RealBird Blog

Updated Listing Inventory Board Widget - more layout options, content and sorting

We've just launched a set of new features for the recently announced RealBird Inventory Board widget.

You can now configure the following additional options in the RealBird member area when generating your embed code. As a reminder: you can create as many distinctly configured Board widget as you wish and embed them on different pages of your websites and blogs. The widgets are of course automatically updated when you add or update a listing on RealBird.

Following are the new options:

1. Show or hide listing title
2. Show small or large listing blocks - large listing blocks might be more appealing for showcasing smaller inventories
3. Set sorting order: most recent first, most expensive first, least expensive first, most viewed first - e.g. when showcasing your sold inventory on RealBird, you may want to show your most expensive sales first
4. Choose layout mode: you can now select the Pinterest-style masonry layout or create a widget which fits the listings blocks in a row evenly. We suggest to continue to use the default masonry layout, but for special cases, the second option might 

Below is a "live" example, courtesy of Andrea Swiedler

This particular widget is configured to show sold listings; with listing titles shown; using the default Pinterest-style layout and the large listing block option. You can also see it here, full screen:

Enjoy !

-- The RealBird Team
www.realbird.com

The RealBird Inventory Board is now available for your listings

After a few weeks of beta testing, finally, the new RealBird Featured Listings Board widget joins the list of the updated RealBird inventory widgets (Featured Listings Map and Gallery) All of these now provide more advanced, modern presentations and smartphone and tablet compatibility. Use them on your websites, blogs or directly on your smartphones for your current inventory or showcase your recently sold listings.

Click the image for a live preview, courtesy of Janie Coffey

You can create your embed code in the RealBird Member area, on the Listing Widgets page. Just like with the Map and Gallery widget you have the option to create a Board widget for your active, pending and sold listings (or any combination of these) and you can turn the social media sharing buttons and the listing view counters on and off.

Another unique option specific to this widget is the auto-resize feature. If your blog or website allows the embedding of Javascript (e.g. self-hosted Wordpress, Typepad etc.), this cool little feature will automatically set the height of your Board widget so that there won't be any vertical scrollbar showing along the board. Hence providing a much more smooth visual integration. For those platforms that do not support Javascript embedding, you can turn this default option off and set the widget height manually.

We'd love to see this new feature on your blogs and websites. Once deployed, please make sure you share your links with us. 

-- The RealBird Team
www.realbird.com 

 

 

Preview of the upcoming RealBird Featured Listings Board widget

We are still testing the new RealBird Featured Listings Board widget for your properties, but in the meantime here is a preview of how it will look like embedded in a blog post, as an example. The listing widget below is courtesy of Eric Schuell Note: the iframe auto-resizing on this post currently only works with the latest browsers excluding IE 7 and 8. You will have configuration options in the RealBird member area to turn on and off the view counter in the footer area, the social sharing buttons and also to generate distinct widgets for your active, pending, sold properties or the combination of these status.

How to add a full-screen slideshow of your listing inventory to your smartphone

Did you know? Both the new RealBird Inventory Map and the new RealBird Gallery widgets are now fully mobile friendly. You can use both as an embedded widget on your website or real estate blog, but you can also use them on your smartphone and tablet for listing presentations.

Here are the simple steps to bookmark your own RealBird Gallery widget on your smartphone: 

1. Log into your RealBird member area
2. Assuming you have published listings already, click "Listing Marketing" on the top navigation
3. Then click the "Widgets" subnavigation link
4. Then select "Listing Gallery" from the available inventory widget options
5. Select the option to create a link for active, pending or sold listings (or any combination of these)
6. You can also configure the width and height of the gallery widget on this page, which applies only to the embed code. For the purpose of this example, just leave it as is, because we are going to use this inventory slideshow in full screen and these options will be ignored anyways
7. You also have an option to add your RealBird Featured Listings Map widget as the last item in the gallery
8. Once the options are set, click the "Preview and Get Code" button and you will be provided with the permalink for your inventory slideshow. 
9. Email this link to your phone, load it into your mobile browser and bookmark it onto your homescreen.

It's that simple. Now you have your listing inventory at your fingertips: just pull out your smartphone, load the gallery via the bookmark and you are ready to impress your prospective sellers at listing presentations. The gallery is automatically updated when you make changes to your listings in RealBird.

We hope you like it. More to come...

-- The RealBird Team
www.realbird.com 

Updated Featured Listings Map inventory widget

One of the original RealBird listing inventory widgets, the Featured Listings Map is now updated. The new version provides many improvements, including:

1. Much, much better performance
2. Shows up to 200 of your recent listings published on RealBird (active, pending, sold or the combination of these)
3. Mobile-friendly and responsive: works the same on smartphones, tablets and desktop screens
4. Ability to configure it to use standard Google icons instead of default color coded house icons. This is important when you manage listing inventory, for which the house icons could be confusing, such as for rural farms or apartments in Manhattan
5. You can now set to cluster icons at high zoom level, which makes the map widget more user friendly and usable if you manage a large inventory

This update is backward compatible, all the existing, embedded maps on your website and blogs are automatically updated, no change is required. If you want to take advantage of the new configuration options (icon settings, clustering), you can easily generate new code in the RealBird Member Area (Member area > Listing Management > Widgets > Listing Map). 

Below are a few, live examples showing different configuration options.

Combination of active, pending, sold homes on the US Virgin Island listed by Lorine R Williams, with clustered and standard icon options

Sold listings in SoCal by Laura Baptista, no clustering and color coded house icons

For-rent and for-sale properties in Manhattan by Senad Pali, no clustering and standard icons

We hope you like this update.

-- The RealBird Team