WP Realty is quite literally an integrated listings manager script designed to work inside of WordPress for the management of real estate listings. Although our 3.0 version has been 100% re-written from the ground up … What exactly is WP Realty?

WP Realty is quite literally an integrated listings manager script designed to work inside of WordPress for the management of real estate listings. Although our 3.0 version has been 100% re-written from the ground up to feature a new data base structure; the decision to integrate our forked version of Open-Realty® served a few purposes in order to facilitate the transition. Almost daily, people will still ask us why we went with the forked version of a listings manager to achieve what we were after in version 2.0. Here is a bit of history to explain this.

Back in 2008 we had taken the static build version of Open-Realty® and forked it to suite our needs for the projects we developed with Open-Realty®. We have our own formula for site building and therefore required a few enhancements and modifications to the product in order to accommodate our needs. After building the fork however, we opted to NOT publish it since maintenance and support would become a lofty task given the situation at that time.

Shortly after we started using our forked version of Open-Realty®, problems would frequently surface where updates were concerned. The original idea was to remove the ADODB abstraction layer for the much faster PDO method. As clients attempted to update their websites with successive versions of Open-Realty® they would overwrite our version resulting in a broken site and in many cases a site that would not function with automated MLS updates. This was the first issue we identified and knew we needed to consider other methods of using the forked variant.

Naturally as time went on WordPress not only grew in popularity, it exploded as the number one tool used by Real Estate professionals seeking to increase their presence on the internet. As early as 2007 we began building WordPress sites for Realtors and as I will demonstrate below you can examine the succession of the WP Realty plugin as it evolved over the past 3 years. But first, it was important to keep in mind a that since the market really dictates what gets developed, Realtors were migrating away from paid solution providers faster than we could keep up and they expected to take back control. We formulated the concept of WP Realty to integrate rather than bridge applications.

WP Realty 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, History Timeline.

WP Realty 2.0 was to be the transition application between the former WP Realty 1.0 bridge and the fully realized custom WP Realty 3.0 Plugin. A brief look at the versions will tell a better story of our efforts and what you can expect in the version updates as we publish them.

What Is WP Realty 1.0

WP Realty 1.0 was essentially a way to integrate listings from Open-Realty® into a WordPress blog by using a plugin. A truly unique and 100% proprietary solution, the plugin was used quite successfully in dozens and dozens of sites.

In essence, the plugin would bring in listings into a WordPress blog for better SEO control and benefit from the listings to take advantage of the native WordPress features that have proven successful time and time again. Although we had still employed other methods of using both WordPress and Open-Realty® together with a technique of CURL and php Includes to clone the features, the subsequent SEO results were spotty at best. We needed something a bit more reliable if we really wanted to bridge the two applications for better SEO control. WP Realty 1.0 as I stated above became the tool that worked for dozens and dozens of real estate websites quite effectively.

WP Realty 1.0 was first published in 2007 and officially on WordPress in December of that year. We used WP Realty 1.0 throughout 2008 and part of 2009. WP Realty 1.0 was updated recently and is still maintained. Although WP Realty 1.0 was truly unique and proprietary it was not without its challenges as competitors took every opportunity to not only copy the plugin for use in their own solutions but shoot it down as a viable product in part because of their dislike for Open-Realty®.

Open-Realty® over the course of a year earned a horrific reputation of being one of the most hostile and unfriendly forums on the internet. Challenging the wisdom of professionals as a routine and often editing, punishing and even banning members for mere mention of integration with WordPress or employing tools such as VieleRETS. The Open-Realty® community dwindled substantially in activity which so offended people they would not use WP Realty as a result.

What is WP Realty 2.0

WP Realty 2.0 came about after we received countless requests and troubleshooting tickets from the plugin users that said the latest version of Open Realty® included a blog of their own and presented unique changes that would actually conflict with WordPress. Although we fixed the bugs and updated WP Realty 1.0, we opted to consider a new approach. It was time to go back to WP Realty 1.0 and rather than ask someone to install Open-Realty® separately, we would simply apply our forked version to the plugin folder as to avoid version conflicts. Naturally this was no easy task. After thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours in development, design and testing, we released the very first version of WP Realty 2.0 in October 2009. Since the initial release of WP Realty 2.0 we have since published 13 updates of which 4 are official version updates to correct bugs and add in new features.

One might consider WP Realty 2.0 to be in a similar position as Joomla was with its relationship to Mambo. Joomla 1.0 was forked from Mambo after many reasons which lead to a conflict in the direction the product was going. Joomla’s first version was quite literally Mambo rebranded as was our first fork of Open-Realty®. Although many dozens of products people use today are forks of the originals, the license method remains intact. The reason for the licensing of a GNU/GPL product is to provide succession of the work which can be published freely as unique works if desired. With Open-Realty® their license actually began as GNU/GPL and migrated to a proprietary license with similar characteristics. Most notably, Open-Realty® now “encrypts” all of their code and requires that the sites must retain the “powered-by” tag in the footer of everywhere the code is displayed or pay to have it removed by buying a license.

From the licensing stand point we opted to always maintain an unencrypted source code but always require a valid license to have access to downloads, updates, or support forums.

What is WP Realty 3.0

WP Realty 3.0 was planned for development back in 2008 and began casual part time development in October 2010. Although developed from the ground up as a completely proprietary product, nearly all of the existing features available in WP Realty 2.0 are maintained to the next version. WP Realty 3.0 has been back in full development after the first of the year and is scheduled for release by mid 2011.

WP Realty 3.0 solves several issues we have experienced over the years with enhancements in key areas of concern. First, we are building WP Realty 3.0 to be better positioned for use as a replacement for proprietary solution providers. Rather than try and assault and directly compete with the proprietary solution providers, we are opting instead to structure the licensing that would allow solution providers to use the solution unbranded, unrestricted for the most part, and to do so in an affordable way. We are building WP Realty 3.0 to work as an enhancement to those themes by keeping the listings manager dependent on the theme for its overall structure. Naturally some may wonder why and the simple answer is simplicity of integration. Too many plugins require too many modifications to function properly and the more we shift the styling, structure and typography to the theme developer the more likely the new WP Realty will be embraced.

Another key factor in the development of the WP Realty 3.0 version is our total migration away from the forked version of Open-Realty® as the new techniques we use for this 3.0 listings manager is entirely unique. Enhancements will include a much better database structure, better support for IDX and RETS import, CSV import is a native feature and a lofty inventory of key features like Google maps, xml export and sales lead management are central to the development.

NOTE* As of March 20011 – We have made a several changes to the direction in which we are taking and developing 3.0. We will be making an announcement letting everyone one know more information within the next couple of months when we are ready to release the first beta version.