Table of Content

• About the Plugin
• Included Features
• Installation
• Settings
• Widgets
• Maps and Charts
• Custom Templates and API
• Shortcodes

Current Version: 1.1.0 [Preview Video] [Download] [Support]

About Simple Real Estate Pack

Simple Real Estate Pack is a package of real estate tools and widgets designed specifically for real estate industry blogs and web sites. The plugin includes mortgage and home affordability calculators, closing cost estimator, live mortgage rates, Trulia and ALTOS statistical charts, local schools, local rental median rates and google maps embedding functionality. Optionally, Simple Real Estate Pack can function as an extension for Great Real Estate (GRE) plugin, and will add new mapping and other features to the GRE if it's installed. This pluging also cun be extended and attached to any other plugins via an API. Take a look at live example of this plugin at ScottsdaleHomes.com.

Included Features

1. Calculators [Video]
   • Mortgage Calculator (widget and shortcode)
   • Affordability Calculator (widget and shortcode)
   • Closing Costs Estimator (widget and shortcode)
2. Schools [Video] - shortcode widget provides a list of schools within selected location (via Education.com API). Can group schools by type, grade level, school district or zip code.
3. Live Mortgage Rates via Zillow API (widget and shortcode).
4. Rent Meter (widget and shortcode) - provides median rental rates for selected zip code via Rentometer API.
5. Market trends [Video] and statistical graphs/charts via Trulia.com and ALTOS Research.
6. Embed Google Maps [Video] with a click of a mouse with grocery stores, restaurants, gas stations, banks, golf courses and hospitals (optional) within 3 mile radius of the main marker (via Yelp API).
7. Publish Yelp listings [Video] (shortcode) within 3 mile radius from a specified point into you content. Grouped with tabs by business type (i.e. grocery stores, restaurants etc.).
8. Walkscore via walkscore.com - available as an extension to GRE as well as via shortcode.
9. Extension of GRE plugin [Video] (optional) - mapping local grocery stores, restaurants, gas stations, banks, golf courses and hospitals within 3 mile radius of the property. Includes property location, contact information, ratings via Yelp API., as well as financial tools and statistical charts.

Installation

1. Unzip and copy the simple-real-estate-pack folder to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory
2. Activate the Simple Real Estate Pack on your plugins page.
3. Go to the Real Estate Pack Settings Page and adjust options to fit your needs.
4. A lot of the functionality of the plugin depends on third party APIs. To take advantage of all the features it's highly recommended that you obtain (free) API keys for each service. Links to the API registration are provided on the plugin's settings pages.

Settings

Simple Realty Pack has its own settings section in the WP dashboard on the left hand side. The settings are self-explanatory - mostly they allow you to pre-set values for the calculators and itemized closings costs estimator. Also, you'll be able to obtain and save your API keys to take advantage of the full functionality of the plugin.

Widgets

Widgets mentioned below are located in the widgets dashboard of your WordPress. All you need to do is to drag them into the sidebars. Every widget also can be inserted into the content area of blog posts or pages via shortcodes. Calculators have their own options/settings page, where you pre-set estimated data like mortgage rates, mortgage term, monthly property taxes, PMI as well as estimated itemized closings costs etc.

Mortgage Calculator

It's a regular mortgage calc with a few extra details that your web site visitors may appreciate. You can pre-set monthly property taxes, home insurance and PMI rates. Usually buyers will not have the exact figures until they are provided with a copy of their HUD statement. This calculator helps buyers to estimate their "real" monthly payments and not just the principal and interest of the loan. Also it provides a detailed loan amortization schedule as well as can use live mortgage rates, currently provided by Zillow.com.

Affordability Calculator

This is a very useful calculator that estimates the amount that person should be able to afford to pay for a property. It's a reversed mortgage calculator with a "trick". The main idea behind this calc it to help people to "keep it realistic" when they shop for a home. In many cases people relate their current rent to what kind of mortgage payments they should afford, but often they miss the fact that the mortgage payment will also have to include property taxes, home insurance, and in some cases PMI. All of that adds on top of their loan's principal and interest, which can add a couple of hundred dollars to their monthly payments. Finally people end up looking for homes they can not afford.

The affordability calc estimates the actual maximum amount of monthly payments a person can afford, including all additional payments into it (not on top of it), and calculates the property price based on that. It takes into consideration person's monthly income, debt expenses, current interest rate, down payment (if any), estimated property taxes, insurance and PMI (if applies). The calculator also provides a break down of the calculation process with details and explanations.

Closing Costs Estimator

It's important to educate your clients about a real estate transaction process, so they can clearly understand it. In today's market we have a lot of first time buyers that trying to take advantage of low mortgage rates and federal and state housing programs. Closing cost estimator is a simple itemized calculator that gives buyers a good idea on what kind of out of pocket expenses they should expect when buy a home. It allows agents to pre-set estimated values for each fee according to the vendors they usually use at closing. At the same time, all fees can be adjusted in the front-end of the calculator.

Mortgage Rates

Live mortgage rates widget. Data is obtained via Zillow API.

Rental Rates Meter

This widget provides median rental rates specific to a zip code.

Maps and Statistical Charts

Statistical charts [Video] are provided by Trulia and ALTOS Research. So far we've noticed that charts from Trulia may not return bedroom specific data for some areas, but it works for larger cities.

Mapping functionality [Video] currently mimics GRE maps and supports only one main marker and one map per page/post.

Custom Templates and API

As an example, you're welcome to take a look at the GRE template that we include into the Simple Real Estate plugin's folder under templates/listing_page.php.

Creating Listing Template for GRE

Simple Real Estate Pack adds additional information and tabs/sections to the listing presentation:

• Outputs schools on the map within 3 mile radius of the property. Schools also show up in separate section grouped by type i.e. high, middle, elementary.
• Map contains a selection list of grocery stores, restaurants, banks, gas stations, golf courses and hospitals within 3 mile radius of the property. By selecting each items from the list - markers will appear on the map.
• Financial Tools section automatically calculates monthly mortgage payments and closing costs for the current property as well as median rental rates in that zip code.
• Market Trends section outputs statistical graphs (provided by Trulia.com) for the city and the zip code the property is in. Statistical metrics includes median sales price, sales volume, average listing price, number of properties on the market and average price per square foot.

If you're using the Great Real Estate Plugin, you can simply include the existing template that comes with the Simple Real Estate Plugin. To do so, follow the following steps:

1. Create a copy of your page.php template and name it listingpage.php. It has to be in your theme's folder where other templates are (page.php, post.php etc.).
2. Open the file to edit, and place the following code at the top of the file:

  <?php
  /*
  Template Name: SRP Listing Page
  */
  ?>

3. Find the line that begins with <div class="entry"> and its corresponding closing </div>. Delete everything in between and insert this code:

<?php
  if(SRP_DIR)
	  include (SRP_DIR . '/templates/listing_page.php');
?>

4. Now you should be able to use SRP Listing Page template from the drop-down selection list when editing your listings.

Using SRP Neighborhood Profiles in Custom Templates

Assuming that a number of values that refer to property location will be passes to your custom template, you need to define the following global variable as an associative array with preset keys followed by the srp_profile() function:

<?php
  $srp_property_values = array(
	  'lat' => '',
	  'lng' => '',
	  'address' => '',
	  'city' => '',
	  'state' => '',
	  'zip_code' => '',
	  'listing_price' => '',
	  'bedrooms'  => '', //optional
	  'bathrooms' => '', //optional
	  'html' => '', //optional
  );

  if(function_exists('srp_profile')){
	  srp_profile();
  }
?>

Using SRP API

Simple Real Estate Pack's API allows developers to add their own widgets to the Neighborhood Profile output. Those widgets will play by the same rules as the built-in ones - they can load statically into the page or via AJAX, can be presented via tabs and their tab names and subtitles can be customized via plugin settings page by the end-user.

This implementation consists of 3 simple steps:

1. The actual function that returns your widget's content. You can use global $srp_property_values variable to get access to the initial property/location parameters if needed.

<?php

  function my_custom_srp_widget_content() {
	  global $srp_property_values;

	 ..do something to generate content..
	 return $content;
}
?>

2. The function that initializes your widget and adds all the necessary information about it to the $srp_widgets object:

<?php

  function my_custom_srp_widget_content_init($init) {
  	$array = array(
		'name' => 'widget_name', //lower case and no special characters
		'title'  => 'My Custom Widget Title', //will used as subtitle within content
		'tab_name' => 'Widget Tab Name', //short 1-2 word tab name
		'callback_function' => 'my_custom_srp_widget_content', //callback widget content function
		'init_function' => __FUNCTION__, //don't change - this is reference to the current function
		'ajax' => false, //bool - false or true grants an option for your widget to be loaded via AJAX.
		'save_to_buffer' => false, //bool - change to true if your widget's content needs to be cached before the output. For example your widget content function doesn't return the data, but instead outputs it directly. If you change to TRUE, it will cache the output and return in correctl
  	);

  $init[] = $array;
  return $init;
}
?>

Note: all parameters of the $array are required. Make sure your _init function references the $init argument and always returns $init.

3. The last step is to add a filter that will add your new widget init to the object preparation process:

<?php
  add_filter('srp_prepare_widgets_object', 'my_custom_srp_widget_content_init');
?>

Note: if you want to change an order in which widgets load, simply add 3rd numerical parameter to the filter. Keep in mind that Google Map is set to load first (and should stay that way), due to some unsolved issue.

Shortcodes

Every single widget can be inserted into a blog post or page content via shortcodes. Besides that, each shortcode has a number of attributes that you can manually pre-set to your needs, for example: mortgage amount, down payment, mortgage term etc. Most these shortcodes can be generated via widgets in the page/post editor dashboard.

Available Shortcodes and their Usage

Mortgage Calculator:

    required: price_of_home=" " interest_rate=" "

    optional: title=" " before_title=" " after_title=" " down_payment=" " mortgage_term=" " width=" "

Affordability Calculator:

    required: interest_rate=" "

    optional: title=" " before_title=" " after_title=" " width=" "

Closing Cost Estimator:

    optional: title=" " before_title=" " after_title=" " loan_amount=" " width=" "

Rental Rates Meter:

    optional: title=" " before_title=" " after_title=" " citystatezip=" " beds=" " rent=" " width=" "

Schools:

    optional: location_title=" " city=" " state=" " zip=" " lat=" " lng=" " distance=" " groupby=" " output=" "

Important: One of the location attributes has to be defined, for example zip code OR lattitude and longitude. Also, attribute distance will only work with lat and lng coordinates.

Attribute groupby can have the following values: zip, gradelevel(default), schooltype, schooldistrictname.
Attribute output can have the following values: table(default), list.

Yelp:

    required: lat=" " lng=" "

    optional: radius=" " output=" " sortby=" " term=" " num_biz_requested=" " ajax=" "

Attribute output can have the following values: table(default), list.
Attribute sortby can have the following values: distance(default), name, avg_rating.
Attribute term can have the following values: grocery, restaurants, banks, gas_stations, golf, hospitals.

Google Map:

    required: lat=" " lng=" "

    optional: width=" " height=" "

Walkscore:

    required: ws_wsid=" " ws_address=" "

    optional: ws_width=" " ws_height=" " ws_layout=" "

Neighborhood Profile:

    required: lat=" " lng=" " address=" " city=" " state=" " zip_code=" "

    optional: listing_price=" " bedrooms=" " bathrooms=" " html=" "

*Rental Rates Meter requires an API Key.

NOTE: If you selected to use live rates in calculators via Mortgage Rates options, the interest_rate attribute will be ignored.