Tucson/Phoenix MLS

[dianen]

Hello. I'm a web designer planning a Wordpress real estate site for a client with membership in both the Tucson and Phoenix MLS's, and am very interested in your plugin. The site will cover both markets.

My client currently has a shared hosting account, though that could probably be upgraded, if necessary. Could you please tell me what would be involved in setting up the IDX feeds? Would they be hosted on your server or his? What would the different options cost? What steps would he or I need to take to get the feeds set up?

If the IDX is hosted on your server rather than his, would that affect the way the property details page titles and URL's appear at all? I'd rather not have to get involved with maintaining the database, so having you host it would be preferable. However, I would want to be the one to install and customize Wordpress, design a custom theme for him, and do maintenance on the site.

Thanks!
DianeN

[Chad]

We have already done both MLS markets and actually just completed building out everything about 2 weeks ago.

We then charge a monthly fee of 60.00 dollars per embedded mls feed per month regardless of whether or not the clients site is on their server or ours...So the clients site could be sitting on our server or theirs and the cost is still the same so there really isn't any advantages to paying for hosting somewhere else unless you just want to have your own server.

The reason for the monthly fees is simply because we have to "manually update per website" the new or modified MLS fields (typically every 3 to 6 weeks) in order to keep it current or it will eventually break (when things get added by the mls like new subdivisions - foreclosure etc etc.)

Give us a call tomorrow 9 to 6 est - 888-302-7713

We could have both feeds installed into your sites within 24 hrs of payment.

Best regards,
Chad

[dianen]

Thanks, Chad. Is it possible to keep the Wordpress and other site files on my client's server (he has already paid for several years of hosting) but pull the IDX from your server? I'm assuming so, but would like to be sure.

[Chad]

Well there are many factors involved with that and as long as he is not on a cheap 5 dollar shared hosting plan "its possible" but like I said there are lots of unknowns about what kind of session time limits, max mb limits, crons etc.

Once I have all of that type of info we can give a more accurate answer.

But like i said above, the monthly fee is the same no mater where the site is actually hosted. So he isn't going to "save" any money by staying where he is versus moving to our sever since the cost per month is not going to be "more" or "less" for either place.

The only advantages of being on your own server is perhaps if you do thousands of bulk emails - that would be the only restrictions we have on our servers is 1000 max emails per site per hr. Our servers are complete Cpanel access with no other restrictions. (And we use the HostGator quad-processor servers)

[dianen]

One more question... what difference would there be in the set up and maintenance costs if the MLS databases were actually on my client's server? He would have to upgrade his hosting, I assume.

(Sorry to keep posting here, but I'm unable to hear on the phone. If you would prefer to email about this instead, please let me know.) My client is very interested, and once I have a better grasp of how this will work, he will probably call you.

Thanks.

[Jared]

The monthly fee is for maintenance of the scripts and wont change by much. Setup depending on server can range in price.

All MLS's change. Some more frequently than others. The monthly fee is applied for us to maintain the updates.

Jared