Already scheduled are the first 12 videos we deem the most important which include the following;

• Post install configuration
• General Settings
• Google Maps
• Database settings
• Dealing with file permissions and uploads
• Lead management
• Template editing
• Introduction to the short code generator
• And more….

In addition, a nice little feature will allow you for instance to create an RSS link to “Our Listings” or “Our Featured Condos” lending a great deal of SEO and marketing power to your feed links.  This feature will be added to our short code generator in the Page / Post editor.

WordPress has released its beta version of WordPress 3.0 which now includes an option for making it a multi user installation.  The WPRealty team has built a different version of the plugin to work exclusively with the MU version and can provide all sub blogs their own unique listings features all of which are maintained from a single database.

What does this mean exactly? Well it means that if you have a real estate site and you plan on marketing for various cities or sub divisions, you could use WordPress MU in a way that better articulates your efforts. An example may be that you are a San Diego Realtor and you want to create a blog for the Pine Valley sub division you could have a url such as http://pinevalley.sandiego.com  It even gets better as you read on.

There are times that real estate Brokers may want to provide each of their agents their own blog in able to feature listings specific to that agent or area of expertise. You could have all the MLS listings loaded into a single install of the WPRealty MU version and then provide each agent with their own blog, their own listings and their own MLS search.  The URL could look like this for example; http://john.realestatedomain.com

More information will be published as we add new features.  We are only accepting hosted solutions for this particular version of WPRealty MU. The reason is in part due to the complex server requirements and need for some manual configuration.  If you or your agency is interested in hosting a WordPress MU site fully empowered with the MLS, please do not hesitate to contact us.

What does the new short code look like? Here is the first release inventory of what we currently have.

For Embedding FEATURED listings use the following short-code samples and replace the count=”#” to display the number of listings – Please note that these featured_listing_vertical.html and featured_listing_horizontal.html templates are located in our templates editor
[wp-realty-listings-featured-vertical count="4"]
[wp-realty-listings-featured-horizontal count="4"]

These are simple examples of how to use short-code to build various strings that will display listings right into your content.

NOTE* Template used with samples below is called embed-template.html and is located in our templates editor.

NOTE* These are only examples. The data fields shown “Subdivision” or “Neighborhood” will have to match the data field (Names) in YOUR site.

“Subdivision – (Your Subdivision Name) (5) Random ordered by price DESC “
[wp-realty-listings fields='Subdivision' values="replace with subdivision name" orderby="price" orderdir="DESC" count="5"]

“City – (Your City Name) (5) Random ordered by price DESC “
[wp-realty-listings fields='City' values="replace with city name" orderby="price" orderdir="DESC" count="5"]

“City – (Your City Name) (5) Ordered by price DESC”
[wp-realty-listings fields='City' values="replace with city name" orderby="price" orderdir="DESC" count="5" sort_type="global"]

“5 Most expensive listings in “
[wp-realty-listings orderby="price" orderdir="DESC" count="5" sort_type="global"]

“City – (Your City Name), Agent ID – 63 (5) Ordered by price DESC [multple criteria example]“
[wp-realty-listings-remote fields='City,Agent_ID' values="replace with city name,63" orderby="price" orderdir="DESC" count="5" sort_type="global"]

We will be adding more samples soon but for now enjoy the POWER of true SEO embedded listings by using our short code system.

What is ORPress?

Put in simple terms it is WPRealty 1.0 renamed befitting of its purpose. ORPress is essentially a 100% FREE GNU/GPL product that will bridge the standard install of OpenRealty and integrate it into WordPress.  You might ask why not leave the name WPRealty 1.0? Well its a complex set of events that resulted in a slight our error in judgment.  Although we had hoped to just toss WPRealty 1.0 aside for much better version in 2.0, we realized that we were a tad to presumptuous in thinking there would be no market for people wanting to take the latest OpenRealty and making it work with WordPress.  Naturally this idea was based on some indicators beginning with the witnessing of OpenRealty forum members being banned or having their posts edited for the mere mention of “integrating wordpress with openrealty” and figured that is a path no longer traveled.

Recently however there has been a surge in interest in bridging the applications with the latest version of both. What we realized is that now that WordPress can be mentioned in the OpenRealty forums without punitive results we could take our plugin, bring it up to date with our new NON IFRAMED method of integration.

So, ORPress is reworked WPRealty 1.0 with new updates and improved code.  You can now take and bridge both applications effectively while taking advantage of support from each application independently.

I’d like to make mention that we are the very first group of developers and designers to ever integrate WordPress and OpenRealty together in a way that had any utility value. We were second in the market to integrate Joomla and OpenRealty and later became the only team to date that tied in Joomla with a home grown version of the listings manager.

As you may or may not know, ARMLS charges its vendors about $X amount per month to be able to provide IDX to Realtors and in fact many popular and commercial solution providers are authorized vendors of the ARMLS MLS.  WPRealty IS NOT an authorized vendor and here is why.  Our resources are being fully directed toward the development of WPRealty 3.0 and we do not have the necessary client base in the ARMLS market to justify the cost.

You may ask; Why are there sites out there in the ARMLS market using WPRealty, how is this done? I’ll answer this by giving a case in point and then disclose our position.

How to get ARMLS MLS Listings in WordPress

WPRealty and the WPRealty team builds developer solutions with our primary product WPRealty 2.0, our form manager, our plugins and addons all of which currently fit the requirements of Realtors using WordPress as their sites CMS engine. We built WPRealty initially for use in projects we personally developed for Realtors and Agents then later pushed it forward as a product other developers can use as a software product.  The initial target audience was webmasters, designers, site developers and MLS professionals. WPRealty has become a bit simpler to use and we have more and more actual end users purchasing the plugin in hopes of securing a great price for the much anticipated WPRealty 3.0.  Regardless of who it is that purchases WPRealty, one thing is always true. Each person using it in ARMLS (and other markets) is required to have their own MLS authorized access to the MLS data.  WPRealty is simply the software tool that saves Realtors thousands of dollars in development by making it compatible with most MLS data loaders on the market.  That being said I’ll cover a case in point with an ARMLS authorized Realtor.

ARMLS Website Example Case

A Realtor who has been authorized by ARMLS to have data feed access for their website purchases WPRealty for use in their WordPress site.  This same Realtor is free to contract any developer to use existing MLS integration tools to work with WPRealty in order to populate the site with listings, or, they contract us to do the integration for them.  If we are contracted we always extend the opportunity for them to host with us (our primary business is hosting and Realtor site development) since we build so many sites we know what it takes for real estate website hosting.  We then use the Realtors authorized credentials to build the data loader for their website. The Realtor then has his/her own custom solution working in WordPress for real estate listings.

We do not take that code and build turnkey ARMLS sites because we are not a vendor. We do build the software that makes this possible for the Realtor to use.

What does ARMLS provide the authorized Realtor?

Once approved you should be provided something to the effect of the following credentials. Its important to note that you must agree to their terms and conditions as is the case with all MLS providers.

1. HOST URL: http://rets.flexmls.com???????????
2. USER NAME: abc.cde.hij
3. PASSWORD: something-that-matters
4. PDF Documentation on requirements such as disclosure, configuration and so on.

I Want ARMLS in my WordPress site!

Once you purchase WPRealty and setup your site you can hire us to write the custom scripts for you for inclusion or you can hire a programmer or simply use available tools for MLS integration such as vieleRETS, RetsConnector, phRets, TransparentRets (commercial and very expensive).

The process for integrating RETS into a WPRealty database will vary depending on market and fields available. The process for us is to map fields (the bulk of the hard part) then write the SQL inclusion process.

The best thing to do is to contact us for more details to avoid any possible confusion.

What we have started yesterday and hope to finish this weekend is the KB Articles, documentation and an assortment of quick start videos available to all registered members.  You can find the KB Articles as we publish them by visiting the Client Area of the site. Click Here!

WPRealty has been downloaded 2,700 times in the past 4 months and may very likely exceed 3,000 by weeks end.  We know of and have reviewed some 80+ sites using the plugin and with active licenses on valid domains we get a number that comes in just below 350 blogs with the plugin installed.  Not to toot our own horn but this is substantial enough to suggest that the new round of updates and features should make this solution one of the best open source solutions for WordPress anywhere on the web.

After looking at the ordering stats and the many languages that represent the client base we decided to take the multi-lingual characteristics a bit more serious than in the past by adding in a feature for language support that really isn't like any product we have encountered.  From the start, I have always hated the idea of maintaining language files in order to get things done with multi lingual projects but we could not escape the requirement that language support needed to be effective, editable, expandable and easy to customize. Language files fit that bill but require too much knowledge from end users regarding PHP.  Errors will certainly surface if we started down the road by encouraging people to modify the language files of the plugin.  I'll explain a bit further.

Multi Lingual WordPress Real Estate Website

What we opted to do instead of using language files was make each of the language variables part of a language record in the database. Now with the new language table, end users can literally create a new record for a new language, edit those language variables used throughout the system and present those language changes based on user criteria.  Adding a template tag like { wpr_lang_2_url } would net the link that switches the language setting in your WPRealty portion of the blog. By allowing site owners to create their own language records, we can expand some of the functionality in ways that do not require a great deal of effort to have a truly multi lingual real estate website.

More on this as the demo becomes available.