Diseño Web y UX
Rate My Rent
What if tenants could talk openly about their renting experience… without putting themselves at risk?
That was the real question behind Rate My Rent.
Not whether people wanted to leave reviews, but whether it could be done responsibly, legally, and without exposing anyone in the process.
The idea was simple: give renters a space to share their experience with properties and landlords.
Making it work in the real world was not.
Services:
• Product Strategy
• Experience Design
• Web Design
• Web development
Industry:
• Real Estate
• Rentals
• Consumer Platforms
The team:
• Founder
• Co-founder
• Legal advisors
• Product & development (me)
Year:
2025
What is Rate My Rent
Rate My Rent started as a lean idea from a founder who had seen, firsthand, how little transparency exists in the rental market.
Tenants talk privately. Landlords control the narrative.
The platform aimed to balance that, carefully.
Project overview
The initial request was straightforward: build a platform where tenants could rate rental properties and landlords.
But early conversations quickly shifted the focus.
This wasn’t just a product challenge — it was a legal one.
Reviews involve names, addresses, opinions, and consequences. One wrong decision could expose users or the business itself. Based on previous experience with review-based platforms, I advised the founder early on about potential legal risks and privacy concerns, before any design decisions were made.
The product needed to protect users as much as it empowered them.
Scope of work
The platform was designed and built in WordPress, but it required far more than a standard setup.
Custom logic was developed in PHP to support account creation, reviews, moderation rules, and stricter data handling. User flows were carefully shaped to avoid exposing sensitive information, while still allowing honest feedback to surface.
Design and development happened together, adjusting constantly as legal input was added to the conversation. At a certain point, a legal team joined the project to validate assumptions and refine boundaries — which then fed directly back into the product.
Every decision was weighed against one question: does this protect the user?
Final result
The result was a functioning MVP that allowed users to sign up, submit reviews, and explore rental feedback while keeping personal data guarded.
More importantly, the MVP validated the core idea. It proved that there was real interest, and that transparency in rentals could exist without turning into exposure or conflict.
The product didn’t try to scale fast. It tried to scale responsibly.
What this project reinforced
Some products aren’t risky because of technology — they’re risky because of people.
This project was a reminder that good decisions don’t always show up on the interface. Sometimes they live in what isn’t shown, what’s delayed, or what’s intentionally left out.
For platforms dealing with real lives, real homes, and real consequences, trust isn’t a feature.
It’s the foundation.