Thread

At a recent real estate conference, EE was mentioned as a competing solution for real estate sites.

That caught my attention.

However, I can’t find anything discussing EE and real estate websites.

If I heard correctly, could someone please point me to resources? If applicable, why is EE suited for real estate more than or equal to some other “custom” solution?

**To be clear, I don’t consider template websites such as Point2, etc to be solutions of any kind.

Thanks,
Mike

Make sure to search the archived forums as I know the topic has been discussed in the past.

Personally—until someone develops an MLS integration module for EE I don’t see EE being a great solution in most cases.  I’ve been asked to bid on real estate projects but the costs involved in getting EE to pull in MLS data and then do all the sorting & filtering needed put the costs too high compared to the niche-market providers out there that already had that functionality built-in.

Thank you. I did search archives re: “real estate.” Actually, IDX integration was one reason I had *thought* EE would be an option. Interesting you mentioned it but differently.

Some one asked to bid on absolute acreage projects but the costs complex in accepting EE to cull in MLS abstracts and again do all the allocation & clarification bare put the costs too top compared to the niche-market providers out there that already had that functionality built-in.

As Boyink mentions, MLS listing is where the problem lays - Back in the late 90s I did the first real estate site (national) that had MSL integration and mapping (the forerunner to Trulia, Realtor.com, Zillow, etc). This was for Moore Data, at the time the largest manager of MLS data (the EDS of real estate). The actual MLS data is specific to each individual real estate organization and is far from standardized. In my area (Mpls) it’s controlled by one association but in some (Chicago I recall) it was multiple associations all with different data structures. So, it’s very hard to develop a general plugin or module.

That said, it depends on exactly what you want to do…
If you want to pull listings into an EE channel is one thing.
If you just need listings integrated into a page/section, there are many services that can provide iFrames, widgets, etc. Search IDX in Google.
Some of the packages out there (Open Realty) are CMSs specifically for real estate and include mail list, crm, etc.

So, as I mentioned, it depends on “exactly” what you need to do.

Am interested in any and all EE integrated solutions, or what others are doing in this area - Get asked about this all the time.

There are IDX plugins out there that plug into some CMS or “Blogging” systems but none for EE (at least none that I know of). Like PXLated said the data might be different depending on the area, but from what I’ve seen these plugins just don’t include the areas that aren’t compatible. Most areas are included though.

I have some real estate clients that use EE for community and neighborhood content, featured listings, etc. but for the MLS feed we just connect with a 3rd party IDX solution. There are many out there. This is the easiest and most cost effective way to-date when it comes to using EE. That being said it would be really nice if someone created an IDX plugin for EE.

Hi,
I think some sort of data tool could be built to import MLS data via RETS server or IDX data feed…its just getting someone to try it. 😊 Ryan Bonham at Transparent Technologies has built them for Open Realty which is a Mysql db as well. See http://www.open-realty.org/blog/transparentrets-v211-released.html and http://www.transparent-realestate.com/transparentrets.html

And there are products and clients out there http://www.rets.org/cms/products and http://www.rets.org/cms/client/

Its just difficult to get someone interested to do it for EE. Might be difficult to see ROI?

Mark,

Sounds like a good challenge for you!

Mark,

Sounds like a good challenge for you!

If I were only half that talented! :-(

I’ve done this before in a custom website and in Wordpress. I think it would be similar in EE. It requires a bit of custom backend scripting, and cron to handle the data imports and keep them updated. After that, its a matter of how you want EE to display the data.

We have built a fairly large non-MLS based land sales website (whitetailproperties.com) on EE and despite a number of complex issues it has worked out fairly well. MLS based listings would require a different approach in my opinion. If you go the EE route feel free to reach out to us.