ABSTRACT

We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works. With
the current paradigm shift in technological field, there is an urgent need to embrace
and appreciate the power of technology. Housing sector remains vigilant to face the
challenges of change by employing a new strategy that facilitates easy management
of rental houses. Hence there is need to develop a rental house management system
that can simplify work for the rental managers so that all their work can be efficient
and effective. To get information about how rental houses are currently being
managed, I prepared questionnaires and submitted them to a number of rental house
managers and from the information I gathered I realized all work was done manually
with a lot of paper work involved. Papers can easily get damaged or get lost leading
to loss of data. It is also expensive to keep on buying files to store your records. A lot
of files make a place look untidy and also consume a lot of space. Getting a certain
file to check data from many files becomes a difficult task. Considering those facts, I
decided to develop a rental house management system that can solve all the problems
experienced with the current manual system. The system was developed in such
manner that it provides maximum user friendly interface using PHP (Hypertext pre-
processor) programming language using the XAMPP as the testbed.
 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Rental house management has become important factor in modern society hence the
need to have a rental house management system. This chapter will provide a brief
understanding about background of study, definition of the project problem statement,
its objectives, scopes, project justification, risks, project deliverables and project
budget and schedule.

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Housing has a central importance to quality of life with considerable economic, social,
cultural and personal significance. Though a country’s national prosperity is usually
measured in economic terms, increasing wealth is of diminished value unless all can
share its benefits and if the growing wealth is not used to redress growing social
deficiencies, one of which is housing (Erguden, 2001). Housing plays a huge role in
revitalizing economic growth in any country, with shelter being among key indicators
of development. The universal declaration of human rights gives one of the basic
human rights as the right to a decent standard of living, central to which is the access
to adequate housing (United Nations, The Human Rights-article 25, 1948). Housing
as a basic human right demands that urban dwellers should have access to a decent
housing, defined as one that provides a foundation for rather than being a barrier to
good physical and mental health, personal development and fulfilment of life objectives
(Seedhouse, 1986). The focus of this research project is basically managing housing
for low income, medium and high incomes households or what is commonly known as
affordable housing. Affordable is a term used to describe individuals‟ capability to pay
for certain products or services because their income is enough to do so. Although the
term „affordable housing‟ is often applied to rental housing that is within the financial
means of those in the lower income ranges of a geographical area, the concept is
applicable to both middle and high income individuals. Most families choose to rent
houses based on their income and family situations; unfortunately, there may not be
enough good quality rental housing for these families. Housing is a major problem in
Nigeria especially in Lagos. Millions of people are living in sprawling slams and also
in other informal settlement around Lagos (UN-Habitat, 2008). This explains why many
people have shifted their focus to developing rental houses in Lagos and other parts
of the country. The demand for rental houses is extremely high and more rental houses
need to be put in place. Developing rental houses comes with many advantages
especially to the Landlords who are able to increase their profits through rent paid by
the tenants. Increased number of tenants and Landlords makes management difficult
especially for the landlords who are losing huge sum of money through tenants who
evade rent. The above statement gives a clear declaration as to why rental house
management system need to be developed.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Over the years landlords/property managers have had a problem in maintaining and
managing their customers and their own records. Management has become difficult
because of issues that include:

i) Data growth
Data increase day to day. Storing and maintaining all data manually is
very difficult
ii) Lack of computerized system
Currently most landlords/property managers use the manual system in
recording and maintaining their property and customers data
iii) Data security is not assured
In a manual way, data is recorded on books/papers which may easily get
damaged leading to loss of data.
iv) There is no database to store information
` Potential of data loss or damage is very high because data is stored on
tangible files.
Lack of these crucial requirements makes management of the tenants
and houses very difficult as some tenants may end up not paying rent.
AIM AND OBJECTIVES

The aim of this project work is to design and develop a functional Apartment rental
management and service maintenance electronic platform.
The following are the project objectives:

● To develop a rental house management system that allows the user to view
customers‟ data as well as houses record

● To develop a system that allows the users to add, edit, search and delete
data from the database

● To study and analyse the requirement specifications of the rental house

management system

● To produce the Software Requirement Specification of the system To produce

the Software Design Document of the system

SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

There always exists a need to check for information organisation in today’s world
especially when it comes to financial as well as keep record of an already client
information for future reference. Therefore, the rental management system is
imperative as its acts as an auxiliary to effectively manage real estate resources and
to provide optimal service for clients.

PROJECT SCOPE

The project scope defines the description of the work that is required in delivering the
rental house management system. The following are the scopes of work during the
course of the project: Study and understand the requirement of this project

● Construct Software Requirement Specification document of the system

● Construct Software Design Document of the system

PROJECT DELIVERABLES

The main deliverables of this project will be the complete software system and the
software engineering document that include:

● Software Requirement and Specification

● Software Design Document

● The Software engineering document will be constructed

ORGANIZATION OF CHAPTERS
Chapter 1 focuses on introducing the concept and ideologies around File Backup,
highlighting the negative effects of file loss, the aims and objectives of this project, its
scope of study and its significance.

Chapter 2 discusses the Literature Review and a review of related works and similar
projects.

Chapter 3 focuses on explaining the tools, materials, technologies and design

principles employed throughout the design and implementation of this project.

Chapter 4 discusses the results and observations obtained during the design and
implementation of the project.

Chapter 5 deals with conclusion and recommendation for the project

 CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

Literature review is a text written by someone to consider the critical points of current
knowledge including substantive findings as well as theoretical and methodological
contributions to a particular topic. Main goals are to situate the current study within the
body of literature and to provide context for the particular reader (Cooper, 1998).

GOVERNMENT STRATEGY AND INCENTIVES IN THE HOUSING SECTOR

Some of the dominant strategies for housing and service provision for the Nigeria’s
urban poor include slum upgrading and site and service schemes. However, the
efficiency of these strategies has been limited by ambivalent government attitude to
irregular settlement. These strategies have failed because of a reliance on
inappropriate building by-laws and infrastructural standards and modern designs,
construction technology and conventional building materials that all make housing
unaffordable to the poor, even after subsidies. Thus, government initiatives in assisting
house owners in management have proven to be pathetically slow with many of the
houses provided being economically and socially irrelevant, this further prompting the
rise of informal settlement (Macoloo, 1994).

THE ROLE OF THE PRIVATE SECTOR IN HOUSE MANAGEMENT

Private sector housing management is defined as any process which is not connected
at all with the actions of the state neither directly constructed by state nor financially
sponsored by the state where production is not expected to have a social element
(Golland, 1996). (Ambrose and Barlow, 1987) have argued that three factors are
important in influencing the level of new house building. These are direct capital
investment by the state for public housing, state support for production and
consumption and changes in the profitability of house builders in the private sector.
The private sector can play an important role in housing provision provided that the
state offers sufficient and appropriate incentives to the sector (Mitullar, 2003). The
clear motivation that underlies the private sector is profit (or potential profitability) with
profit maximizing options being in the context of housing, producing and selling more
of the product; reducing the cost of production through lower raw material and wage
costs and finally increasing the price of the product or service (Hancock, 1998).
Profitability in housing is advocated to be based on three variables; House prices, land
prices and building costs, where: Profit=House prices-{Land prices + Building costs}
(Golland, 1996).

INTRODUCTION TO APARTMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Apartment management system is a computer based system which is used to monitor

the various activities of a regular residential metropolitan society. The concept of
apartment management system has arisen from the fact that various large societies
need monitoring and maintenance for their various day to day activities.

In a normal residential society, the day to day chores include maintenance of the
society, plumbing, parking allocations, waste management, security facilities, tracking
dues, inventory management etc. these activities individually are very tedious and long
processes. They require the co-ordination between the respective management
societies coupled with the vendors which provide these services so that the
appropriate convenience can be provided. Apartment management is the operation,
control, and oversight of real estate as used in its broadest terms.

Types of Apartment Management systems

● AMS on local server: In this type, the system is implemented and deployed on a
local server existing in the apartment complex itself. These systems can be handled
by only the apartment manager, they are normally difficult to use and even more
difficult to implement because of various needs of different societies.

● AMS on a website: In this type the AMS is based on a website server. This type is
based on a website and needs an internet connection. The system has various
usernames and specifies the hierarchies for the system. Each hierarchy has access
to only a limited set of tasks. The main problem with this system is that even though it
is on a website, the application needs to edited as per the needs of the society. This
proves to be an expensive and tedious task.

● AMS on Cloud: This is the latest way to implement AMS. It provides all the features
of the above type with the additional feature of a multitenant cloud platform. Multi-
tenancy allows a developer to develop a single app and cater it to various needs of
different societies. Another major plus point about cloud is that it is very economically
efficient and there is no down time on the system. The individual user

is thus able to use only the features he needs at an economic and maintenance free
system.

The data of the system is automatically backed up by the cloud platform provider,
hence the data is always secure.

Aspects of AMS

Over the years AMS has evolved as a science and now involves a vast range of
features. The living environment laboratory in Japan has conducted a survey and had
identified certain set of basic parameters required for AMS.

The various sub systems in apartment management system are:

Member List:

● Apartment management system allows every member of the in the apartment to

create a unique identify on the AMS.

● Each user has a username which specifies his/her hierarchy based on his role in the
management of the apartment complex.

● Each member will have a unique profile which will allow him to raise complaints, and
track his problems and raise them to the appropriate persons in-charge.

Role based Access

● In every apartment society there is a committee administering the needs of the

society.

● Everyone in the committee has individual roles and handle different responsibilities
in the apartment

● AMS provides all the features with the help of username. Each user can be thus can
be given access to only things he is concerned with in the appointment.
Maintenance and accounting Dues:

● Scheduling jobs, assigning personnel, reserving materials, recording costs, and

tracking relevant information such as the cause of the problem (if any), downtime
involved (if any), and recommendations for future action. Typically, the CMMS
schedules preventive maintenance automatically based

on maintenance plans and/or meter readings. Different software packages use

different techniques for reporting when a job should be performed.

Issues and complaints tracker:

● AMS gives a provision for tracking the issues and complaints of the residents and
tries to automate the process of solving these issues.

● Complaints can be lodged into the system by the users with the help of their
respective accounts. The system then tries to come up with an optimised solution in
order to solve the particular issue.

● The priorities are assigned to the issues and complaints lodged by the users.
According to the priority of the issue and the position of the user, the system gives a
solution to the problem.

Stores and inventory management:

● Every residential society has an inventory of basic items required for the various
activities. These items include the basic tools like ladders, gardening equipment etc.

● AMS gives a provision for tracking and management of this inventory in order to
prevent the mismanagement involving the same.

● It includes the updates regarding the count of various items on check-ins and check-
outs.

Legal advice

● In a working residential complex, there can be legal issues that require an expert
legal advice so that they are resolved peacefully.

● AMS keeps a list of legal advisors which specialize in particular types of issues. The
list consists of contact info and past record of the legal advisor.
● The users of the AMS can use this list in order to communicate with required advisors
according to their needs.

E-Accounting:

● E-accounting or online accounting, is the application of online and Internet

technologies to the business accounting function. Similar to e-mail being an electronic
version of traditional mail, e-accounting is "electronic enablement" of lawful accounting
and traceable accounting processes which were traditionally manual and paper-
based.

● E-accounting involves performing regular accounting functions, accounting research

and

the accounting training and education through various computer based /internet based
accounting tools such as digital tool kits, various internet resources, international web-
based materials, institute and company databases which are internet based, web links,
internet based accounting software and electronic financial spreadsheet tools to
provide efficient decision making.

● Online accounting through a web application is typically based on a simple monthly

charge and zero-administration approach to help businesses concentrate on core
activities and avoid the hidden costs associated with traditional accounting software
such as installation, upgrades, exchanging data files, backup and disaster recovery.

● E-accounting does not have a standard definition but merely refers to the changes
in accounting due to computing and networking technologies. Most e-accounting
services are offered as SaaS: ‘software as a service’, i.e. as a cloud service.

EXISTING SYSTEM

Currently the most property managers manage property and tenants details on papers.
Once customers find a vacant house, they can call or email manager of the houses
indicating the size of the house they would like rented to them. The property manager
can email them back giving them all the details about the house they are requesting.
The details include; Rent per month Deposit paid Terms and conditions to follow
acceptance
PROBLEMS OF EXISTING SYSTEM

With the current system recording the details of various activities of user is completely
manual and entails a lot of paper work. Each house has a file that contains the house:
number, size, rent per month, expected deposit, occupant and status. Rent
payment table contains tenants: first name, last name, Phone number, date of
payment, amount and balance if any. The existing system only provides text based
interface which is not as user friendly as Graphical user interface. Since the system is
implemented manually, the response is very slow. The transactions are not secure as
papers may get lost or damaged. Hence, there is need of reformation of the system
with more advantages and flexibility. The system eliminates most of the limitations of
the existing system.
 CHAPTER 3

Materials
The following tools were used during the design phase of this project.

XAMPP: XAMPP is a free and open source cross-platform web server solution stack
package developed by Apache Friends, consisting mainly of the Apache HTTP Server,
MySQL database, and interpreters for scripts written in the PHP and Perl programming
languages. XAMPP stands for Cross-Platform (X), Apache (A), MySQL (M), PHP (P)
and Perl (P). It is a simple, lightweight Apache distribution that makes it extremely
easy for developers to create a local web server for testing and deployment purposes.
Everything needed to set up a web server – server application (Apache), database
(MariaDB), and scripting language (PHP) – is included in an extractable file. XAMPP
is also cross-platform, which means it works equally well on Linux, Mac and Windows.

APTANA STUDIO: Aptana Studio is an open source integrated development

environment (IDE) for building web applications. Based on Eclipse, it supports
JavaScript, HTML, DOM and CSS with code-completion, outlining, JavaScript
debugging, error and warning notifications and integrated documentation.

BOOTSTRAP 3: Bootstrap is a free and open-source front-end web framework for

designing websites and web applications. It contains HTML- and CSS-based design
templates for typography, forms, buttons, navigation and other interface components,
as well as optional JavaScript extensions.

JQUERY: jQuery is a cross-platform JavaScript library designed to simplify the client-

side scripting of HTML. JQuery is the most popular JavaScript library in use today.
JQuery's syntax is designed to make it easier to navigate a document, select DOM
elements, create animations, handle events, and develop Ajax applications. JQuery
also provides capabilities for developers to create plug-ins on top of the JavaScript
library. This enables developers to create abstractions for low-level interaction and
animation, advanced effects and high-level, theme-able widgets. The modular
approach to the jQuery library allows the creation of powerful dynamic web pages and
Web application.
REQUIREMENTS ANALYSIS
Requirement analysis involves defining customer needs and objectives in the
context of planned customer use, environments and identified system characteristics
to determine requirements for system functions.

User Requirements
It entailed user involvement and statements of facts and assumptions that define the
expectations of the system in terms of mission objectives, environment, constraints
and measures of effectiveness and suitability. Basically the users:
i) A system that improves on the efficiency of information storage and
retrieval.
ii) A system that is easy to learn and use
iii) A system that is fast in processing transactions
iv) A system that is flexible, safe and convenient

Functional Requirements
This is a necessary task, action or activity that was accomplished. The proposed
system is able to:
i) Allow administrator to add a houses, tenant and defaulters details
ii) Allow the administrator to delete houses, tenants and defaulters details
iii) Allow the administrator to search data in the database
iv) Allow the administrator to edit data in the database

Hardware Requirement

Processor: Intel(R) Core or higher

Installed Memory: 4.00GB or higher
Speed: 1.40GHz or faster
Operating System: 32/64-Bit operating system, x86/x64-based processor
Software Requirement

Operating System: Windows 7/8/8.1/10

Data Base: MySQL Server Version 5.3 and above
Web Server: Apache
Web Technologies: HTML, CSS, JQuery/Ajax and PHP
IDE & Tools: Aptana Studio, Phpmyadmin

Feasibility Report
Feasibility study is the high level capsule version of the entire requirement analysis
process. The objective of feasibility study is to determine whether the proposed system
can be developed with available resources.
There are three steps to be followed for determining the feasibility study of proposed
system.
1. Technical Feasibility
2. Operational Feasibility
3. Economic Feasibility

Technical Feasibility: It is concerned with hardware and software feasibility. In this

study, one has to test whether the proposed system can be developed using
existing technology or not. If new technology is required, what is the likelihood that
it can be developed according to client requirements.

Operational Feasibility: Operational feasibility determines whether the proposed

system satisfied the user objectives and can be fitted in to current system
operation.

Economic Feasibility: This includes an evaluation of all incremental costs and

benefits expected if proposed system is implemented. costs-benefit analysis which
is to be performed during economic feasibility delineates costs for project
development and weighs them against benefits of system.
METHODOLOGY

The term methodology means the technique and procedure adopted by conducting a
research study. It outlines how data will be collected and the tools for collecting data,
system methodology, the proposed system input and output, users and systems
development tools.
FACTS FINDING TECHNIQUES
It shows how data will be collected from the users of the system. The data collection
techniques to be used include:
Objectives
It will use this technique to collect information about how the current system
operates and its processes. This involves systematically watching and recording the
behaviour and characteristics of operations and processes.
It gives more detailed and context related information and can adapt to event
as they occur however the method may be time consuming.
Questionnaires
This can be prepared in numbers and submitted to business owners
(Landlords) to get a deeper insight of how the system is going to work. This method
gives more information from various individuals and offers greater flexibility as the
opportunity to restructure questions. This technique is preferred because it will provide
a closer contact between the users and the developer hence dispelling the probability
of the completed system being rejected by use.
This technique also:
Permits clarification
Has high response rate than interviews.
Helps get full range and depth of information

Secondary Data Collection

This data I will collect from existing sources e.g books, internet, journals and
magazines that was collected by other researchers and analysis was done. It is from
that data that I will then compare with the primary data and make a decision and
conclusion.
System Development and Methodology
A software development methodology is a framework that is used to structure, plan,
and control the process of developing an information system, this includes the pre-
definition of specific deliverables and artefact’s that are created and completed by a
project team to develop or maintain an application. A wide variety of such frameworks
have evolved over the years, each with its own recognized strengths and weakness.
One software development methodology framework is not necessarily suitable for use
by all projects. Each of the available methodology frameworks are best suited to
specific kinds of projects, based on various technical, organizational, project and team
considerations. These software development frameworks are often bound to some
kind of organization, which further develops, supports the use, and promotes the
methodology framework.

System Development Life Cycle

System development life cycle is a process of developing software on the basis of the
requirement of the end user to develop efficient and good quality software. It is
necessary to follow a particular procedure. The sequence of phases that must be
followed to develop good quality software is known as SDLC (System Development
Life Cycle).
The software is said to have a life cycle composed of several phases. Each of these
phases results in the development of either a part of the system or something
associated with the system, such as a test plan or a user manual. In the life cycle
model, called the “spiral model,” each phase has well-defined starting and ending
points, with clearly identifiable deliverables to the next phase.
As with most undertakings, planning is an important factor in determining the success
or failure of any software project. Essentially, good project planning will eliminate many
of the mistakes that would otherwise be made, and reduce the overall time required to
complete the project. As a rule of thumb, the more complex the problem is, and the
more thorough the planning process must be. Most professional software developers
plan a software project using a series of steps generally referred to as the software
development life cycle. The following example is a generic model that should give you
some idea of the steps involved in a typical software project.
Figure 6:

Diagram illustrating the core processes involved in SDLC

Analysis of user requirements

During this stage, the problem is defined so that a clear understanding can be gained
of what the system should do, i.e. what the inputs to the system are, what the output
should be, and the operational parameters within which the system is expected to
work. If the new system is to replace an existing system, the problem may be defined
in terms of the additional or enhanced functionality that is required.

Program design
In this stage, a solution to the problem is designed by defining a logical sequence of
steps that will achieve each of the stated system objectives. Such a sequence of steps
is often referred to as an algorithm. Some of the methods used to define program
algorithms are described later in this section, and include flowcharts and pseudo code.
These tools allow the program designer to break a given problem down into a series
of small tasks which the computer can perform to solve the problem.

Program coding
This stage, sometimes known as the implementation stage, is where the algorithms
are translated into a programming language, and tends to be the longest phase of the
development life-cycle. In this case, we are using Visual Basic to write the program.
Documentation and testing
The documentation of the program fulfils two main objectives. The first is to provide a
technical reference to facilitate ongoing maintenance and development of the software
itself. The second is to provide user documentation, i.e. a set of instructions that inform
the user about the features of the software and how to use them.
The aim of software testing is to find any errors ("bugs") in the program, to eliminate
those errors (a process known as "debugging"), and as far as is reasonably practicable
should be sufficiently rigorous to ensure that the software will function as expected
under all foreseeable circumstances.

Operating and maintaining the system

Once the software has been "rolled out" and any necessary user training has been
completed, it will be necessary to monitor the performance of the system over time to
ensure that it is behaving as expected.