Should Wordpress be used to create a real estate listing site?

I have a real estate agent client who wants a website to list the properties he's selling. Although there are great 3rd party web apps out there that do this, he adamantly demands that I recreate a simple and custom website for him.

I can do this quickly with a php framework like Code Igniter that comes with MVC, data access objects and data bind controllers. The database would be straightforward:

t_page: generic content pages

t_property: for each property on the market, has fields like address, price, #of bed rooms etc..

However, the client has heard many great things about Wordpress, and strongly advises that I build his real estate site with it. I've only used Wordpress to create blogs and relatively straightforward websites. SO I dont know how effective it is as a real estate property content management system or how effective it is for users to search for real estate properties based on attributes such as "# of bedrooms, square footage, is basement finished etc..."

So my question is, is it a good idea to build a real estate agent website with Wordpress? Or s开发者_StackOverflowhould I try harder to convince him to build it with web framework like Code Igniter?

Rather than argue with your client about the future platform or CMS or listen to people for/opposed to WP out of principle, sit down with your client and map out exactly what he/she wants to do in terms of the site. How do they want to add material or blog posts? How easy should it be? How do they they want users to be able to search: by price range, location, etc? Get them to show you on other sites how they want things to work.

Then look at the capabilities of various CMS's, frameworks and the like. Investigate search and MLS plugins, property XML feeds, maps. Determine what other real estate sites use (esp. his/her competitors).

Then explain your decision with evidence as to what they want to do compared to what's possible with different systems. They may talk themselves in or out of systems without your help.

It's called working with a client so they get what they want in terms of usability and end-user functions, not imposing what you want on their project. Sure, you know what you are talking about in terms of getting things to work, but they don't care; they want it to work in a certain way: their way.

(And see what's already out there in terms of Real Estate WordPress Plugins and WordPress Real Estate Themes).

I've developed several real estate sites using Joomla and openRealty, and I have tried to create a decent real estate site for my wife using Wordpress due to it's ease of use for end-users, but unfortunately programming a real estate site in Wordpress is tricky. It's a blogging engine and not terribly good at "directory" based information. So I find that the ease of use goes out the window as you try to hack together real estate functionality. Then you are asking your end-users to create custom-fields, etc and it becomes a pain and you end spending too much time managing your end-users.

I love WP. But, a directory style site is not it's highest and best use.

If the client is so adamant that you use WP for his site then let him do it. Then wait till he comes crawling back to you when he can't get it to do what he wants and you can build in properly in CI.

You wouldn't tell a plumber to fix your toilet with a socket set...

Check out ExpressionEngine, it's perfect for this as you can create custom fields (# bedrooms, square footage etc.) and retrieve content by any of these custom fields using the {exp:channel:entries} tag.

So basically you'd create a channel for these listings and then use "custom fields" for the data about each of these listings (specified by the needs of your client).

If you need design for this site "City Guide" from WooThemes will be available for EE as of tonight ;-)

And since you mention CodeIgniter - EE 2.0 is built on CI and if you need some custom functionality it's all CI so that should feel like home.

Wordpress custom post types would work well for this sort of site.. A custom page template and modified WP_Query would provide the basis of the site.

As mentioned by everyone else, WP probably isn't the absolute best tool for the job, but it would not be a bad choice. I've done weirder things with it.

Old question but still relevant. My opinion is that WordPress is not a good option for creating real estate listing sites. The main reason is that it is designed primarily as a blogging engine so it requires a lot of work to set up and is susceptible to getting hacked. More detailed explanation here:

https://smallbusinessforum.co/why-an-alternative-to-wordpress-is-needed-for-real-estate-websites-ff82de096d93#.j2cduk4xs

I think that using Wordpress is a plus, not because it is the best program to use, but if you make the site properly, and he wants to add/change something, you (and many other people out there) can mold it to his needs.

There are a lot of plugins you could extract some php code from and make a good listing. You also have the option of using post_types (which are saved as posts), custom fields (which all the fields are saved in one table but indexed), or creating your own tables (adding tables function or using a plugin like PODS).

I think you will save time on coding if you go with Wordpress, and customization is pretty okay (not anywhere near decent, but I am pretty sure this site will be the next craigslist). Wordpress is the 1995 Toyota Tercel of CMSs: it won't be great, but it gets the job done, and almost everyone has worked on it at some point in their live.

If the money is good, then try to wow him with a CI demo. But with WP, could probably accomplish your task in a few hours. There are ways to set up CI around Wordpress, but that is beyond me.