Chris came to us with his idea for a new property platform, DwellDown. He had just moved into his new dream home with his family and young daughter. On paper it ticked all their needs: more living space, great neighbourhood, in budget. They waited in line with other interested people, toured the house and a week later found out it was theirs.

After just one week, they had realised they made a big mistake, excitement quickly turned to anguish. Damp, mould, broken appliances and no response from the landlord. However, they were able to get in touch with the previous tenants and in conversation, asked "What prompted your move?" Their answer rang true. "We were expecting a child, there’s no way you could raise a baby in that house."

This is how the DwellDown journey started, a platform that aims to bring peer to peer transparency into the Private Rental Market and Reduce Renters’ Risk.

Chris realised there was no transparency in the private rented sector. It was not possible to access the views of the previous tenants’ rental experience and therefore difficult to make an informed decision regarding whether to rent or not.

DwellDown is a neutral platform that allows tenants to rate the standard of accommodation on the basis of overall quality, comfort, communication, amenities and neighbourhood. This collection of data will help future renters make an informed decision on where they choose to live based on their needs.

The average renter spends 30 to 60% of their monthly disposable income on rent yet there is no platform available to access information on the living experience offered versus the rent being charged.

Together with Chris it was our goal to fix that.

What did you wish you knew before moving into your current home? That was the question we started with. After compiling all of the questions we came up with five categories they would fit into.

A key element to us was bringing value to all the users of DwellDown. Being realistic in the early days it would be unlikely your accommodation would have a previous rating. How then could we make the product valuable for those users.

We painstakingly complied ratings, information and various forms of data on all the neighbourhoods in Dublin. Using this we created unique information cards for each area. When you search for a property without a rating you can still get value. You know what the area is like and how other property in the are is rated.

DwellDown had to be accessible to all. We took looked at the core of the idea again and again. It always comes back to the property. So we based the user experience and design with the property record at the centre. Whenever you use DwellDown you will see the search box is there ready to be used.