front-end site. Customers can mouse-over property icons to view teaser details, and then click into the listing for amenities, prices, and photos.

Metro-Home.com offers a rich visual experience through sidewalk-view slideshows of each neighborhood”you can all but smell the coffee brewing at the cafe on the corner. Want to know the neighborhood's demographics, the number of ATMs on each block, or where to find the best Middle Eastern food in the area? Descriptions of each neighborhood give you the low-down.

Customized Programming
The back-end includes custom-designed applications that enable leasing agents to easily list and delete properties. The information is then translated to the website so customers can check up-to-date availability online.

Customers can now find a unit they like, reserve it, and pay for it, all in a New York minute, through a single portal. For the leasing agent, this eliminates labor-intensive tasks like digging up and mailing sell sheets, attaching photos to emails, faxing leases, and waiting for security deposits to arrive in the mail. The time saved by automating these processes online saves Metro-Home an untold amount of money.

Seamless Integration with Existing Sales Tool
To make the transition to online a seamless one for the client, we made Metro-Home.com plug into the company's existing NetSuite data. This allows leasing agents to access the information and contacts they're accustomed to, with no need to adapt to a new solution.

Secure Information and E-Commerce
Because Metro-Home advertises apartments owned by actual New York residents, security is key. Proprietary information simply can't be disclosed on the website for all to see.

Through the back-end portal, leasing agents can shoot of an email to an interested renter with a secure, private link, a sell sheet, and if all goes well, an invoice.

Leases, too, can be signed, sent, and received electronically. Snail mail becomes obsolete with the back-end ability to send electronic lease agreements and receive encrypted credit card payments online, giving renters peace of mind.