01
Most real estate sites start with the house. Sana starts with the payment.
That sounds like a small change. It changes the whole conversation.
The user tells Sana what feels comfortable each month. Sana adds principal and interest, taxes, insurance, PMI and HOA fees before it shows a single home.
The core product idea
Ask what payment feels comfortable before asking what house they want.02
The small mortgage number gets attention. The real monthly payment shows up later.
A buyer may first see principal and interest, or another best-case monthly estimate. Taxes, insurance, PMI and HOA fees can come later, even though those are part of what actually leaves the bank account.
A renter compares that first number with rent and thinks, 'Maybe I can do this.' Then the full payment appears and the whole thing can feel like a bait and switch, even when nobody intended it that way.
Pick a house
See the friendliest payment number.
Learn the real total later.
Pick the payment
See the full monthly cost first.
Then look at homes that make sense.
03
I started with the people who have this conversation every day.
RRG's realtors and brokers walked me through the questions and misunderstandings they hear from early-stage buyers. I pulled the repeated ideas into a word cloud, then did outside reading to see whether those patterns held up.
The strongest theme was not the purchase price. It was the monthly hit. One person called it PITI. Another called it “my nut.” The plain-English version was the clearest: What will this really cost me every month?
This was not a formal renter study. It was discovery with real estate professionals, backed by outside research. Direct buyer testing still needs to happen.
04
The first version only needed to make one hard question easier.
Before someone gets attached to a house, help them understand what it would really cost every month.
- Ask only what changes the answer.
- Keep “comfortable” separate from “technically possible.”
- Make the full monthly payment the main number.
- Use plain-English labels instead of making people read ratios.
- Show where the estimates came from.
- Keep the buyer in control when a realtor gets involved.
05
I sketched a few boxes and started building.
The first sketch had room for one promise, one short explanation and one button. The main idea stayed above the fold. Everything else moved below it, where it could answer questions without getting in the way.
About a month in, Sana had gone through three real versions: a self-contained MVP, a RentCast version with live data, and a cleaner self-contained build while we wait for Stellar MLS.
Get the idea working
The flow and math worked, but the page was so bare it looked unfinished.
Try real listings
RentCast made the product feel real and immediately found a problem: Sana was recommending undeveloped land.
Fix what broke
I added bedroom and bathroom requirements, cleaned up the type and spacing, introduced the subtle gradient and showed the data sources.
06
Key product decisions
The interface is small on purpose. Most of the work was deciding what Sana should ask, what it should show first and how honest it should be when a home only sort of fits.
Start with real life
Ask for the comfortable payment first.
Purchase price is abstract. The monthly payment is what someone has to live with. Sana starts with the number a renter can compare directly with rent and the rest of their budget.
One thing at a time
Do not make the first screen look like a mortgage application.
Sana asks one question per screen so the user only has to think about one thing at a time. Bedrooms and bathrooms stay together because people already think of them as a pair.
Plain English
Say Good Fit, Stretch and Above Budget.
The labels do the translation. Good Fit means the home meets the practical requirements and monthly target. Stretch means it is over the preferred payment but still under the 33% income guideline. Above Budget means exactly what it says.
The home and budget line up
Meets the housing needs and stays close to or below the comfortable payment.
Possible, but tighter
Costs more than the preferred payment but stays under the 33% income guideline.
Useful context, not a nudge
Exceeds both limits, appears later and gets a quieter contact action.
Show what matters first
Lead with the full payment. Let people open the math.
Every result shows the photo, match label, monthly payment, address, beds, baths, square footage and list price. The line-by-line math stays behind “See the full monthly cost.”
Ranking
Put the safer monthly payment before the perfect ZIP code.
Sana is meant for renters who may be watching every dollar. A Good Fit in a nearby area can rank above a Stretch inside the requested area, but Sana always says when the location changed.
Be honest about compromises
Show nearby options without pretending they are exact matches.
When the exact search is thin, Sana can show nearby homes or Stretch options after the strongest results. A second label says what changed, such as “Nearby area” or “Same school zone,” as long as that explanation stays simple and reliable.
Eight to start
Show the eight strongest options first.
Sana starts with the eight best matches. It does not force in a Stretch or Above Budget home just to make the list look varied. More results appear as the user keeps scrolling.
Easy edits
Let people change an answer without starting over.
An Edit button opens all six answers in one compact modal. The user changes what they need, updates the search and lands at the top of the new results.
07
The best changes came from the product doing something dumb.
Too simple looked unfinished
Version 1 worked, but it looked like it had been coded in Notepad.
Change:Better type, spacing, hierarchy and a subtle top-to-bottom gradient.
It recommended an empty lot
The first RentCast build did not ask for bedrooms or bathrooms.
Change:I added minimum beds and baths and kept them together in one step.
Simple can look suspicious
People are used to real estate sites being busy. A quiet page can feel like it is hiding something.
Change:I showed the sources and explained the estimates instead of adding more clutter.
Make simple feel credible, not busy
The answer was not another dashboard, filter, calculator or carousel. It was better hierarchy, named sources and a clear explanation of every number.
08
Then a realtor gets involved. That can ruin the whole thing.
A calm, transparent product can still end in a high-pressure sales call. Sana’s property page keeps the same monthly-cost context and uses a low-pressure action: Ask about this home.
The buyer enters one contact method, phone or email. No message is required because the property is already the message. Sana sends an immediate acknowledgement, names the assigned realtor and routes the reply directly to them.
09
It works as a prototype. It is not proven yet.
About a month in, Sana has a working prototype and one five-person test. That was enough to catch obvious problems, including land results, missing housing requirements and the need to show where the numbers came from. It was not enough to prove the product.
Working MVP, waiting on Stellar MLS
The public prototype uses realistic sample listings so we can test the whole flow without paying for a property-data feed. Real usability and business results come after the MLS connection.
10
What I learned
The order matters as much as the math.
Starting with the full monthly payment makes every listing answer the buyer’s real question: Can I live with this?
Simple still has to earn trust.
When people expect complexity, a clean page needs clear assumptions, plain explanations and visible sources.
Clear labels can do the work of another filter.
Nearby and Stretch options do not need another toggle. They need honest labels and sensible placement.
The handoff is part of the UX.
The experience is not done when the buyer clicks a button. The realtor has to preserve the same low-pressure tone.
11
What happens next
Sana is not trying to invent mortgage math.