Mum-of-three launches real estate app after chaotic family house hunt

Melanie Tickle is behind the new property app, myhomii. Pic: Annette Dew

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Brisbane mother-of-three Melanie Tickle was fighting for her life in a hospital bed when she was thrust into a frantic battle to put a roof over her family’s head.

Diagnosed with metastatic thyroid cancer three years ago, the property marketer was contending with hospital stays and surgeries, right as her family was forced out of their rental property.

With three young boys aged under 7, the threat of having nowhere to live loomed large amid 2024’s hot property market where homes were snapped up in record time.

Ms Tickle was diagnosed with cancer at the same time her family’s lease was ending. Pic: Annette Dew

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“We had to be out of our rental and didn’t have another place to go,” Ms Tickle said. “That was super stressful, and we had assumed that we would have found something by that stage.”

Too unwell to physically attend the “million open homes” as they tried to secure a house in a fast-moving market, Ms Tickle relied on family to help with the search.

Her accountant husband Mark, parents, and property-obsessed brothers became her eyes and ears, bombarding her with information and feedback.

It resulted in a chaotic web of competing opinions and digital clutter.

House-hunting can become complicated when the whole family is involved

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“We were sending each other like a million realestate.com.au links all the time, photos, videos, voice notes,” said the tech-savvy mum.

“My parents had a lot of opinions on things… there just wasn’t really a single place to store everything and compare all those options.”

Her experience highlights a growing trend, as priced-out buyers collaborate with family and friends to enter the market.

With affordability at an all-time low, young families are finding the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’ comes with a barrage of voices, creating high-stress negotiations just to agree on a property.

Mutligenerational and share house living is on the rise. Pic: Nicole Cleary

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Channelling her frustration, Ms Tickle used her time in hospital to design a solution.

The result is myhomii, a collaborative app that allows all parties involved in finding a home to centralise property links, draft contracts, and building reports.

It uses AI to summarise group opinions and cut through the emotional noise of family real estate debates.

For Ms Tickle, building the platform became a lifeline during a dark chapter.

“While I was in bed a lot and in hospital, I just got to focus on something and it made me happy… it gave me joy and energy in such an awful time,” she said.

Creating the app was a positive focus for Ms Pickle in dark times

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While her health is now steadily improving, Ms Pickle said the years of multiple surgeries, rounds of radiation, and ongoing hospitalisations had been a “long, long road”.

“It’s just my life, I’ve kind of come to accept it. The kids and the family are the reason why I get out of bed in the morning, but this is really what kept me going,” she said of building the platform.

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