Managing real estate listings - any ideas?

It's such a monster project and requires so much information about the Real Estate business that I doubt if it will get done except as a paid commission from someone with deep pockets who really needs it.

That said, I spend a fair amount of time looking at real estate sites and most of them are complete crap.



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PLEASE, PLEASE specify the version of MODX you are using . . . PLEASE!
MODX info for everyone: http://bobsguides.com/modx.html [ed. note: BobRay last edited this post 14 years, 7 months ago.]

I just spent about 30 minutes checking out all the agent sites from one of the local offices from a major real estate company here in the west.

It looks like this company offers a cookie cutter CMS of sorts for their agents. They all look the same, many even have the same design photo illustrations. A bunch of the agents seem to opt for their own personal site to stand out from the rest of the herd. Most of these look dated and are clunky as hell.

One of my clients is again asking me about building her a custom site. I think this is doable. She only has a few listings at any one time. I think MODx, a solid template, a bunch of TVs, Gallery using a custom jQuery script, Articles, a solid search system, etc, etc can deliver here. The other bells and whistles you see on agent sites like calculators and access to the MLS can either be grabbed from free sites, added as an iFrame or included via the host company resources.

I have a client meeting about this on Monday, so who knows?

I guess the major criticism I have with most of these real estate sites is the presentation of the actual properties themselves. Most of the design and presentation screams emphasis on the code development and not on showing the homes to their best advantage. My client wants a better, larger means for showing the photos, adding custom descriptions, etc. Listening to her I think this is more about presentation rather than project server scope.

The devil of course is in the details...

On a good real estate site, buyers can set complex search criteria (bedrooms, baths, min and max price, garage space, waterfront, water view, RV parking, pets allowed, housing type, HOA fee, etc.) and search by city, county, zip code, neighborhood, or MLS #. Then they get to see the property on a map, with and without satellite views with street views where available and search nearby for restaurants, grocery stores, beaches etc.

Of course you also need an easy way to let the buyer contact the agent for more information about a specific property or make an offer.

On a full-featured real estate site, buyers can mark properties as favorites and revisit their favorites later and agents can send a link to portfolios of selected properties tailored to the buyer's preferences (and check to see which ones the buyer spent time viewing).


Some properties will have video tours as well.

You might also want tools to let sellers upload photos and videos.

That's a big project in my book.


You're absolutely right, though, that most sites don't show the properties to their best advantage.



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PLEASE, PLEASE specify the version of MODX you are using . . . PLEASE!
MODX info for everyone: http://bobsguides.com/modx.html

Excellent points Bob!

Creating all those features (dynamic search items) might be beyond the usual MODx workflow. Adding them directly into a MODx site is certainly beyond my developer skills.

This begs the question though: how does all that stuff get included in so many of these cheesy looking real estate sites we see everywhere? If this stuff is built with established code blocks or iFrames then it might still be doable.

I think these features depend on what the site owner (agent) expects. I have worked directly with a number of these professionals before. Some are more concerned with attracting buyers who are looking at all properties in a given location. All this search criteria would be important to them. Other agents are more focussed on their own listings. Presenting their listings in the best manner is important. Creating a great presentation on the actual homes does double duty: it makes the home stand out and it also impresses the agent's client (the home seller). The homeowner is reassured that the agent is doing a good job in packaging their home.

I can't tell you how many times I have photographed homes only to have the agent say that the photos on the company or MLS site do not look as good as the images I delivered to the agent directly. These sites seem to resize and scramble the images during the upload process somehow? I do this work on the side. I must have shot about 60 or so homes (many of the up market) now. I have also created about 30 or so individual static sites focussed on each and every listing. Just simple html sites so far.

The next step I want to take is building MODx (Revo) sites that act as both brochure sites for the agent and listing sites for their properties.

What I would like to do is present a custom design that is modern and simple. With MODx I can easily present Home, About, Blog, and Previously Sold pages. Using a series of TVs one can build a listing template for each active agent listing. Including a better, larger image gallery is the key component.

Adding components like mortgage calculators, dynamic maps, and advanced search elements and access to other MLS listings is where it gets interesting. Some of these elements can be found online though. What I need to find out is what the agent's real estate company can provide me? Looking at some of the agent sites who have something unique shows that these sites are still getting some of these features from somewhere? But where though? Are these getting built from scratch by their private contracted web developers or are they just blocks/iFrames taken from established sources?

My guinea pig agent only has a few listings at any one time. She wants her site to be focussed on these listings. She also wants adding all the listing details to be as easy as possible. A template with getResources and a series of well commented TVs should do the trick. The danger here is promising too much and not being able to respond to those "I need one more thing" requests... [ed. note: Photowebmax last edited this post 14 years, 7 months ago.]

I'm pretty sure that that the big companies are contracting for this stuff nationally. I wonder if the MLS system has an API that you can tap into. Some agents must also have relationships with sites like Trulia and Zillow (unless homeowners are uploading their own pictures there (which I doubt).

Many of the pictures I look at were obviously taken by agents or owners who have no clue about making the house look good. They'll go on a cloudy day and not even bother to move the owner's junk out of the picture.

It's also amazing how many houses have only one or two pictures up. Who wants to spend valuable time going to look at a house that isn't even worth photographing?


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PLEASE, PLEASE specify the version of MODX you are using . . . PLEASE!
MODX info for everyone: http://bobsguides.com/modx.html