Estate agent searching script

[mikel2k3]

Hi

I have a client that is wanting a letting agent website. I have never done anything like this before, so the main thing begind the letting agent website is the search funtion on there.

So i need a little help with the search function on there, that will allow anybody browsing the website to find a house to there needs. So they choose what they are looking for whether it be a 2bedroomed house with central heating then click search etc. As I have never done anything like this before, i need some help with it.

So my question is, does anybody know any current scripts that could do this for me... Or... does anybody know how to create a script that would be able to do this?

here is an example site of what i would be ideally be creating: http://www.letmove.com/

All help appreciated,
Mike

 

[scopey]

Assuming you have a database with all your houses in it, you can have a field in your database for each individual criteria. In other words, perhaps you could set up a database like:

| ShortDescription | PicUrl | Price | Bedrooms | Bathrooms | etc...
------------------------------------------------------------------
| Small 2 bedroom  | URL    | $1000 | 2        | 7         |

And then a user can simply use a search script that will check the column for and entry that meets his criteria. I havn't actually done much like this before either, but that's how I would go about it.

Good luck!

 

[tnl2k7]

If you're going to searching other websites, it's not going to be quite so easy. You'd have to have permission to access to their databases to search, and your script would have to account for the different names of tables / columns to find things.

Could you provide us with a clearer picture of what you're trying to do here please Mike? Like whether it's just for one site or several, for example?

-Luke.

 

[mikel2k3]

Thanks for the replies...

All ive been told is that its a new business really... so ill presume they will (or employ people) to take pictures of the properties etc. So everything would be there own.

Is it a lot of work to set something like this up?
And if so, how much should i roughly charge? Im unsure of how much time this may take up. Im also willing to pay somebody a little to help me on this.

Like i mentioned before, the website they said they would ideally like i something like www.letmove.com


- Mike

 

[scopey]

A website like that is no simple task. A website like that, which isn't so cluttered could be worth quite a bit. But it really depends on what other interactive features you include. If the only interactive feature was just a search of properties, you probably shouldn't charge much.

 

[tnl2k7]

Well you'll need to start off by designing a MySQL table inside a new database to hold the information. So for example, a column named 'bedrooms' to hold the number of bedrooms. A column named 'bathrooms' for the number of bathrooms, and a column called description to hold a basic description. Create all the columns you need, setting them with the correct type (e.g. text with a limit of '0' (no limit) for the description, tinyint for the others). Also add an auto_increment column called ID and make it the primary key, it'll make your life much easier in the long run.

Then you need to design the form you're going to use to search the properties. This could just be a simple one with a few dropdown menus (<select> tag with <option> tags inside) to start with, start coding just one and make sure it does what you want first.

Then you need some PHP code to process the search and find results, which would be a simple matter of cleaning the input the user has entered to prevent SQL injection, then using a mysql_query() and mysql_fetch_array to retrieve the information, then rounding it off with a while() loop to echo all the data and make a page / table from it. It's pretty simple really, just look at how basic search scripts work for ideas on how to implement this. I do similar with the search on my arcade, which is primitive but getting better as I work on it more.

Good luck!

-Luke.