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WordPress Real Estate Plugin | Multi RETS Data Merge | Multi Office

Multi RETS Data Merge | Multi Office

This is a RE/MAX Multi RETS Data Merge, Multi Office site that we are currently building out with our WordPress Real Estate Plugin. Beautiful, large scale photos are just one of the highlights of the site. The RE/MAX  Sea to Sky franchise is out of the Vancouver, Canada area with 3 office locations including one in the stunning ski resort area of Whistler, BC. The broker has a vibrant and long standing blog that we will incorporate into her main site / landing page and then break the site down into three distinctive sites per office location, along with distinctive Agent Rosters, Featured Listings, Area Information, and other pertinent details. The main site will also include the capability of searching for property throughout all three markets with a single data base merge.

This is being built on the WordPress MU frame so that the broker can offer all of her agents their own distinct websites using the integrated RETS data via subdomains or the agent template site can be copied onto an agent’s own independent domain. Our WordPress Real Estate Plugin allows data to be pushed to any site via the broker’s RETS credentials. This is a great marketing tool for brokers and agents. All of this is available using our Developer License with Broker Build Out. 

WordPress Real Estate Plugin | Multi RETS Data Merge

Multi RETS Data Merge | 5 Major Markets


This project has been a real test for our WordPress Real Estate Plugin and our Multi Rets Data Merge capabilities. We’re calling it “the Mother of All Data Feed Projects.” Several month’s ago, this client approached us with a request for a site build-out that merged 5 major market RETS feeds across Texas into a single database. In addition, they wanted to incorporate some slick statistical information for communities, neighborhoods, areas of interest and more. They also wanted to incorporate sold data, which is only available from a couple of the RETS providers. They are a unique brokerage who obviously handles transactions statewide. They have agents statewide working from virtual offices so they needed WordPress MU capabilities as well along with Agent Site Templates so their agents can have their own sites with all of the aforementioned features. And to top it all off, they were looking for an alternative to a Real Estate Webmasters site they had seen (plus the merged data feed and other extras) for a price they could actually afford.

We’re not going to lie, it’s been a bear. A long haul…several months to be exact, a bit stressful, some high emotions, and a ridiculous amount of coffee. In order for this site to run smoothly and efficiently, it had to be built on our 4x version…which was still under development so the project took much longer than it would have if our 4x version had already been complete. It has now been about 5 months since we received their RETS credentials from all of the markets and we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. 4x is almost out of beta. Data feeds are merged. Statistical data can be displayed using polygon map draw tools and our customized shortcode. Programmers are tweaking the customized map search and we are looking forward to a final punch list soon. We’re anxious to see the final project and looking forward to showing off some of the exciting new, custom features.

NAR is now concerned about “an even playing field for all real estate content online?”

I find this incredibly interesting, and more than a little obtuse on their part. After basically turning the industry over to companies like Zillow who monopolize the search results and demand a ransom in the form of paid advertising for REALTORS to actually buy back their own listings AND who now want to get in the business of actually facilitating real estate offers…now NAR – National Association of Realtors is concerned about maintaining “an even playing field for all real estate content online?” The reason Zillow is able to monopolize search results is because REALTOR associations and IDX providers sell the data to Zillow for huge amounts of money. A normal, every day REALTOR..even a pretty technologically savvy REALTOR…will have a hard time going up against Zillow in standard search results. Of course SEO challenges are the reason RETS PRO built our WordPress real estate plugin and the reason we continue to constantly make changes and improvements, but if the REALTOR Associations had been concerned about “even playing fields,” they wouldn’t have afforded companies like Zillow the opportunity and ability to play by an entirely different set of rules than everybody else.

RETS PRO wiki

RETS PRO News

RETS PRO NEWS

RETS PRO will be updating the wiki this weekend so that we can go ahead and start modifying everything from the old 2x version to the newer 3x.

RETS PRO is looking for volunteers to assist with the online documentation conversion and so anyone who is interested should please contact us – I will post this again in the RETS PRO forums as well incase anyone missed this post.

Anyone looking to become a volunteer forums “Moderator” should also speak up! We would love to have someone keeping another set of eyes on the forums.

RETS PRO wiki – This is going to take longer to learn the wiki code than it will to do the conversion, but it has to get done so it looks like a fun weekend coming up.

Also setting up svn access again, so for those that want this let me know….I’ll be writing a more in-depth post about the svn soon for those that don’t know what it is our how to use it.

Anyone having any suggestions for the site and or plugin please let us know via email, ticket, or in the forums so that we can make improvements that matter for everyone. I will be adding a few more videos sometime next week showing the latest features so please remember to visit our official RETS PRO youtube channel every few weeks to catch up on our latest how-to videos.

Well thats it for this post…

Cheers
RETS PRO