HostelHub: student housing, sorted.

Overview

Students looking for off-campus housing face fraudulent agents, inflated prices, long distances from lecture halls, unverified surroundings and a lack of basics like stable water and electricity. HostelHub is a verified, two-sided marketplace that connects student tenants directly with property owners.

It was our TechCrush Cohort 6 capstone (Group 3). I led the end-to-end UI/UX: research, information architecture, user flows, wireframes, prototyping and the high-fidelity mobile app, website and admin dashboard.

The problem

Students are exposed to rental scams and inflated agent fees, while landlords have no direct way to reach incoming students.

Dishonest street agents add costs on top of owners’ fees and post deceptive listings. Landlords, often far from campus, depend on middlemen, which leads to irregular vacancies and disjointed rental agreements.

Research

We ran a quantitative survey across Nigerian tertiary institutions (including Unilorin, UI, UNILAG, FUTA, OAU, LAUTECH and UNIBEN), and collected 99 detailed responses.

• Core desires: verified landlord profiles, authentic photos, student-only reviews and transparent price comparison.

• Budgets: most annual housing budgets fall between ₦80,000 and ₦400,000, with premium tiers concentrated in Lagos.

• Product–market fit: 97–98% said they would use a verified digital solution.

Who it’s for

• Olamide, 20 · student at the University of Ilorin: wants a secure room close to the main gate to cut commuting costs; was extorted by local agents in her first year.

• Babatunde, 45 · hostel owner near Unilorin: wants to market vacancies directly without costly agents, but lives far from campus.

Students told us: “I need affordable accommodation options.” “I don’t trust local non-verified agents.” “Peer reviews from students are vital.” They worried whether listings were fake and whether rooms would match the photos, and felt anxious about losing rent payments to scammers.

Competitive analysis

Hostel.ng, ULodge, Nivah Hostels and Student Accommod8 all list hostels, and some verify landlords, but real student reviews and fraud prevention were limited or only partial everywhere. Those gaps became HostelHub’s core.

MVP priorities

• High priority: photo galleries, verified landlord contacts, advanced multi-filter search and real student ratings.

• Medium priority: saved hostels, map views and side-by-side comparison.

• Future: in-app encrypted messaging and digital escrow for rent payments.

The solution

Verified listings backed by ownership documents and admin review, advanced search, side-by-side comparison, favourites and direct landlord messaging, across a student and landlord mobile app, a responsive website and an admin dashboard.

A simple five-step flow takes students from creating an account to moving in, with inquiries and booking requests in one place.

Admins review new landlords and listings, manage users, moderate reviews and handle support from one dashboard, the trust layer behind every verified badge.

Outcomes

Three connected products designed end to end (mobile app, website and admin dashboard) grounded in 99 student responses, and a live, coded marketing site built from the design.