Comments on: Custom Real Estate IDX Solutions – Everyone Is Doing It

By: Bucks County Real Estate

Bucks County Real Estate — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:09:53 +0000

The idea of having to build your own IDX solution is great, but I would rather be a Realtor and let someone else handle the technological side. I’ve been with REW for about 18 months and I couldn’t be happier with their custom IDX.

I wonder how the new iFrame version is going to work out. So far it looks pretty good.

By: Harrison Rental Property

Harrison Rental Property — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:37:13 +0000

Wow !!! Thats Great.Thanks for letting me know about this! Nice post, I am pretty much pleased with your good work.

By: Ron Goodman

Ron Goodman — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 20:04:32 +0000

Having used IFramed IDX plugins in the past, having a REW website and integrated IDX for a couple of years, and now a Joomla 1.5 CMS based website with a different vendor’s integrated IDX (WordPress is also supported) that I can now totally manage and control myself, an integrated custom IDX is the only way to go these days, especially for the more technically capable and web-savvy agents.

The REW site and IDX I had was great, as far as it went in our market. But primarily because of local MLS rules and IDX restrictions (I was not a managing broker at the time), as well as my very limited budget, I couldn’t afford the cost of customizations required to get the full functionality I wanted for my clients. REW was also limited in what they could or would do for local clients who are not managing brokers, and are therefore required by our MLS to use a standardized “vendor template” IDX solution, even for an integrated IDX.

My current vendor’s IDX product does have its limitations: no Google map search (but coming), support for only a limited number of MLS markets, hosting still needs to be on their servers for a totally integrated environment, and high level of technical expertise required to get the most out of the product. But being very technical myself, I was able to handle it OK. In the end, the increased flexibility and control has been great, as well as support for Joomla and WordPress open source platforms. So (IMO) my IDX functionality is now among the best in my market, and it continues to improve month by month as I continue to tweak the IDX and my website. Now I get complements on the IDX and website all the time from my buyer clients.

The biggest down side, if you can call it that, is that I am getting lots more user registrations from buyers who are already using another agent, and their agent’s site (or the agent’s broker’s) is not as good as mine!

By: Paul Trippett

Paul Trippett — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 20:09:06 +0000

What you need are young people to enter the Real Estate market and build stuff using new methods. Theres a lot of people in Real Estate that have been doing RE a long time and unfortunatly old habits never die. IFrames are bad, no one outside of RE has used them since the death of IE4

By: admin

admin — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 22:01:49 +0000

Wow, that’s Great Paul. Guess you need to control the listings. I recall when it was best to have a buyer, since the listings where just sitting.

By: Paul Caparas

Paul Caparas — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 06:07:37 +0000

The market in San Diego is pretty crazy. The inventory is really low so there multiple offers everywhere. I have buyers offering 30k-50k above the asking price and losing. I am hoping the holidays will slow down the demand so my buyers can get their home.

By: admin

admin — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:12:55 +0000

That stinks, you thing market leader would have added a CMS. However, sounds like a good site to run PPC ads on.

By: Cache Valley Homes

Cache Valley Homes — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:00:10 +0000

I am with a company called Market Leader, I pay $99 a month for the site, and my hands are tied with what I can do. I can’t add any content to the site, edit meta tags, title tags, or anything like that. But it does convert new visitors at 8-10% so it is effective. Although I would like a map search which I don’t have, and I think Diverse Solutions is the best there is when it comes to map search.

By: admin

admin — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:55:23 +0000

@ Paul – Very True, REW’s IDX is great! How is the market in SD? I’d love to move there Also why not put San Diego real estate as your H1

@CVH – I’ve seen another IDX that is Very Good too, however it’s also with another IDX provider. The Realtor’s IDXs are still a work in progress I believe, however they look pretty good too. btw I like your IDX too, who designed it? Much better than my diversolutions iframe I use on blogs.

By: Cache Valley Homes

Cache Valley Homes — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:08:51 +0000

I am also very interested in hearing how brokers/agents are implementing this. It seems it would cost more to do it on your own, but I really don’t know the costs involved. I hope you get someone that has done it with their sites, I am very interested to look at what people can come up with.