Dot Net Website for Real Estate 'Neighborhood Tour' Property Listing Portal

Client Brief

The client is into real estate business and he wasted us to design and develop a web face for that. He wanted a website where he can post videos of the properties he offers along with every other detail. The website was expected to look clean with less fussy elements with minimal content.

Our Endeavor

We have started working on the project by drafting an adequate design of the website. A home page has been designed where minimal amount of colors and graphics has been used as expected. Div based or CSS based HTML coding was intended to give it a better structure.

Three types of users are targeted in this website: end users, real estate agents or realtors. Let’s get a detailed idea about who got what in here:

END USERS:

Users can get registered on the website by filling in the relevant fields like email id, password and confirm password in the form. Users will get a confirmation email with link to activate their account.
Users can manage their profile with one profile photo. The image, advertisement banners maximum size would not be exceed from 1MB, and will resize the image into thumbnail to keep the website performance.
End users can search for home, location, country, city, price range, bedroom, living area, lot size, categories like Bed and breakfast, Lake, Historic, River View, ocean etc.
The search results will pull a list of neighborhoods that match their search criteria, located on the left side of the page, and will display the top matched result in the center of the page, with the image of that neighborhood. It will show a map of the location of the neighborhood shown on the “neighborhood page” image. List of homes in that neighborhood that match the home attributes selected from the user, will be displayed shown on the “neighborhood page” image. The calculation for search results will just be which results have most amenities matching in descending order.
In the "create new tour”, users can create of their favorite homes and/or neighborhoods. Users are able to create different "favorites" lists and then be able to add homes and/or neighborhoods to the lists they have created.
MLS listings of home for sale in searched area: Underneath the list of homes, there will be a list of the top videos of homes for that area, followed by MLS listings of home for sale in that area.
Home detail with their video: The user can select any homes shown underneath the video and it will take them to a page showing the listing (with video if the home has a video).
Save and view favorite homes: This will be the “customer” and will have an account that allows them to save their favorite homes.
Save and view favorite neighborhoods: This will be the “customer” and will have an account that allows them to save their favorite neighborhoods.
Search the realtor based on city and state.
Save and view favorite realtors/brokers: This will be the “customer” and will have an account that allows them to save their favorite realtors.
Google map with markers: Implement Google map showing the markers on search result listing.
Email neighborhood to friend: Allow user to send neighborhoods to their friend, on a given time only one friend can be contacted.
Allow users to upload one video tours. Video maximum size would not be exceeding from 1GB, and it would be in FLV format only.
Allow users to choose their interest from a list of neighborhood attributes, and home attributes, then click search.
Share with Facebook and twitter.
Users can print, add to favorite, email to friend, and share the details of the selected properties.
List of saved or dropped pictures of homes or neighborhoods will be displayed from user's favorites list.
The calculators will be implemented for simple mortgage and the formulas will be provided by the client.
Saved Agent profile: User can add agent profile in “MY SAVED PROFILES” section.
Live Chat: Agent can choose to chat if they are logged into the site (if this feature is chosen by agent Live Chat will only appear when they are logged in). Chat will be simple text one to one chat. If Agent will have chosen on backend to enable instant message chat then User will be able to send message through website to agent mobile device.

REALTORS:

Realtors can get registered on the website as a Real Estate Agent by filling up a form and submitting a fee through an integrated payment gateway (To be signed up and provided by the client). The user will get a confirmation email with link to activate their account.
Realtors can log in to their account by providing username and password. They can retrieve the forgotten password.
Realtors can manage (add/edit/delete) homes for sale and lease on the website. They can upload multiple photos and videos for a home. The maximum size would not be exceeding from 1MB, and resize the image into thumbnail to keep the website performance. The video maximum size would not be exceed from 1GB, and it would be in FLV format only.
Pay for videos: A realtor will be able to upload video of their home listings. They will have their own information page, which will show information about them, listings, etc, which they will be able to “customize” with different themes. Realtors will have to pay to be able to upload video of one of their listings.
Realtors can edit their details/profile which needs to be approved by the admin before getting published on the website.
They can choose their own information page's theme. There would be predefined theme to choose from. (Max 3 themes would be there with different color, no location and content will be changed).

ADMIN:

The back-end admin panel will be assessed by using a username and password and will be hidden from the normal users/visitors.
Admin can manage (add/edit/delete) registered users, MLS feed and import data in DB.
Main admin can add, edit, and delete zone admin based on zip code. One zone can have multiple admin.
Main and local admin can view user's questions.
Admin can manage contents of the static pages using WYSWYG editor.
Different realtors’ packages will also be managed by the admin. The realtors can purchase a "packages" as their choices and by using a point system. For example, they could pay $100, for 100 points, and then uploading a video may cost them 10 points. The same will deducted from their account.
Administrator will be able to control video listings for one specific area. (Broken down by zip code) Re-use the control develop for realtors.
The admin can control realtors’ listings for one specific area. Alongside he/she will be also be able to control advertisement listings for one specific area. (Broken down by zip code) Re-use the control develop for local and national advertisers.
Zone admin can access his/her admin panel using unique URL which would be hiding from other users’ type. On retrieving of forgotten password, an email contains the password will go to zone admin email id.
Admin can create local and national advertiser accounts. Main admin can map a predefined advertisement area to an advertiser. Administrator will define a specific area to local and national advertisers. He can create a login for advertiser and map an area with them. Advertiser will login and upload their advertisement(s). The size and type of the advertisements would be predefined and will be matched with the defined criteria.