BlockWatch.com

Monitor short-term rental activity in any apartment building before you buy or invest

Score: 6.1/10BJMedium Build
Brand Colors

The Opportunity

Problem

Apartment buyers inherit costly, hard-to-fix problems from unregulated short-term letting when the body corporate lacks proper controls.

Solution

BlockWatch lets investors track specific buildings and receive alerts when new short-term rental listings appear or when body corporate sentiment changes. Community members anonymously report issues, creating a live risk map for prospective buyers in STR hotspots.

Target Audience

Prospective apartment buyers and investors in strata-titled buildings in short-term rental hotspots

Differentiator

Live community intelligence network combined with automated listing detection — no other tool offers ongoing building-level visibility for strata investors.

Brand Voice

supportive

Features

Building Watchlist

must-have25h

Add any apartment complex to your personal monitoring list

Activity Alerts

must-have35h

Email and in-app alerts when new STR listings appear in watched buildings

Community Reporting

must-have40h

Anonymous reporting of noise, damage, or rule violations with photo upload

Risk Heatmap

must-have45h

Interactive map showing STR density and risk levels by suburb

Building Profile Pages

must-have30h

Public profiles showing history, reported issues, and aggregate risk score

Sentiment Tracker

must-have28h

Tracks body corporate meeting tone changes over time

Weekly Digest

nice-to-have18h

Curated email summary of activity in your watched buildings

Exportable Reports

nice-to-have22h

Professional PDF reports for lenders or co-investors

API for Agents

nice-to-have35h

Access to building data for real estate professionals

Total Build Time: 278 hours

Database Schema

users

ColumnTypeNullable
iduuidNo
emailtextNo
subscription_tiertextNo
created_attimestampNo

Relationships:

  • watchlist.user_id references users.id
  • reports.submitted_by references users.id

buildings

ColumnTypeNullable
iduuidNo
addresstextNo
strata_plantextYes
risk_scoreintYes
last_updatedtimestampNo

Relationships:

  • watchlist.building_id references buildings.id
  • reports.building_id references buildings.id

watchlist

ColumnTypeNullable
iduuidNo
user_iduuidNo
building_iduuidNo
alert_leveltextNo

reports

ColumnTypeNullable
iduuidNo
building_iduuidNo
categorytextNo
descriptiontextNo
is_anonymousboolNo
created_attimestampNo

Relationships:

  • reports.building_id references buildings.id

API Endpoints

GET
/api/buildings/search

Search buildings by address or suburb

POST
/api/watchlist

Add building to user's watchlist

🔒 Auth Required
POST
/api/reports

Submit community report

🔒 Auth Required
GET
/api/alerts

Get pending alerts for user

🔒 Auth Required
GET
/api/heatmap

Fetch suburb risk data for map

Tech Stack

Frontend
SvelteKit + Tailwind + MapLibre
Backend
SvelteKit server routes
Database
PostgreSQL
Auth
Lucia Auth
Payments
Stripe
Hosting
Railway
Additional Tools
ResendBullMQ for background jobs

Build Timeline

Week 1: Core platform setup

38h
  • SvelteKit app
  • Auth system
  • Database + Prisma
  • Landing page

Week 2: Building and watchlist system

32h
  • Building search
  • Watchlist functionality
  • Basic profiles

Week 3: Community reporting

35h
  • Report submission flow
  • Moderation queue
  • Public building pages

Week 4: Alerts and notifications

30h
  • Alert engine
  • Email digests
  • In-app notifications

Week 5: Polish, payments, launch

28h
  • Stripe billing
  • Heatmap
  • SEO pages
  • Launch assets
Total Timeline: 5 weeks • 198 hours

Pricing Tiers

Free

$0/mo

No alerts

  • Watch 2 buildings
  • Basic risk scores
  • Public reports

Pro

$25/mo

None

  • Watch 20 buildings
  • Real-time alerts
  • Weekly digests
  • PDF reports

Agency

$79/mo

Unlimited

  • Everything in Pro
  • API access
  • Team seats
  • White label reports
  • Priority moderation

Revenue Projections

MonthUsersConversionMRRARR
Month 124014%$840$10,080
Month 61,85021%$9,765$117,180

Unit Economics

$35
CAC
$720
LTV
5.2%
Churn
78%
Margin
LTV:CAC Ratio: 20.6xExcellent!

Landing Page Copy

See inside any apartment building before you buy

Real community reports and live short-term rental activity alerts for strata buildings.

Feature Highlights

Live STR listing alerts
Anonymous neighbor reports
Suburb risk heatmaps
Building history timeline

Social Proof (Placeholders)

"Caught a building that went from 3 to 27 Airbnbs in one month. Saved my investment. - David Thompson"
"Best due diligence tool I've found in 12 years of investing. - Rebecca Nguyen"

First Three Customers

Seed the platform with 40 buildings in Byron Bay, Surfers Paradise and Melbourne CBD by manually collecting public data and initial reports. Offer free lifetime Pro accounts to the first 25 active community contributors. Partner with 3 property investment coaches who will promote the tool to their audiences.

Launch Channels

Product Huntr/AusPropertyr/strataFacebook Property Investor groupsLinkedInIndie Hackers

SEO Keywords

monitor airbnb activity buildingstrata building risk trackershort term rental alerts australiaapartment block airbnb densitybefore buying apartment check strata

Competitive Analysis

AirDNA

airdna.co
High monthly fee
Strength

Strong data for hosts

Weakness

No community sentiment or buyer focus

Our Advantage

Buyer and investor-centric community layer

Realestate.com.au

realestate.com.au
Free
Strength

Huge property database

Weakness

No STR risk or community reporting features

Our Advantage

Hyper-specific risk intelligence

🏰 Moat Strategy

Community network effects — more users reporting creates more valuable data, increasing retention and attracting new users.

⏰ Why Now?

Explosion of short-term rental platforms combined with new regulatory crackdowns has created information asymmetry that technology can now solve at scale.

Risks & Mitigation

markethigh severity

Low community participation leading to sparse data

Mitigation

Seed data ourselves and incentivize early reporters with free premium access

legalmedium severity

Defamation claims from reported issues

Mitigation

Strong moderation, anonymous reporting, and legal review of terms

executionmedium severity

Difficulty automatically detecting new listings

Mitigation

Start with community reporting, add scraping/API integration later

Validation Roadmap

pre-build10 days

Validate demand in 3 property investment Facebook groups

Success: 100+ comments expressing pain and interest in monitoring tool

mvp30 days

Launch beta with 15 seeded buildings

Success: 200 signups and 40 active watchers in first 30 days

launch45 days

Execute launch plan and measure conversion

Success: $1,000 MRR within 45 days of launch

Pivot Options

  • Become a B2B tool for body corporates to manage complaints
  • Expand into vacation rental arbitrage marketplace
  • Focus on insurance products for high-risk buildings

Quick Stats

Build Time
198h
Target MRR (6 mo)
$10,000
Market Size
$25.0M
Features
9
Database Tables
4
API Endpoints
5