How StreetEasy Boosted Sales Lead Generation by 115% with Custom Search Tools
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80%
increase in CTR on search result cards
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24%
rise in HDP page views for rentals
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33X
faster page load time after implementing Elasticsearch
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18%
improvement in contact conversion rates for experts and 14% for sales
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Client name
StreetEasy
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Industry
Real estate
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Location
New York, USA
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Size
200+ employees
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Duration
2013 – present
After Zillow acquired StreetEasy in 2013, Anadea’s team—already trusted for their work on Zillow’s Buyfolio—transitioned to revamp the platform. Evolving from an NYC listings hub into a data-driven marketplace equipped with many user-centric features, the platform achieved 180 million annual visits.
Challenges
It all began when StreetEasy—the leading U.S. real estate marketplace—reached a turning point. Surging user growth and shifting market needs had exposed the limitations of its aging infrastructure threatening its ability to innovate and retain customers. The platform struggled to adopt innovative and robust solutions, jeopardizing loyalty of its customers in a hyper-competitive market.
To resolve these challenges, StreetEasy initiated a strategic overhaul of the platform’s infrastructure with the help of Anadea. What started as a technical modernization effort soon expanded into 12 years of partnership. Overall, Anadea has helped StreetEasy to overcome the following hurdles:
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Scalability limits
The legacy monolithic architecture greatly limited scalability, slowed down feature releases and couldn’t handle traffic spikes.
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Security and compliance
Vulnerability to cyberattacks and inability to support new updates and authentication standards or comply with industry regulations.
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Low engagement
Declining CTR on search pages signaled a disconnect between user expectations and platform capabilities.
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Ad optimization
Limited access to premium advertising tools by agents left untapped opportunities.
Solutions
To transform the platform into a modern, competitive product, we implemented a two-phase transition strategy, with the shift to microservices as the foundation for all future innovations.
STEP 1
Microservices Migration
Our team started the core platform migration in 2019 and though in just one year, they moved essential workflows to microservices, further integrations and enhancements lasted until 2023. Given that the platform was used by thousands of users daily, ensuring business continuity and avoiding disruptions were paramount. For this, Anadea enabled:
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Full transition to microservices architecture with modularized functionalities
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Implementation of Kubernetes for orchestration and Docker for containerization
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Integration of real-time monitoring for rapid incident resolution
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Kafka & Salesforce integration for asynchronous communication between services.
STEP 2
Feature Rollout
Interactive Map (MapProject)
- An interactive map enhances navigation and engagement with listings
- Users can browse and filter listings directly on the map, which increases customer engagement and submission rates
- 88% of users said the Test Map was easier to use
- 94% said the Test Map was more modern, reaching parity with competition
Seller Front Door
- Dashboard for long-term sellers with profit calculators
- Introduced a new “Claim Your Home” landing page
- Increased seller engagement by capturing more home claims and offering financial insights to drive return visits
Listing Ranking Algorithm
- A system that ranks listings, prioritizes personalized search results, optimizing ad investments
- Analysis of user preferences and engagement ensures that the most relevant listings appear first, enhancing visibility and conversions
Third-Party Services
- Payment systems (Braintree, Zuora)
- Email notifications (SendWithUs, Iterable)
Core Platform Features
Anadea helped StreetEasy modernize and expand their core solution for clients and real estate agents. Here's what we implemented:
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Advanced Search
Filters for price, keywords, bedrooms, and neighborhoods.
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3D Tours
Virtual property walkthroughs for remote buyers/renters.
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Agent Tools
Listing analytics, promotion options, and shared drafts.
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Scraping
Automated third-party listing updates.
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Notifications
Editable user notifications are implemented via Sendwithus.
Timeline
Over 12 years of close partnership with Anadea allowed StreetEasy to transform into the largest real estate platform in NYC
Let’s recap key milestones of the project:
2015
- Upgraded to Rails 3 and Ruby 1.9.3
- Launched StreetEasy Experts—the first iteration of a premium agent platform
2016 - 2017
- Migrated to Cells architecture
- Upgraded to Rails 4/Ruby 2.x and Rails 5
- Introduced Paid Inclusion for rental listings—resulted in 15% annual revenue growth
2018 - 2020
- Extracted OutEast as a standalone service
- Migrated from SWU to Iterable for communications
- Transitioned from jQuery to React for new pages
- Began migration from monolithic to microservices architecture (2019)
- Launched Naked Apartments and upgraded to Rails 6.0
2021
- New user onboarding flow and updated User Profile
- Launched Building Showcase—an advertising suite with campaign tiers
- Introduced features: listing notes (+267% usage WoW), hide listings, improved mobile web sharing (+430% engagement)
- Integrated Kafka, Salesforce, and migrated payment system from Braintree to Zuora
2022
- FXBO Landing Page & Owner Tools for property owners
- Seller Dashboard with views, analytics, messages, and comps tables
- Map Update with interactive filters: +115% sales conversion
2023
- Upgraded to Rails 7/Ruby 3.x
- Launched Seller Front Door and Owner Dashboard with property value forecasts
Services
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Backend development
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DevOps
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Quality Assurance
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Migration to microservices
Dedicated Team
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5
Back-end Developers
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4
Front-end Developers
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4
QAs/SQEs
Tech Stack
Ruby on Rails
Java
Python
Redis
MySQL
GraphQl
Elastic Search
Memcached
React
Splunk
DataDog/Newrelic
Capybara
Playwright
Docker
Kubernetes
Ruby on Rails
Java
Python
Redis
MySQL
GraphQl
Elastic Search
Memcached
React
Splunk
DataDog/Newrelic
Capybara
Playwright
Docker
Kubernetes
Is your monolith costing you revenue? It’s time for microservices!
See how StreetEasy did it—and replicate their success with our battle-tested approach.
Business Value
From migrating away from a monolithic architecture to implementing cutting-edge features—every step has brought StreetEasy closer to market leadership.
By transitioning to a microservices architecture, the platform gained unparalleled agility, enabling seamless scalability under heavy traffic. Here are some of the most essential measurable benefits Zillow company got from our 12-year partnership.
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Handling 180M+ annual visits
The platform allows for more than 15M monthly visits without downtime, owing to a finely tuned system and the ability to scale up/down on demand.
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115% Increase in Sales Leads
StreetEasy’s 2022 interactive map transformed engagement, driving a 115% leap in leads—directly converting user activity into revenue growth.
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33X Page Speed Increase
After integrating Elasticsearch and rethinking search architecture, the load time of the Search Results page improved from 10 seconds to 0.3 seconds.
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15+ Key Features Developed
From 3D tours to Seller Front Door—these innovations have transformed the platform into a market leader.
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Cost Savings & Revenue Growth
Microservices reduced infrastructure overhead, freeing up resources for customer-centric innovations.
Overall, modernization of StreetEasy delivered tangible business outcomes that transformed its operations and user experience. While the project continues, Anadea, as a trusted partner, is fully committed to innovative features implementation and support of existing solutions.
Other Projects
Beyond StreetEasy, we have also developed solutions that are now redefining industries — from real estate automation to smart workspace tools. Here’s a glimpse into our diverse expertise:
Flexidea
Flexidea is an AI-driven invoice financing platform that enables businesses to get funded within 24 hours, with over €68M in invoices processed and smart auto-filling powered by custom ML models.
Visdeal
Visdeal is a top fishing e-commerce platform, rebuilt by Anadea for better scalability, 10x faster performance, seamless localization, and integrations with warehouse systems.
Contact us
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