Agata Ageieva

Senior Product Designer

CrowdBuilding
2026

Listing homes instead of initiatives

CrowdBuilding presented housing initiatives through renders and long texts about their values. Research showed that home seekers decide on size, price and move-in date. I shifted discovery from initiatives to available homes, and mapped where the model breaks, which is housing cooperatives.

Role
Senior Product Designer, sole designer
Company
CrowdBuilding
Scope
Discovery, home listings
Platform
Web

01
Impact

Listings in the first week
8
Increase in returning users
+16%
Increase in active users
+5%
  • Homes became visible. Discovery moved from a list of initiatives to a listing of available homes.
  • A new revenue stream. Initiatives can pay to list and promote their homes, through tiered promotion packages.
  • An open problem, mapped. A proposed direction for housing cooperatives, already 35–40% of listings, where the model doesn't fit.

02
Context

CrowdBuilding was built to show housing initiatives, each with a few renders and a lot of text about who the group is and what they value. Discovery was an index of those initiatives.

The idea was that a strong story would attract the right home seekers. A home seeker would read about the group, feel connected, and get in touch.

That was partly true, but to decide, people needed details such as the price range or the units an initiative plans to build.

Before and after: the old index of initiatives, told through renders and values, next to the new listing of available homes with price, size and delivery.

03
Problem

How big, how much, and when?

Home seekers decide on how big the home is, what it costs and when they can move in. On CrowdBuilding, that information was hard to find or missing. A story creates interest, but it doesn't answer the questions that decide whether someone takes the next step.

Showing those facts came with its own challenge. These homes are still being developed. Prices are estimates, and delivery dates can be years away and can slip. The design had to show those numbers without promising more certainty than anyone had.

Object model diagram. Before: a single box, initiative. After: an initiative branches into two housing units; the first housing unit branches into two homes, the second into one home.
The object model. Before, an initiative was the only thing on the platform. Now an initiative holds housing units, and each housing unit holds one or more homes, each with its own size and price. The delivery date mostly stays at the initiative level.
Left, the old initiative card: a 'looking for members' badge, a render, location, financing phase and name. Right, the revised initiative card, annotated: a '5 homes available' badge for the concrete offering, a photo of the building group next to the render, location and name, the price range, the number of homes as the size of the project, the delivery date, the space range in square metres, and avatars of people interested as the social aspect.
The revised card keeps the initiative but leads with how many homes are available, the price and space range, the delivery date and the size of the project. A photo of the building group and the people interested keep the human side visible.

04
Assumptions

What we got wrong

  1. We assumed a story about the initiative was enough to attract home seekers.

    What happened Home seekers decide on size, price and move-in date. The story created interest, but the facts drove the decision.

    What changed Homes became visible, and discovery shifted from an index of initiatives to a listing of available homes, closer to a real estate site.

  2. We assumed every project would have homes to list.

    What happened That holds for CPO projects, where people buy a specific home. It breaks for housing cooperatives, where there is no fixed home or price to list until late in the process.

    What changed It became the open problem at the end of this case study, about where the model breaks.

05
Decisions

The decisions and their trade-offs

  1. List homes, not only initiatives

    Each available home shows its size, price and expected delivery, and discovery became a listing of homes, closer to a real estate site.

    Trade-off: the initiative's story moves out of the spotlight, and the platform starts to look more like a property portal than a community.

  2. Be honest about uncertainty

    Homes still in development carry estimated prices and delivery dates that can be years away and can slip. Listings say so instead of hiding it.

    Trade-off: honest estimates look less certain than a polished property listing, which can make a home feel less real.

  3. No unit creation flow, yet

    Initiatives can't add their own homes. We wanted to stay lean, and with low volume expected at first, our team adds the listings itself.

    Trade-off: every new listing depends on our team's time, and it won't scale as the number of listings grows.

From listing to home. An initiative's page lists its housing types under Units, each with a price range and the number of homes available. Each housing type opens its own page with the floor plan, price, size, bedrooms and delivery, and a button to respond.

06
Solution

Each home now has its own listing, with the facts home seekers decide on. Home seekers browse available homes instead of reading through initiatives one by one.

Admins also needed somewhere for applications to land. I designed a dashboard where they can see and compare applicants, review each application, send a message, remove someone from the list, or make them a member of the initiative.

Accepting or rejecting someone for a home happens elsewhere, so the dashboard does one job. Admins see who applied and get in touch with the people they like.

The admin side. Applications land in their own tab, next to members, followers and the interest list, with new ones marked. From the list, an admin can open an application or get in touch straight away, here inviting an applicant to a viewing.

07
Open problem

Where the model breaks

You buy a specific home

  • A known unit, size and price
  • Estimated, but listable from day one

You join, then members decide who lives where

  • Members usually rent from the cooperative
  • Who gets which home is decided late, by the members themselves
  • No fixed home or price to list

Listing homes works for CPO, where a group commissions homes together and each member buys a specific one. It doesn't work for a wooncoöperatie, a housing cooperative. There, members usually rent from the cooperative, and the members themselves decide late in the process who gets which home. There's no fixed unit or price to list. This problem isn't solved yet.

My proposed direction is to list the place in the cooperative instead of a home, and describe the pool honestly.

  1. Show the housing mix, personally

    For example 2 three-bed, 10 two-bed and 8 one-bed homes, and what that means for you: "2 of 20 homes would suit your household".

  2. Show cost as a range

    A range of monthly costs plus any member contribution, marked as an estimate.

  3. Make allocation rules visible

    Every listing says whether homes go by merit, need, lottery or seniority.

  4. One search, two card types

    Shared filters across all projects, with separate cards for CPO homes and cooperative places.

  5. Start with research

    Find the minimum common data model across cooperatives before designing the listing itself.

Concept · not shipped

De Groene Hof, wooncoöperatie in Utrecht

2 three-bed10 two-bed8 one-bed

2 of 20 homes would suit your household

Monthly cost
€850–1,150 estimate
Member contribution
€5,000 estimate
Who gets which home
Decided by members, by need
A cooperative listing that describes the pool honestly, with an invented example. The household's fit is personal, the costs are ranges, and the allocation rule is always visible.

Why it matters. Cooperatives are already 35–40% of listings. Policy in 2026 points to more of them, including a cooperative housing bill passed by the Tweede Kamer and a €60.6M fund for cooperative housing. Solving it is the next step for CrowdBuilding.