Thread

Hi all,

I’m not sure if this has been answered before or not, but I have been unable to find any specific information.

I want to know if I can create a portal like http://www.propertyindex.com/ in EE?

Ignore the design, etc., but overall the functionality of a real estate listings portal that does the following:

a) Multi agent portal, i.e. agents can login and upload/update/add/edit/delete their own listings

b) Basic and advanced search functionality for listings

c) Covers the major regions of the world with a flexible hierarchical structure, i.e. Country -> City -> Town -> Area (but not all listings necessarily have all fields filled)

d) Handles sales and rentals

e) Handles apartments, villas, land, etc.

f) Handles premium listings, featured listings, paid for and free

g) Search Engine Friendly URLs (Which I presume EE does anyway)

If someone can give me an accurate breakup of how this could work with EE, I would really appreciate it.

I have some idea of custom fields and may be they are the way to do this, but an expert’s view on this would really help.

Thanks in advance,
T

Welcome to EE!

Before Sales and the EE pro’s give you answer here’s my thoughts…

a) Multi agent portal, i.e. agents can login and upload/update/add/edit/delete their own listings

Yes that’s all possible, so long as you understand that all entries go in a collborative database - each user can’t have their own “site”.

b) Basic and advanced search functionality for listings

EE search facilities should cover all this.

c) Covers the major regions of the world with a flexible hierarchical structure, i.e. Country -> City -> Town -> Area (but not all listings necessarily have all fields filled)

You’d probably want to use one or more categories lists to get all this. It’s all possible.

d) Handles sales and rentals

I’d go for two weblogs to hold the data and differentiate between the two types - will help in content organisation and searching.

e) Handles apartments, villas, land, etc.

You could use a second category group to get this, over and above the location categories, or use a custom field.

f) Handles premium listings, featured listings, paid for and free

This one might need a bit of thinking about. Certainly EE can handle different member groups, with each member group having different posting abilities. Separating display of the various types of listing shouldn’t be an issue (many ways to do it!).

g) Search Engine Friendly URLs (Which I presume EE does anyway)

I’ve never had any problems! Again there are many ways to approach the SEO aspect.

Hi, T - welcome to the forums!

Rob covered it pretty comprehensively for you.  I’d recommend giving EE a try!

Hey Rob,

Thanks for the “step by step” response!

Can you please explain what you mean by a “collaborative database”. I’d like each user to manage their own listings - I don’t necessarily want separate “databases” or “sites” as such, but would like each use to have control over this own listings - Is that possible?

And also your response on the Premium / paid listings -  can you point me in the right direction where I can find more help on how that can be achieved?

Lastly, are there any live sites created in such a way that I can take a look at - any that you are aware of? Live examples always help!

I have great comfort in knowing that all the things are possible, and shows EE’s extreme flexibility!

Thanks once again for your help!

Regards,
T

T,

Can you be more specific about how you want the Premium / paid / featured listings to work? For example, what is the difference between the three? Who determines which listings are premium or featured? Does the system need to be configured to accept a payment before a listing can be entered? There are a number of different approaches you could take depending on your requirements.

Sorry, should have explained better:

Premium listing would be like sponsored listing - so for example, when you search for a property in spain, you would get this premium listing come up as “sponsored listing” before the actual search results.

Paid / unpaid - this is just member accounts. Paid members can have certain previliges like multiple postings, lead management, etc. Unpaid can only post max 2 listings.

Ofcourse Paid / unpaid would combine with premium as well - so a paid member will pay an extra charge to get a premium listing. Unpaid member can also pay a charge to get a premium listing

Featured - This will be top 5 on the home page.

Premium listings would be determined by who pays for it, but I’d like the admin to have over-riding control as well. Same with the featured as well.
At the moment, we want to offer listings for free - but will introduce paid listings in the future.

Hope this clarifies things - thanks for your help in advance.

Taz

By the way, the whole concept about featured / premium, etc listings are just ideas at the moment. We are open to work arounds and suggestions as well.

Can you please explain what you mean by a “collaborative database”. I’d like each user to manage their own listings - I don’t necessarily want separate “databases” or “sites” as such, but would like each use to have control over this own listings - Is that possible?

Sorry I was trying to find the right way of explaining… All the data for your site would live in one database. The “owner” of the entry (whoever added it) will have full control over it, depending on how much control you want give them.

Sorry, should have explained better:

Premium listing would be like sponsored listing - so for example, when you search for a property in spain, you would get this premium listing come up as “sponsored listing” before the actual search results.

Paid / unpaid - this is just member accounts. Paid members can have certain previliges like multiple postings, lead management, etc. Unpaid can only post max 2 listings.

Ofcourse Paid / unpaid would combine with premium as well - so a paid member will pay an extra charge to get a premium listing. Unpaid member can also pay a charge to get a premium listing

Featured - This will be top 5 on the home page.

Premium listings would be determined by who pays for it, but I’d like the admin to have over-riding control as well. Same with the featured as well.
At the moment, we want to offer listings for free - but will introduce paid listings in the future.

Hope this clarifies things - thanks for your help in advance.

Taz

EE has comprehensive member management where you can set different member groups - each with their own priviledges. This would allow you to set as many groups as you wanted, so setting up Standard/Paid/Premium types is straightforward.

You can then show property entries according to the member group that owns them, for instance entries from “premium” members could be shown at the top of the list, or styled differently to standard entries.

“Featured” listings - there are several ways to achieve this, for instance you could call 5 random sponsored listings or the latest 5 sponsored listings.

The only thing that may need some further investigation is limiting the number of entries by member group which may need a bit of custom coding.

I don’t know if this is possible but…(I’m subscribed to this thread as it’s close to what I’m trying to achieve and I’m new to ee)

Could a weblog with a custom field called ‘Level’ which has the values: ‘Premium’, ‘Free’
Can the custom field ‘Level’ be locked down to admin only access so that the realtor can edit everything but the ‘Level’.

Then the template only has to sniff the ‘Level’ value to serve a different ee tags depending on the ‘Level’.

possible?

@johnniefp - You can’t tied down custom fields in the CP edit form like that, but you can output content in templates based on the author which would give you control on what to display. What is it you’re trying to achieve?

Hey Rob,

Thanks for all the input so far on this. Definitely cleared out some points that I was unsure about.
Now I just need to figure out how to bring all this together and execute it!! I’ve never used EE before, so am a little apprehensive about taking on such a project, but at the same time, I’m really excited by EE’s capabilities and really eager to jump in!!

By the way, in response to johnniefp’s question, could you also not have ‘Level’ as a category and then assign members to the relevant category. Based on that, you can serve up relevant tags?

Just wondering…

Thanks once again.

What is it you’re trying to achieve?

Let’s use the analogy of this thread, a real estate site.

ACME Realty are a premium listing.
They get the following in their listing form and in the display template.
Name:
Address:
Tel:
Email:
URL:
Biography:

CHEAP Realty are a free listing, they see the same listings form as ACME Listing but the display template only shows…
Name:
Address:

So all companies fill out the same form, their listing level decides what gets displayed.

Question:
Do we have a ‘Listing level’ custom field, or do we assign the listing owner to a member group based on their level?

Hope that’s clear.

Thanks
John

I would use:
Member profile with fields of your desire and member info
then
make a set of member groups and take a note of their IDs:
-Listing level 1
-Listing Level 2
-Listing Level 3

while in template you can constrain
if member group = “listing level 1” then
{show what you want}

or something that ee would process as:

{if member_group == "1"}
{fields and other output}
{/if}

see member profile templates
hope this helps