Real Estate Website in CakePHP for 'Easyway Apartments' - Rental Services

Client Brief

The client approached us with a requirement of designing & developing a website that can make searching for an apartment a painless process, renters will fill out a rental application online and provide their list of requirements. Depending upon the requirements, property dealer will pitch their prices to the customers.

Our Endeavor

A professional, high quality original website has been designed that has user friendly, fresh, cutting edge look and feel along with scalable infrastructure. Intuitive images, eye-catchy banners and judicious combination of colors have been used to match the industry standards.

We have created various sections/modules for different users of the website. The users of the website viz. renters can register and fill up a form so submit their requirements regarding accommodation/flat. The extensive web form was developed as per client requirements. There were quite a few iterations to perfect the form after client review.

There is an admin section separate from main website where only administrator can login. The landlords on the website are added to DB after proper verification by administrator. The admin section has web form to manage details of the landlord. The administrator using web forms manages properties that are available for renters to search from.

The administrator verifies the requirements submitted by renters and sends them the matching property details via an internal messaging system. The internal messaging system of the website was developed as so as to exchange comments as well as property related information.

The website uses CakePHP as development framework and MySQL as database. The scripting language is PHP 5.2.13 standard and Apache 2 web-server. The additional details are given below:

Frontend:

Renter would be able to register with the website by entering the following details:
- First Name
- Last Name
- Email
- Password
- Confirm Password
Renter would be able to login into the website by entering their username and password.
Renter would be able to retrieve their forgotten password.
Renter would be able to edit their account details.
Renter would be able to change their password.
Renter would be able to search for an apartment by entering the following details:
- City
- State
- Or/ Zip Code
- Min Price
- Max Price
- Number of Bedrooms
- Date Needed
- Accepts Pets
How would you rate your credit:
- Excellent
- Good
- Fair
- Below Average
- Bad
System will compare the renter’s detail search to the landlord’s database and immediately email the renter via internal messaging system a list of “unverified” matches.
System would display the message “Congratulations! We found x (any count) apartment complexes that meet your criteria, in order to continue the process you need to fill out a rental application, so that we can verify availability with the landlords:”
Renter would be able to fill the rental application form by entering the following details:
- First Name
- Last Name
- Former last names (maiden and married)
- Social Security
- Date of Birth
- Driver’s License
- Driver’s License State
- Email Address
- Phone
- Current Address
- City
- State
- Zip
Landlord would be able to register their apartment units by entering the following details:
- Number of Bedrooms
- Number of Bathrooms
- Rent Amount
- Available Date
- If additional unit types please re-enter the info (loop)
Landlord would be able to login by entering their username and password.
Landlord would be able to add their properties, add property details with images, and contact information.
Landlord would be able to update their property information, contact information and availability of apartments.
Landlords would be able to view the potential renter’s information after receiving the renter’s authorization.
Once the landlord and renter would contact each other and sign a lease agreement offline, then the landlord would need to pay the fees to the admin via payment gateway.

Enhancements Done

Further, the client asked us to implement new layout on the Live website, besides various modifications in landlord apartment section and some other sections. He also wanted addition of the testimonial section in the website. Working on the client requirements, we provided following enhancements

Review the rental search feature
Modifications in layout of the website, including those in landlords and testmonial page
Keeping fixed layout for the apartment pages
Website Review
New layout Live server setup
SSL implementation
Modification in the upload photo section of apartments
Modification in floor plan feature and email icon functionality