We’re just about to start a project which is the redevelopment of a site for an estate agents. The old/current site is built using a custom CMS based on the Zend framework (version 1) and we’ve proposed to completely redo the whole thing.
The property management aspect of the site is a little complex and we don’t think it would be suitable for using WordPress, however for the CMS aspect WordPress is a perfect fit.
We’re fairly new to using Laravel but were thinking of basing the site on WordPress and redirecting all traffic to /property to a Laravel app that would only be used for managing and listing properties.
Has anyone else attempted to do this before? Is this a bad idea? I’ve seen this post on the forums but that link, to me, refers to using Laravel code inside a WordPress plugin; would that be a better route to follow than trying to integrate two separate applications?
@poggen thanks for the props! That was (is) a fun site. @paul_tibbetts my first question would be does your data have a source or are the properties being manually entered into which ever platform you use? If you’re manually entering data I think Wordpress by itself is sufficient. There are pretty powerful plugins for handling meta data like ACF and with a little research you should be able to search/filter all the properties without any problem. However without knowing what you need for “property management” I can not be certain. Laravel is a great framework but I think it would add a level of complexity that is not needed. Another advantage of using only Wordpress would be the ability to repurpose data. For example creating a shortcode to feature properties, etc.
The website that @poggen references was built entirely in Wordpress. Our data, however, comes in from a RETS feed and is not “editable” in the Wordpress admin. Getting data from another source and cacheing it locally has it’s own set of obstacles but is ultimately the way to go. Of course that only applies if there is and outside source.
Thanks for the answer @diggs (and @poggen for pinging him)
There is no source for the data so it would all need to be added manually (apart from an initial import from the old site) which means using WordPress itself to add and manage the properties. This is why we had initially thought of building a custom app in Laravel instead of WordPress as there will be around 350 properties to manage at a time and my employer has attempted something similar before and managing this many things in WP proved difficult for the client.
and
are both what I’m starting to think now. Even if managing a large number of properties would be easier to do in a specific app built for it the amount of work that would go into building it (and the limitations that would have on the project) might make it more effort than it’s worth. I wonder if a custom admin page for the properties would be a better solution.
Thank you, I’ll be happy if it ends up looking half as good as the Coldwell Banker Bailey & Co site!