Broad Creek Capital

Transforming Real Estate Investment

What I did:

As the Lead Designer, my key roles and responsibilities included:

  • Guided the design process from concept to completion.

  • Conducted user interviews and market research to gather insights.

  • Developed the overall design strategy and vision for the website.

  • Created wireframes and interactive prototypes to visualize design ideas.

  • Designed the user interface and experience, ensuring a seamless and engaging user journey.

  • Organized and conducted usability tests to refine the design based on user feedback.

Collaborated with: Commit

  • Creative Director: Provided creative oversight, ensuring the design aligned with the company's vision and branding.

  • Developer: Implemented the design, ensuring functionality and responsiveness across devices.

An Immersive Digital Experience for Potential Investors in Multifamily Real Estate in the Southeast US

Overview

Broad Creek Capital (BCC), a real estate investment company, sought to differentiate itself in the competitive multifamily real estate market in the Southeast US. They needed a unique and engaging way to attract potential investors and effectively communicate the value and growth potential of their Enhanced Income Strategy portfolio. The existing industry norms were not sufficient to provide the immersive experience that BCC wanted to offer its investors.

We started creating a custom Enhanced Income Strategy website to address this challenge. This website was designed to break away from traditional fundraising tools and provide potential investors with an immersive and engaging experience. The goal was to highlight the fund's growth over time, showcase the company's values and vision, and ultimately, attract and retain investors.

Chanllenge

Throughout the design process, we encountered several vital challenges that required innovative solutions and meticulous attention to detail:

Content Overload Management

Challenge: Each property had significant content that needed to be visually appealing and easily digestible for users.

Solution: We had to carefully curate and prioritize content, sometimes cutting down or eliminating sections to avoid overwhelming the users. This required balancing providing enough information and maintaining a clean, user-friendly design.

Scalable Content Management System (CMS):

Challenge: As the fund was expected to grow over time, developing a system that allowed non-developers to add new content to the website quickly was essential.

Solution: We designed a robust CMS that enabled the Broad Creek Capital team to update content seamlessly. Adding a new property in the CMS would automatically update all relevant instances across the website, including markers on maps, collection pages, and navigation links. This system ensured efficiency and consistency in content management.

Multiple Design Iterations

Challenge: Given the custom nature of the website, we anticipated numerous design iterations to achieve the desired user experience.

Solution: We adopted an iterative design process, allowing for flexibility and continuous improvement based on feedback and testing. This approach ensured that the final design was both functional and visually appealing.

Interactive Maps

Challenge: The integration and customization of maps were particularly challenging—the maps needed to effectively display various geographical levels, from specific neighborhoods to entire regions.

Solution: Through experimentation and patience, we utilized Mapbox to tweak and refine the maps, ensuring they fit the layout and goals of Broad Creek Capital. The final design included customized maps showing different scales, providing a detailed yet user-friendly experience.

Discover: Key Insights

Through user and market research, we identified crucial design and functional needs for a real estate investment platform. Investors prioritize intuitive, immersive online experiences that provide in-depth property insights, such as progress updates, neighborhood details, and performance analytics. ESG factors and technological integration, including interactive maps and real-time data, are increasingly critical in driving investment decisions. The target demographic—primarily middle-aged, high-net-worth individuals from Europe and the US—seeks platforms with transparent, organized information to make informed decisions.

Competitor analysis revealed opportunities to differentiate by enhancing accessibility, offering ESG-aligned investments, and integrating advanced engagement tools like virtual property tours. Direct competitors such as M&G Real Estate and Nuveen excel in institutional investments but present gaps in usability for individual investors. Crowdfunding platforms like CrowdStreet and Fundrise highlight the demand for user-friendly platforms but lack global reach. Together, these insights inform a user-centered design strategy focused on innovation, accessibility, and market relevance.

Brainstorming

To address user needs, we designed innovative features like interactive maps to visualize property locations and surrounding amenities, a fundraising tool for dynamic financial projections, and a streamlined content presentation strategy with downloadable PDFs to balance detail with simplicity. Ensuring responsive design, the platform offered a seamless, touch-friendly experience across devices.

User Journey

We mapped a comprehensive user journey covering five stages: awareness, consideration, decision, engagement, and conversion. Key features included a visually appealing homepage, interactive maps, detailed property pages, and tools like scenario analysis to guide users from exploration to investment. Follow-up communication and onboarding materials ensured ongoing engagement post-conversion.

Validation

Using Webflow, we conducted usability testing with diverse investors, evaluating navigation, interactive features, and content clarity. Feedback highlighted the intuitive design, value of interactive maps, and effectiveness of the fundraising tool. Testing across devices confirmed consistent performance, ensuring a polished user experience.

PROJECT OUTCOME

The BCC Enhanced Income Strategy website project delivered a comprehensive and engaging platform representing Broad Creek Capital's brand and investment opportunities to European investors.

  • The interactive maps, a central feature of the website, provided users with a detailed and visually engaging way to explore property locations and surrounding neighborhoods. The Broad Creek Capital team and investors highly appreciated the feature, enhancing their understanding and interest in the investment opportunities.

  • Upon first presentation, the Broad Creek Capital team expressed immediate enthusiasm and satisfaction with the website design, recognizing it as a perfect representation of their brand. The content management system (CMS) designed for the website allows for easy updates and additions, ensuring that Broad Creek Capital can continue to provide fresh and relevant content as the fund grows and evolves.