Simy

Introduction

Simy is a simple yearly yield calculator for rental properties. It takes the annual rent and initial costs of buying the property as input and returns the yearly yield by using the following equation.

yearly yield = annual rent / initial costs

Technology

Simy is a Rails app (Rails 4.1.6) and uses PostgreSQL database (in production).

Notable gems and components that it uses are:

* Twitter Bootstrap (version 3.3.1) for the front-end

* Devise for user authentication

* Font Awesome for scalable vector icons

Heroku

Simy runs on the Heroku platform. A SendGrid Heroku add-on is used for sending e-mails.

TO-DO

* Carry out simple form validations in JavaScript; fewer trips to the 
  server the better – it saves the user the bandwidth; keeps the 
  unnecessary and trivial processing in the browser and keeps the server 
  costs down.

* Test cases in the controllers. This was dropped out due to 
  incompatibility issues with the shoulda gem. Needs further investigation.

* Auto-complete the address based on the post code entered.

* Allow multiple calculations on the same post code (e.g. for two rental 
  properties having the same post code.)

* Provide the ability to view the price of properties around the post code 
  entered and provide a downloadable report.

* Provide guess access that allows the user to calculate the simple yield.    
  This will be a JavaScript front-end development. Offer more complex 
  calculations for the registered users.