Vanmates
Student housing, co-living and homestays across Vancouver, Toronto and Montréal: a platform rebuilt from the data layer up while it stayed live.
- Client
- Vanmates, student housing, Canada
- Year
- 2022–2024
- Category
- Web app
- Role
- Full-stack engineering
- Stack
- Next.js · React · Firebase · Strapi → Firebase migration · GraphQL · Vercelvisit live site ↗
International students book housing sight-unseen from another continent. The platform had to earn deep trust fast with verified listings, transparent pricing and effortless booking, while the backend needed to outgrow its CMS.
Full-stack delivery across client and server: booking flows built around trust signals (verified homes, reviews, clear all-in pricing), plus a strategic migration from Strapi to Firebase for efficiency and scale, deployed through a Vercel CI/CD pipeline.
A faster, more scalable platform and a booking experience students actually trust. An SEO strategy shipped alongside the rebuild grew organic traffic by 25%.
organic traffic from the SEO strategy
Every listing leads with what students fear getting wrong: real photos, verified badges, all-inclusive pricing and reviews: trust designed into the layout, not bolted on.
The Strapi-to-Firebase migration replaced a self-hosted CMS bottleneck with realtime data and zero-maintenance infrastructure, with no downtime during the switch.