Changes for using script as Real Estate Agency or Portal

[cammpl]

I am testing and evaluating your script. My first impression is very good for a first version and you guys should be proud. I do noticed some areas of improvement compared to the script I am using and the functionality that I wish to attain, which is a real estate portal, that I want to share with you.

1. If you want to sell your script to real estate agencies and not only holiday rents, you need to improve the information you give in the general list of properties, at the moment you have a thumbnail with TITLE, PRICE, SELL/RENT, BERTHS, this may work for a holiday rent where people are interested in the number of berths so that they can accommodate themselves but for someone looking to buy or rent long term what it really matters is LOCATION, TITLE, PRICE, NR.BEDS, NR. BATHS as minimum. I think you could change this easily.
2. The property detail screen also could be improved and the search bar/menu on the top removed or hide so that the user could see immediately almost the whole information. You would have to ad a home button and a search button or even breadcrumbs which are intuitive and used in most websites of this kind.
3. The numbers in your page show in a format without any separator like 300000,which is not very clear to read. I think you could introduce a . or , like 300.000 .
4. The form to publish the ad need some tidying up, like following the normal user workflow:
- First you select what kind of transaction you want to do (sell, rent, etc)
- Second you select your City
- Third you input your address
- Fourth you say your price
- Fith you say how many bedrooms you have
- Sith you say how many baths you have
- Seventh you pick your floor and how many floors there is in your building
- Eight, the title
- Ninth, the description that should have a much larger view/space area
- Tenth, the close to field
- And last all the check boxes because they can be overwhelming to some users if out at the beginning and make them give it up, when they are in the end the user keeps going because they have already filled almost all the details.
5. You should think about including an extra field where users could fill their reference number. It is important because if the website is used by other agents they will have their own references numbers in the multiple CRM that they may be using and will not change their system to adapt to yours, it is the other way around. Having a small text field where any user with more than one property could insert a reference will help the portfolio management.
6. This last one I am not sure if you have or not. The possibility of highlight any property as SOLD or RENTED before turning the ad inactive. Most agents like to have those signs for a while to show their clients that they are successful.


Maybe other readers that use your script for the same kind of business could write their opinions about the changes I am proposing you.

Well, I hope you take into consideration my suggestions and keep developing this promising platform.


All the best for all the team.
Regards
Carlos

[support]

Many thanks for your suggestions for improvement of our script.
We will take them into consideration, and they will surely have a positive impact on the development of Open Real Estate.

Kind regards,
Monoray Team.

[DwayneFoster]

Great suggestions... Well,search by keywords is another search option of our real estate script that allows to search by keywords from listing description, headline, comments, loaded files, location and listing owner's info...

[giampy]

How can I insert floor property with 0 or -1?
The FLOOR field starts at 1 up to the value added by Admin.
Thank You

[Foton]

In file openre\protected\modules\apartments\views\backend\__form.php
try to replace code

Code: Select all

<?php echo $form->dropDownList($model, 'floor',
    array_merge(
        array('0' => ''),
        range(1, param('moduleApartments_maxFloor', 30))
    ), array('class' => 'width50')); ?> /
 <?php echo $form->dropDownList($model, 'floor_total',
    array_merge(
        array('0' => ''),
        range(1, param('moduleApartments_maxFloor', 30))
    ), array('class' => 'width50')); ?>

with

Code: Select all

<?php echo $form->dropDownList($model, 'floor',
    array_merge(
        array('0' => ''),
        range(-1, param('moduleApartments_maxFloor', 30))
    ), array('class' => 'width50')); ?> /
<?php echo $form->dropDownList($model, 'floor_total',
    array_merge(
        array('0' => ''),
        range(1, param('moduleApartments_maxFloor', 30))
    ), array('class' => 'width50')); ?>

and in file protected\views\site\field-floor-search.php replace

Code: Select all

$floorItems = array_merge(
    range(0, param('moduleApartments_maxFloor', 30))
);
$floorMin = isset($this->floorCountMin) ? CHtml::encode($this->floorCountMin) : 0; 

with

Code: Select all

$floorItems = array_merge(
    range(-1, param('moduleApartments_maxFloor', 30))
);
$floorMin = isset($this->floorCountMin) ? CHtml::encode($this->floorCountMin) : -1; 

[alexjoseph]

You can also make keyword searches with the help of tool.

[charles12]

That's a really great suggestions for improvement of the script. Exactly search by keywords is another search option of our real estate script.