Problem with joining three tables and then displaying results in Laravel

I have project for ads/properties in Laravel. I have has many relationship between user and property and user and category, also many to many relationship between property and category. Here are my tables.

users (id, first_name, last_name, user_preferences)

properties (id, user_id, location, price)

categories (id, category)

category_property (id, category_id, property_id)

As logged in user when I check one or multiple checkboxes in my edit profile page and submit form I insert json values in user_preferences column in users table, for example, ["house", "flat"]. And those are values from category column in categories table. I want that logged in user to display all properties that have those values that he checked in form. I am having trouble writing query in my controller that will join those tables and get those filtered properties. With current code I get all properties. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Here is my code.

CategoryController.php

public function index(Category $category, Property $property, User $user)
{
   $preferedAdsResults = $property
    ->orderBy('page_views', 'desc')
    ->paginate(5, ['*'], 'preferedAdsResults');

    return view('startpage', compact('preferedAdsResults'));
}

edit.blade.php

<div class="row page-hero d-flex align-items-center justify-content-center">
    <label for="preferences" class="text-center">Select your preferences</label>         
    </div>
    <div class="row">                
        <div class="col-md-1" style="margin-right:15px; margin-left:60px;">
            <div class="custom-control custom-checkbox">
                <input id="house" name="user_preferences[]" value="house" type="checkbox" class="custom-control-input" @if(is_array(old('user_preferences', $user->user_preferences)) && in_array('house', old('user_preferences', $user->user_preferences))) checked @endif>
                <label class="custom-control-label" for="house">house</label>
            </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-1" style="margin-right:15px;">
            <div class="custom-control custom-checkbox">
                <input id="flat" name="user_preferences[]" value="flat" type="checkbox" class="custom-control-input" @if(is_array(old('user_preferences', $user->user_preferences)) && in_array('flat', old('user_preferences', $user->user_preferences))) checked @endif>
                <label class="custom-control-label" for="flat">flat</label>
            </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-1" style="margin-right:50px;">
            <div class="custom-control custom-checkbox">
                <input id="room" name="user_preferences[]" value="room" type="checkbox" class="custom-control-input" @if(is_array(old('user_preferences', $user->user_preferences)) && in_array('room', old('user_preferences', $user->user_preferences))) checked @endif>
                <label class="custom-control-label" for="room">room</label>
            </div>
        </div>          
</div>

startpage.blade.php

<div class="col-2">
    <h1>Prefered ads</h1>

        @if (isset($preferedAdsResults))
            @foreach ($preferedAdsResults as $preferedAdsResult)
                <div class="row">
                    <a href="{{route('property.show',['id'=>$preferedAdsResult->id])}}">
                        <button type="button" class="btn btn-lg btn-primary" disabled style="margin-top:10px;">{{$preferedAdsResult->price}} eur</button>
                        <button type="button" class="btn btn-lg btn-primary" disabled style="margin-top:10px;">{{$preferedAdsResult->location}}/button>
                        <hr>
                    </a>
                </div>
            @endforeach
            <div class="row">
                    <div class="col"></div>
                    <div class="col">{{ $preferedAdsResults->links() }}</div>
                    <div class="col"></div>
                </div>
        @endif
</div>

Category.php

public function property()
{
    return $this->belongsToMany(Property::class);
}

public function users()
{
    return $this->belongsTo(User::class);
}

Property.php

public function category()
{
    return $this->belongsToMany(Category::class);
}

public function user()
{
    return $this->belongsTo(User::class);
}

User.php

public function categories()
{
    return $this->hasMany(Category::class);
}

public function property()
{
    return $this->hasMany('App\Property', 'user_id', 'id');
}

UserController.php (where I update user profile)

public function update(StoreUserInfo $request, User $user)
{
    if ( !($user->id == Auth::user()->id)) {
        abort(404);
    }

    $request->validated();

    if ($request->has('user_preferences')) {
        $request->get('user_preferences');
    }

    $user_preferences = $request->input('user_preferences');

    $query = Property::query();

    if (!empty($user_preferences)) {
        $query->whereHas('category', function ($query) use ($user_preferences) {
            $query->whereIn('category', $user_preferences);
        });
        
        $user->where('id', $user->id)->update(
            [
                'user_preferences' => json_encode($request->user_preferences)
            ]
        );
    }

    return redirect()->back()->with('message', 'User information updated');
}