Entegral Blog

Google has made it a lot more easier to find real estate listings on its map service by added the one-click 'real estate' option to its Google Maps in the USA. (it was also available previously but only through the search dropdown option). Read the official Google blog release here . This will put a lot of competitive pressure on USA property portals like www.zillow.com and www.trulia.com. You simply cannot discount the impact that Google will have on real estate search judging by the impact it had on navigation companies like Tom Tom and Garmin with their shares falling by more than 15% after the day of announcement of google navigation . Overseas I think it is starting to be a threat for MLS organisations, also read Matt Cohen's blog on this . We think it will be a matter of time before Google launches real estate search for South Africa on its http://maps.google.co.za site. Estate agents in South Africa should prepare themselves to disclose the physical location of their...

Please note that we have moved the suburb ' Kosmosdal ' from Midrand to Centurion (under South Africa/Gauteng province)

We've made the iSearch (intelligent search) feature on MyProperty even more intelligent. It will now suggest the correct area on a search if you've made a spelling error. For example if you search for 'dynfern' it will suggest the correct 'Dainfern' for you. Some other samples it will suggest the correct locations for (correct names in brackets): calrens (clarens) perel (paarl) pirtoria (pretoria) boxburg (boksburg) modchadjiskloof (Modjadjiskloof) putaditjaba (Phuthaditjhaba) Click on the links to view the actual results in MyProperty. As you can see, it is a quite accurate!

Exciting news is that Google Maps South Africa has been launched at http://maps.google.co.za Entegral attended the event at Helderfontein Estate in Midrand today. As with the USA version, it can pinpoint properties by exact address and provide driving directions. Google Streetviews is also expected to launch next year in South Africa covering some of the major cities ahead of the 2010 World Cup. Driving directions sample: (notice it even gives you the estimate time it will take) Search an address sample:

We've added a cool new feature to MyProperty's iSearch (intelligent search). You can now enter part of the area and it will highlight all possible matches as illustrated below. Kempton property

Don't forget to list your on show properties for this weekend - it attracts a lot of interest from visitors. Your on show properties are automatically displayed on the MyProperty website - on show section. Currently we have 100-200 on show properties listed every week with the figure increasing. To list a property for on show: - in the OMS open up the listing; - click on 'on show'; - add a new on show date, venue and directions and press save; That's it, within a few minutes your listing will reflect as on show on the MyProperty website. Did you have any success marketing your listings as on show and getting walk-in's as a direct result from that? Please tell us on our Client Testimonial Form .

We are proud to announce the launch of our new email platform, PremiumMail : http://www.entegral.net/?c=products_email If offers industry best features including: - Massive 10GB mailbox sizes, never delete your email again! - 100% uptime . Multiple servers host your email! - Comprehensive anti-spam and anti-virus features; - More advanced webmail feature; - Optional custom branding of webmail interface for your business; - Advanced mobile features; The webmail has a very easy to use interface, powerful search function and functionality to manage your calendar, contacts, tasks and notes all online. Choose on of our packages and get started today or contact our support team! Users currently on our South African email solution will be upgraded to our new Premium Mail solution in the near future. Also check out additional options like the full archiving feature - it archives all your office's emails (in case you need more than the 10GB storage!). Our new PremiumMail solution is ...

Today we've moved all listings appearing under Cape Town/Hout Bay and Cape Town/Llandudno to Hout Bay/Hout Bay and Hout Bay/Llandudno . Since Hout Bay is a town on its own the incorrect suburbs under Cape Town were removed.

We are proud to announce the BETA launch of our online support system on the OMS and Entegral website. The online support feature provides a method to chat directly to our Customer Service or Sales teams. You will notice a new support banner that says 'live support' - either online or offline: Click on it and it will open the following window and put you into direct contact with Entegral staff. The online support on the OMS is intended to resolve quick questions . You will still need to follow the normal support channels to request email accounts, new suburbs etc. We will evaluate the system over the next 10 days after which we will decide whether to implement this as a permanent feature. Now how about offering something like this on your own website for potential buyers and sellers? An easy way for them to get into direct online contact with one of your agents. If you are interested please email us! - note setup and monthly fees are applicable.

Many people complained about the way the paging works on the new MyProperty website . It used AJAX technology to update only the listings displayed when clicking on the page numbers in the search results (and not the completed page). This resulted in visitors viewing a property say from page 5, when the click the back button in their browsers it jumped to page 1 of the search results - which is frustrating. We have the 'view property in new window' link but maybe that link wasn't too obvious. We've therefor changed it back to 'normal' web pages in favor of usability. On a technical note: This is one of my biggest frustrations with Ajax technology. Most people are used to using the back button in their browsers so your browsing history is completely lost. We are however busy figuring this one out - rest assured we will find a solution.

Just when you thought you've seen it all! If you haven't already noticed, we've launched a new feature called - 'Agent Portfolio Websites' . It is free - and it is yet another industry first by the Entegral team! Your Agent portfolio website is like your own personal real estate website which is usefull if you don't already have one of Entegral's template or custom build websites . It features your profile (photo, logo, contact details and description), a contact form, featured property listings and links to all your listings per suburb and status. How to access it: Open one of your property listings on www.myproperty.co.za , you will notice a new 'visit my portfolio website' next to your photo. Click on it, this opens up your portfolio website. It is a unique address you can use to give to clients or include in your email signature. It is unbranded and when visitors search listings here, it only filters for your own listings! Link your domain! F...

Great news today is that we are getting ready to launch the OMS GIS Explorer! The OMS GIS explorer allows automatic mapping of property listings on a Google Map . It furthermore has filter functionality to narrow down to a specific area, agent or property features (status, price, type etc). For our national clients this can for instance plot properties across the entire country for specific parameters you've set. Our aim is to integrate additional views e.g. - 'in which areas have I listed sole mandates in the last x months' or - 'identify areas where agents or offices need to focus on getting mandates' or - 'show my sold listings over the last 6 months' or - 'show listings in a specific area or specific radius' or - 'identify areas where I need to open franchise offices' The possibilities are endless. The GIS Explorer will be a great tool for agents and their clients to for instance identify matching listings per filter criteria and map loc...

1. We've enabled your office website address on your office portfolio. This is pulled through from the OMS or from your feed if you use the OMS GRID import interface. This is a direct link to your website which will benefit your website SEO. If you don't have your own Entegral-build website check out www.entegral.net for details - it links with the OMS and is cost effective to run! 2. We've enabled AUCTIONS portfolio links on your profile. This will automatically compile a list of suburbs where you have auctions, with quick links for visitors. Tip: visitors can search for auction properties in MyProperty by simply searching with the auction keyword and area, e.g. ' cape town auction '.

Looking to market your business to a targeted real estate audienc e of over 100,000 visits per month? We've just released limited space on the new MyProperty website located at: www.myproperty.co.za Only 2 prime banner positions are available: Large banner : R5000/month - 160x600 pixels - one of 4 rotating throughout most parts of the site; Small banner : R1200/month - 160x160 pixels - one of 4 rotating throughout most parts of the site; To book your space (minimum 6 months), please contact our sales team: http://www.entegral.net/?c=contact

We've received valuable feedback on the new MyProperty website through the feedback link located just underneath the search box. (You can still post your thoughts by clicking here ). We've also had lots of calls and emails from our client base in South Africa and Namibia . Apart from your own site , MyProperty is in most cases the site generating the most traffic and enquiries on your properties from the host of websites we export to . So suddenly making major changes to a long trusted website is not done lightheartedly! Various factors triggered the release of the new website with the 2 major ones being: - Keeping up to date with the latest web technologies including SEO techniques; - Allowing more rapid and ongoing improvements to be made on the website; When we released the website just over a week ago, it was not going to be the 'final version' for the next year or two . From all the feedback that we've received our team have been tweaking the new website r...

We've fixed a Firefox browser problem with uploading photos on property listings. An improved photo uploader was also loaded, the following updates were made: Faster initial download/install time for new users; Overall performance improvements including faster folder browsing; Improved photo rotation operations; Problems with support of cameras directly connected to the computer have been fixed; Handling files on network drives works faster; About the OMS property photo uploader The OMS allows you to load an unlimited number of photos to property listings. Best of all, you can select all your photos for a particular property listing to be uploaded at once - the system will automatically resize your photos!

We've increased the maximum allowed upload size for documents in the document manager for the news component. You can now upload documents (to be displayed as downloadable hyperlinks on your website) to just under 2MB (1910kb to be exact). About the OMS news content editor: The OMS news editor (available through the Marketing & Content menu / external news) allows you to load your own news articles to your website (if hosted by us). The built-in document manager allows you to upload files (e.g. PDF's) you want to make available as a downloadable file on the article.

We came up with a great idea on Friday. While we've launched the new MyProperty website just over a week ago and our R&D team is busy tweaking it further as we speak, are we going to throw away the old MyProperty website completely? The new MyProperty websites was a complete redesign in many ways to cater for an ever increasing demand in traffic and new web technologies: we're doing the SEO differently, the site was build on Microsoft's .NET framework 3.5, we're now using SQL Server 2008, we're integrating with social networking apps like Twitter and Facebook and for the first time, MyProperty was a team rather than a one-man development effort. Although MyProperty still enjoys top ranking in Google for popular keywords such as 'Property in South Africa' , we thought it would be a great idea to still keep the old website alive, and enjoy the additional stream of top SEO referral traffic for property searches . Hence www.homeq.co.za was born! Nothing...