Re: IDX/MLS Solutions
I would say it all depends on how comprehensive the web site is. Downloading and parsing the data into MySQL isn't that big of a job; I think it took me a day to write a Windows service that does just that in VB.NET.
The bigger effort (and I'll bet Vlado agrees) is making the Listing pages user friendly, print friendly, and every-screen-size friendly (right, Ken?), plus translating the tireless Realtor shorthand into some form of plausible English that the average consumer understands. PLUS, there's search intelligence. Man, even after a year of tweaking what was already a smart search engine (with proximity and soundex matching), people still find ways of "creative" searching that we hadn't considered when we'd designed the system.
As I said, the first part took about a day, the rest... well, we're still perfecting it. I think it'll be another year until I'm really satisfied that we're covering 95% of users' needs.
-Matt
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