Modernizing an established real estate marketplace means working with more than a legacy codebase.
The application already supports property search, listing management, communication, notifications, promotion services, and other connected journeys. Each part depends on backend services, business rules, and processes that have developed over time. Replacing the application requires the team to understand these relationships and decide what should be preserved, redesigned, or retired.
This was the context of Gilzor’s long-term Android development partnership with an established real estate platform. We rebuilt its legacy application from scratch, introduced a modern mobile architecture, and expanded the product for new user and business scenarios.
The new application now has more than 100,000 downloads on Google Play and is distributed across both Google and Huawei ecosystems.
A large marketplace serves several audiences at once. Buyers and tenants want to find relevant properties quickly. Owners need to publish and manage listings. Industry professionals rely on additional tools for visibility, communication, and account management.
These journeys are connected. Changes to listing submission can affect moderation and search. Promotion services depend on user accounts, payments, analytics, and listing status. Messaging needs to work with notifications and remain reliable when the connection is unstable.
The complexity is therefore not concentrated in one technically difficult feature. It comes from the number of dependencies and the need to keep the product consistent as its individual parts change.
Successful real estate marketplace app modernization requires both sound architectural decisions and a detailed understanding of how the product works in practice.
Gilzor joined the project as a long-term mobile development partner. Our Android engineers worked alongside the client’s product, backend, design, and QA teams.
Our first responsibility was to replace the outdated Android application with a maintainable native product. Instead of reproducing every legacy screen in a single release, we identified the essential journeys, established the new application foundation, and expanded its functionality in stages.
This approach reduced migration risk and allowed the product team to reconsider existing workflows based on current requirements. Features were not transferred automatically: each journey could be preserved, redesigned, or replaced according to its value for users and the business.
The partnership has continued for more than three years, covering the main application rebuild as well as new search, communication, listing management, and monetization capabilities
The application was built natively with Kotlin, Android SDK, and Jetpack Compose.
Using Jetpack Compose throughout the application provided a consistent approach to UI development without introducing a mixture of legacy and modern interface frameworks. MVVM separates the interface, application state, and business logic, making individual areas easier to develop and maintain.
The mobile application communicates with the platform through a Backend for Frontend layer using GraphQL. Instead of coordinating multiple backend services directly, the app receives data through an interface designed around mobile use cases.
The architecture also accounts for real production conditions. DataStore manages local application data, while WorkManager supports background and deferred operations. This is particularly useful for sending chat messages after a temporary connection problem and handling larger media uploads without blocking the user.
These decisions made the application easier to extend and reduced the amount of platform complexity that individual features need to handle.
Supporting both Google Play and Huawei AppGallery required more than publishing the same build in two stores.
Huawei devices use alternatives to several Google Mobile Services. Push notifications, location features, and other platform-dependent functionality therefore need dedicated integrations.
We created separate Google and Huawei builds with a shared application core. Most of the codebase remains common, while the required platform services are selected during the build process.
Engineering perspective
“The Google and Huawei versions share most of the application, but the platform-specific part is critical. Push notifications, location, and other services need separate implementations. Without them, the application may be available on a device while essential user scenarios still do not work as expected.”
— Mikhail Bobrikovich, Android Developer at Gilzor
For users, this provides a consistent marketplace experience across both ecosystems. For the business, it expands device coverage without creating two independent applications with separate development and maintenance costs.
The rebuilt application supports the central journeys of a real estate marketplace: advanced property search, map-based discovery, saved searches, favourites, listing submission, account management, and direct communication.
The listing creation flow was redesigned around structured real estate data and different listing scenarios. Users can create, update, and manage properties directly from the application, while the platform receives the information required for search, presentation, and moderation.
Built-in messaging allows users to discuss properties without moving the conversation to another channel. Saved searches and notifications help them return when relevant listings or updates appear.
The application also includes promotion and monetization tools for owners and industry professionals. These services allow customers to increase listing visibility, access extended capabilities, and manage their presence on the marketplace.
Together, these features support more of the property journey within the application. Users can move from discovery to communication and listing management without switching between disconnected tools, while the marketplace gains additional opportunities to increase engagement and monetize professional services.
The modernization turned the Android application into a more sustainable business channel rather than simply replacing an outdated product.
A maintainable architecture reduces the effort and risk involved in changing existing journeys or launching new services. The product team can develop search, listing, communication, and commercial functionality without each update becoming a costly workaround for legacy limitations.
The shared application core also allows the marketplace to serve users across Google and Huawei devices without financing and coordinating two separate products. This increases Android coverage while keeping future development and maintenance within one codebase.
The redesigned user journeys support the marketplace at different stages of the customer lifecycle. Search and saved criteria encourage users to return, messaging keeps property-related communication inside the platform, and listing management gives owners and professionals a direct way to maintain their inventory. Promotion services add clear monetization opportunities by allowing customers to pay for greater visibility and extended capabilities.
With more than 100,000 downloads on Google Play, the application is now an established owned channel through which the business can engage users, deliver paid services, and introduce new marketplace offerings. The main outcome is not only a modern Android app, but greater control over how the mobile product can support revenue and future growth.
A complete rebuild was appropriate for this project, but not every legacy application needs to be replaced from scratch.
Some products need a focused architecture update. Others are held back by unstable integrations, outdated dependencies, insufficient monitoring, or problems in one critical user journey. Beginning development before identifying the actual constraint can lead to an expensive rebuild that solves the wrong problem.
A Mobile App Audit helps determine whether an application should be repaired, stabilized, refactored, or rebuilt. It connects the condition of the codebase with runtime behaviour, user flows, store performance, and business priorities.
Gilzor’s Mobile App Audit turns these findings into a prioritized modernization plan: what needs attention first, which parts of the product can be preserved, where the main dependencies are, and what level of engineering effort is likely to be required. This gives product leaders a clearer basis for deciding where to invest before committing budget to a redesign or rebuild.
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Real estate app development requires more than implementing search, maps, and listing screens. The mobile product needs to connect different user groups, backend services, commercial tools, and platform ecosystems within one consistent experience.
In this project, Gilzor combined native Android expertise with a controlled modernization strategy and a detailed understanding of marketplace workflows. The result is an application that has replaced the legacy product, supports the platform’s commercial model, and provides a reliable foundation for future services.
Explore the full real estate marketplace case study →
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