( 01 — The brief )
Make “private sale” literal.
The client wanted a place where selling your own home means exactly that: the seller writes the advert, sets the price, and talks to buyers directly — no agent, no valuations, no middleman dressed as software. Not an estate agency and determined never to blur into one; a platform, and proud of the distinction. Every design decision since has defended that line.
— The client, in every case on these pages, was us. We are a demanding client.
( 02 — The craft )
The anti-portal: no browse page.
HouseLocator’s boldest decision is what it doesn’t have: there is deliberately no search-results page. An advert is reached only by its unique link, its QR-coded “PRIVATE SALE” board outside the house, or its listing ID. Private means private — the anti-Rightmove.
Trust is earned, not claimed: readiness badges appear only from real evidence — a verified email, a verified mobile, documents actually in the vault — never bought and never assumed. And buyers get honest context instead of hype: sold-price history from the full HM Land Registry archive, thirty-one million transactions since 1995, presented as fact and never as a valuation.
( 03 — The engine )
Modern stack, quiet confidence.
TypeScript end to end: Next.js on top, PostgreSQL under Prisma beneath, Tailwind for the design system. Sign-in is passwordless — fifteen-minute cryptographically signed magic links. Photos and video tours upload straight from the browser to object storage; board artwork generates itself, QR and all; Stripe handles upgrades with webhook-verified fulfilment.
There’s an AI listing assistant — Claude, as it happens — that drafts only from seller-supplied facts, requires the seller’s explicit approval, and is contractually forbidden by its own prompts from inventing details or recommending prices.
( 04 — Foundations )
The rules are in the tests.
The legal boundary isn’t a memo — it’s enforced by the build. Unit tests fail if estate-agent language ever appears in the product: “book a viewing” cannot ship. Every consequential action — publishing, sharing, approving AI copy — lands in a compliance ledger with a timestamp and a snapshot.
Documents live in a private vault with explicit, revocable, counterparty-specific sharing, and every access is audited. Twenty-plus unit suites and Playwright end-to-end runs on desktop and mobile profiles guard the flows, with external uptime monitoring watching the live site.
“Book a viewing” isn’t just off-brand here. It’s a failing test.
( In brief )
- Sold-price records
- 31 million
- Discovery
- Link, QR or ID
- Sign-in
- Passwordless
- Middlemen
- Zero