Hi,

I'm not exactly sure what comes with the 'core IDX' or exactly what it looks like, but I know I want it. Can you give me a link to a site that has what you would consider the 'basics'?

Also, can you give me a quote and a ballpark time to complete?

Lastly, are there some options that may not be part of the 'core' but in your opinion really nice to have?

Thanks

Jon Pio
vintagerealtycharlotte.com

I would be happy to answer this for you

Quoting CORE is very easy - REW CORE IDX is a $2500 one time fee for install and an additional $360 USD per year for IDX data hosting.

Any fees charged by your MLS board to access "your" feed, are your responsibility, for information on fees (If there are any) to access a feed, please contact your MLS board or our IDX co-ordinator Reed Botright (reed @ realestatewebmasters.com)

REW Does have access to the Charlotte feed and can provide IDX services to you assuming you are able to obtain a feed - Sometimes feeds are for broker of record only, sometimes for any broker, sometimes for agent with broker sign off, and sometimes for all agents once again please check with your board or our IDX co-ordinator.

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Now onto an example of CORE: (Hard to find a customer that has not done at least "some" additional customizations)

Let's use http://www.jimolenbush.com/idx/ - This site is a "custom" design, not a template, however the link I have provided is for his IDX piece, which apart from a few very minor additions is pretty much CORE.

So what do we see here:
4 Tabs -
By Area (Or city this depends on where you are)
By Zip Code
By MLS number
Map Search

All 4 of those search options are included in CORE REW IDX.
You can customize your city list, and property types and there is the standard min and max price, beds, baths square feet etc

Users have the option to search or save and search (Saving a search requires that they register to create an account to tie the saved search to, this is a good thing as it is one of the ways you capture leads)

Once they search, they are presented with search results - these will have a thumbnail of the property, price, city, MLS # property type etc as well as a view details and add to favorites (also requires they register, same as saved searches)

Next you have the detail page - This has several calls to action included
Map this property, inquire, request showing, print, add to favorites, send to friend, and calculate mortgage and all the coding required to operate them.

There is the main photo as well as thumbnails you can mouse over, as well as 19 other fields of your choice (Most people pick the same 15 or so, and then the last couple can vary) but they would be things like address, property type, mls #, area, beds, baths, square feet - you know, all that stuff buyers want to know about a property

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now let's talk about snippets - one of the coolest things about REW custom IDX is that is it built directly into the site (it is not an iframe) this allows search engines to spider the listings and details pages of listings you create "snippets" for - it also allows for very easy interaction between REW CMS and IDX technologies.

What is a snippet? It is a special proprietary function of REW backend that allows you to query IDX data, directly from the database and display it on your content pages.

An example content page with a snippet on it can be seen here http://www.graycrestrealty.com/conway.php

As you can see, this person has created a page of content for the city of "conway" and through the miracle of snippets is able to pull a very nicely formatted set of listings specific to just that area, as well as mod_rewritten price range sitemaps that allow your users to click directly on the price range of interest to view properties in their exact price range. You can also refine snippets by area, property type, beds, baths, min and max price. It's actually a very handy little system.

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And finally because you are a CMS 2.0 user, you will likely want to know about backend stuff.

REW CORE IDX ties directly into the REW 2.0 CMS technology and lead manager.

You are able to control the auto responder for IDX registration as well as view, edit and delete a plethora of information about each lead captured.

Some stand out features: view the last 20 properties your lead has viewed, view their saved favorites, and their saved searches.

Create custom saved searches so that they may be emailed automatically new properties coming on the market based on their specific criteria.

Set up drip email campaigns for consistent and effective follow up with IDX registrants helping turn leads into deals.

Track user history as well as your own activity through the system.

Set up multi user lead management (you can provide each of your agents with their own lead management system, assign leads to them etc)

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You asked about options that are really nice to have:

Quick search: The most commonly requested add on, it is 1 hour programming 2 hours design for a basic quick search, this makes it much easier for your site visitors to access inventory from any page on your site, not just the IDX pages or pages with snippets. Cost $300 example http://www.bocaexpert.com/ (See quick search box in navigation)

featured listings module - Again see http://www.bocaexpert.com - Quote is 2 hours for a basic one ($200 USD) this allows you to select properties in the backend via MLS # to rotate on refresh or new page load.

Custom search tabs - (Requires RFP) you will see on many of our sites, there are more tabs than just the main 4 that are included, a basic example of this is on http://www.nuhomesource.com/idx/search_new.html you will see a 5th tab called "new homes" this is a custom search the customer requested that restricts properties returned to only those built after a certain age - these can sometimes be on a few hours to program, or in very advanced cases in the 10's or hundreds of hours << hundreds of hours means a VERY complex application, and probably beyond the scope of most agent requirements.

Extra searchable options within the search tabs themselves - this is a very extreme example but check out http://www.realsourcebrokers.com/idx/#more-options - if it is in the data feed, then we can search by it, but these additions must be custom set up, and they take time to program - Josh's site is an extreme example of this type of customization, but often times just one or two extra fields such as "with a mountain view" or "has two garages" might be requested.

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Custom Google Mapping:
Compare a CORE map search such as http://www.jimolenbush.com/idx/map/
to something extremely customized such as http://www.nashvillebuyers.com/idx/map/brentwood/

The Olenbush map search is included in CORE, the Nashville search again is an "extreme" example of customization and might require some agents to re-mortgage their home to accomplish

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Want to save up to 50% off Real estate webmasters product websites & common upgrades? Check out my latest blog post regarding our end of the year sale.

I hope I have provided enough info for now, if you have other questions, please let me know

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Want to save up to 50% off Real estate webmasters product websites & common upgrades? Check out my latest blog post regarding our end of the year sale.

Wow, ask a simple question.........

That's exactly the kind of information I was looking for. It's going to take me a bit to digest all of this and see which way I want to go. This is a lot of food for thought.

The only thing I didn't see was some sort of time estimate. From when I say go are we looking at a week, 2 weeks, a month, to have it up and running? Assuming I'm just sticking with core and nothing fancy.

Thank you very much.

Jon

CORE is approximately 3 weeks production time from the time we receive your raw data feed access (How long this takes to process is up to your board)

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Want to save up to 50% off Real estate webmasters product websites & common upgrades? Check out my latest blog post regarding our end of the year sale.