Choosing a place to live is never an easy decision. Hours spent on searching can pay off in finding yourself a new perfect house. But what if there is still something missing? Zizabi comes up with a solution for those who know that moving is not only about changing a house. The new school, neighbors and the whole new community come as an extra package. With Zizabi, you don’t have to worry about finding a dream house in an unpleasant environment. The best kindergartens, the closest parks or the smallest criminality rates – all these little details count. Zizabi knows the way to have the right house at the right place and the right price.

What is Zizabi?

When somebody asks you “where do you live?”, what do you often think of? The most common answer wouldn’t be – I live in a flat. You would most likely go for the name of the city, neighbourhood or the street. No matter if we own the house or if it´s rented. It´s never that easy to choose your home. And by home, I do not mean only the roof and four walls. So what is the difference between Zizabi and a Real estate agency? Zizabi provides to the user the most valuable information about the living conditions in a particular neighborhood.

Imagine you found your dream house, but there was no school for your kid around, or the area was known for “that dangerous part of town”?

I assure you this will never happen, if checking Zizabi first.

The beginnings

Getting into the real estate market as a startup is a huge risk. But Rui Neves and his mates, the 5 co-founders of Zizabi, knew that was the biggest challenge from the very beginning. They had an advantage though, all of them were very experienced, some had been in real estate before and they all knew what is it like to run a startup. One thing was undeniable for the founders– to maximize the user satisfaction by giving him something extra. Two years ago it was about the time to stop focusing only on the listings of houses and start exploring.

What has the biggest impact on our decisions when moving places? Is it the availability of services, the age of people living there? It could be even much more. So what can we actually find on Zizabi? We can compare the data about the security, safety, services or the population. There is literally everything from how many of your future neighbors have a college degree to what is the closest police station. Obviously it depends on the need of each user – what is the most determining factor for him. The users´ profile is difficult to define. You visit Zizabi when you are going to rent a house in a new city, but you can just be curious about the street you currently live in. All the information is always up to date and based on the complex research and data collected from several sources such as Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Education or different portuguese statistical Institutes. What’s on Zizabi is nowhere else to be found. That leads to the requests to ´borrow´ the data for other areas like tourism or advertising.

Now the statistics are not all we look for. But what we might seek as well is a person who can give us the information at first hand. That´s why the extra layer to be found on Zizabi is the crowdsourcing. What others think about the neighborhood? Can they recommend it? Is it quiet? The opinions of other people are necessary and the numbers are not enough in this case. Apart from the statistics and people´s comments, the map on the website makes it all even easier. You can see which neighborhoods are cheaper or how many houses are in the area, and just compare it with the rest of the city.

What’s next

Zizabi is a very young startup, but already covering all the cities in Portugal. We can compare the areas all over the country. It is the truth that Zizabi´s sandbox is Portugal for now. But it is definitely getting attention from abroad for a reason. People coming to live in Portugal often visit Zizabi to choose from more than 80 thousand houses and all their surroundings. It gets even better and will catch the attention of more international users when the translation of website to english is introduced in a couple of weeks.

The team is currently working on the new feature to be added – the news & events. This way it is not only the indicators of environment, not only opinions, but also the happenings that can make the decision to choose the home easier. Zizabi is truly growing every day. The main goal for the upcoming times is to develop a perfect product for Portugal. But, the truth is, even though the markets in different countries might have different needs, the people all over the world will always have one thing in common…

Because, either if you are a french looking for an apartment in the centre of Paris or a portuguese looking for a cheap place in the calm countryside – you will want to feel like home wherever you move.

Still curious about what is the best place to live in? Next time, when searching for a house, do it differently.

Credits: Cover picture designed by Freepik