Business Market Research - Question

Andrew365

Registered User
Messages
270
Hi,

Would people here consider spending a few euro, €2.99 on a tool / spreadsheet, that helped them regarding mortgages including the following; borrowing ability, monthly costs, affordability house matrix (monthly costs and upfront costs for a range of house prices), savings goal, stress test, and general budgeting.

I figure here most people are savvy enough to work it out themselves but for the general public not so much. The idea came to me when I saw a travel blogger selling a budgeting spreadsheet for 1.99 and people talking about buying it.
 
Perhaps not here but otherwise yes. When I was looking into moving house, selling existing and buying the a new house I found it difficult to find any kind of resource where I could work out how much I could borrow \ and size up the different rates etc. I ended up using a spreadsheet that a friend had got from a broker. For most people buying a home is a once or twice in a life time event so they will not have sufficent knowledge to work through it the pro's or con's, in which case your "tool" would help them. I think it would be useful if you could also include a feature where you could compare different bank rates of the day to help people understand what is the best option for them. Think about how many people could save money by switching mortgages but they don't do it becuase they are afriad of making a mistake and "their" bank has been good to them...

I would also pitch it as €5 or the price of pint for a friend.
 
It would depend on how user friendly it was.

In my experience tools like this work well if you invest huge amounts of time in getting to grips with them. The cost isn't the €2.99 or whatever, its the time involved.

Anything there is nothing more frustrating than being told its easy to use when what they mean is its easy to use for someone who is already familiar with every aspect of the thing.
 
Thanks for the feedback, I agree 100% with simplicity and ease of use. The tricky part is the marketing, and actually selling it! At the cheapest it would probably be €100 a month so as a standalone product it would probably cost me!
 
The likes of Bonkers and Karl's Mortgage calculator do a lot of this already for free. Your added value would likely be combining budgeting, with tracking of savings and spending towards a goal. The challenge there will be getting users to input all the required data from their day to day spending in order to build up an accurate picture of their progress towards their goals. The simpler that is and the earlier users can get feedback on their progress the more compelling it'll be. But, the kind of user who will be diligent about keeping it up to date, are they already happily using their own spreadsheet?

In order to control it once you release it, you'd need to develop an app. Once you release a spreadsheet, what's to stop someone posting it online? A spreadsheet also becomes out of date very quickly as new mortgage products are released. Keeping it up to date will be critical, along with getting a sense of how each of the providers goes about their affordability calculations.
 
Not personally and the kind of people you're aiming for will probably just rely on whatever the banks / brokers tell them,
 
Thanks for the feedback, I have a fairly complex spreadsheet that I built in the response to wanting more information than I could find on Google. I then saw an irish travel blogger selling selling a savings spreadsheet for €5 on her site. The blogger already has a USP built up from instagram, the blogger posts what looks to be a very enjoyable lifestyle and people that want that lifestyle are going to buy it.

I don't necessarily worry about it being posted online as that would require it to be posted somewhere that comes at the top of the google search. My target market would be through Facebook / Instagram marketing.

Mostly I want to learn about marketing, SEO, instagram selling etc. In this way I have a product that can be built without capital investment. I might give it a go.
 
Please use a wizard if you develop this. Much more likely to be useful. Also don’t forget data protection notice. I’d consider using it. Price point is very good.
 
Its a good idea but everyone has such different needs, it will be very difficult to support. I would say your head will be melted!
 
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