Real Estate Forums

Jared · 02-26-2008, 11:14 AM

Well after someone read my answer to the post in Open Realty vs EZ Realty I was advised that a fork exists of Open Realty called "Easy Pro Realty" and is already in beta 3.

I asked if they fear features being copied by Open Realty and they flat out told me they don't care. They took a list of all the commercial solutions offered in the Open Realty forums and had their programmers duplicate the general idea and then create them as standard features in the fork in hopes of offsetting the desire to copy their features making the fork moot. Clever move really and the addition of some brand new ways to handle templates will be a sure win for the fork.

Built apparently from version 2.4, they honor the Open Realty license in keeping the code open and providing the OR license tag, but they add additional features and modifications in accordance to the original license that make the product appear quite different. I'm not sure what that means but it sounded good when I was told about it.

They wont reveal much about the application fork but did say that CSV loader, google maps and customizable contact forms are standard features in addition to better design and layout features.

I told these developers they are more than welcome to the commercial plugins I've had like the Trulia and MoveChannel XML generators for Open Realty.

Apparently these guys examined Open Realty and dozens of other applications and found what many discover. Open Realty is a real good product absent the support forums and bad advise users end up with.

I hope to have a list of features sure to be copied by Open Realty this week when I get the email I was promised along with the outline.

Its interesting to see that others share the same belief about what a good real estate site should feature.

And yes, they claim to have fixed a pair of potential security issues currently present in Open Realty 2.4 but I've not yet been able to confirm this.

More when I discover more!

~ Jared

fred333 · 02-27-2008, 06:44 AM

Great post thanks.

Jared · 02-27-2008, 09:12 AM

I'll keep you posted and If I am permitted to do so I'll come back in here and post the current active demo for you to examine. Its online and I looked at it and I'm impressed.

I wrote about this in my blog too Open Realty Fork

~ Jared

HHI Golf Guy · 03-06-2008, 01:02 PM

There are a couple of things I would like to see happen with this project:

1. Joomla CMS integration, including Community Builder integration

2. The ability to easily configure multiple sites utilizing a single database. Along this line there should be the ability to apply CSS styles to each individual site. Custom search forms should be made available for each site.

I have had to get very creative to get OR to work the way I need it to in serving multiple sites and multiple regions off of a single database. For those not familiar with the project we have local, regional, and national web sites all running of of a single listing database.

To get it to run the way I need it to run I made some changes in how we utiliuze property classes. Traditionally you would have property classes like this:

1. Homes
2. Land
3. Villas / Condos

Instead of that method I set the property classes as:

1. Site A - Homes
2. Site A - Land
3. Site A - Villas / Condos
4. Site B - Homes
5. Site B - Land
6. Site B - Villas / Condos

Now we can easily set up custom fields, searches, and listings pages based upon the site. That means we don't have to do as many core hacks or add ons, and that makes me very, verry happy.

Jared · 03-06-2008, 01:21 PM

Hello HHI Golf Guy here is an answer to your requests.

Integration works fine and no need for any formal CMS Realty methods

Multiple sites per database is also in there because there were clients that an MLS would be added and they would be in the same market so why import the MLS many times. Its easier if it resides on a cpanel or plesk server to just import to one database.

There are other features I was told I can't tell about but you WILL BE IMPRESSED.

~ Jared

Jared · 03-09-2008, 03:41 PM

It looks the Fork for Open Realty is ready for download come this week. After being asked to submit a set of XHTML Designs I had originally hesitated until i was assured that all the bugs in the generated code were fixed to be XHTML compliant. So I'm happy to say that two of my stock templates are now part of their core release.

~ Jared Ritchey

San Diego Real Estate · 03-12-2008, 03:10 AM

Hey Jared,

How are you coming with your Open Realty Fork? Is it ready for download? Any other news or update to share?

HHI Golf Guy · 03-12-2008, 01:15 PM

Will this fork still utilize the existing OR database structure?

I have a site with over 5,000 listings and 27,000 images and I would hate to have to go through another database conversion. I would much rather attach to the exiting OR database.

Jared · 03-15-2008, 07:35 AM

No the database is different and templates in some instances are not compatible. With the inclusion of new features there are 29 tables as opposed to Open Realty which I believe is 22 tables. Also the addon system is going to the way side in favor a plug-ins manager.

What works with Open Realty works with EZProRealty for the most part. The admin interface is as different as night is from day and the support for designers is unlike previous attempts. Open Realty is still a good product but this variant actually has more than trivial entry level uses because this was built upon ideas that have been gathered from real world interaction with Realtors and their clients.

My new bridge tool makes inclusion of listings in blog posts and Joomla CMS posts an ideal way to cross link and build rank among other things. I modified it to work with the fork out of box and I will update a few more features a bit later.

There is also the inclusion of a template editor that allows for changes to the css or any of the pages in the template folder.

Jared · 03-15-2008, 11:10 AM

I wrote this last week but just took it out of draft state and posted it. This may be of interest.
EZ Pro Realty The Standard | Open Realty | vieleRETS » Jared Ritchey Design

~ Jared