Open Realty Addons

Open Realty Addons is pleased to announce the release of the new addon store, which is now located on the main page of the site. The blog will be residing at www.openrealtyaddons.com/blog. This is in an increasing effort to make the site more user friendly and easy to find the addons you want. You will notice our huge list of addons, both free and commercial. We are working to add even more great addons, so keep coming back.

The new store has many features and benefits and is written from Open-Realty.  Al and I  have constructed a cart system that will allow users to download addons immediately. Other features include a rating system, allowing users to rate addons, a newsletter, to allow you to stay informed about site updates and the latest addon releases. You can also add addons to your favorites and save searches.

We are also opening up the site to developers and resellers. As a developer, you can put your addon on our website and sell it. There are two options to choose from as a reseller,to learn more click here. As a reseller, you can buy addons at great discounts and resell them to your clients. To learn more about the reseller program, click here. 

The cart system is scalable and we have many plans in the near future, including the ability to download the lateset updates by inputting your PayPal transaction number.

To celebrate the grand-opening of the site, we are offering most of our addons at a discounted rate. But these sale prices won’t last forever… so grab you some addons!!!!

Open Realty Addons is proud to announce that Al Smith of HereToHost, LLC has joined our team of developers to bring you some of Open Realty’s most widely used addons. JNT WebDesigns, Inc. and HereToHost, LLC will be partnering in the future development of the Open Realty Addon site and the top addons featured on our site, beginning with the OR XML Feeds. Look for updates and news about the progression of this partnership.

Okay, we want to address a point that is brought up with some frequency, whether to purchase an addon rather than go with a free alternative that claims to function the same way. The first obstacle is that most times it is hard to compare the two… you cannot work with the commercial version unless you buy it. So there tends to be judgment based on one factor…. cost. So, let’s weigh the pros and cons.

The major pro of a free addon… IT’S FREE. This is always a driving factor in todays market.  The cons of free addons are that they probably will not be maintained or updated past their initial release. Some developers create addons for clients, then post them in order to give back to the community. This is a great gesture, and one that we encourage, but typically this means that no further attention will be given to the addon. Also, developers that release free addons will eventually get pulled away from free project to work on paying jobs.

The pros and cons of commercial addons are pretty much the stark contrast of those for the free addons. Commercial addons, if developed by reputable and stable developers will in all likelihood be updated and maintained, so that when new versions of Open Realty are released, and development of PHP and MYSQL advances… the addon will keep pace with these changes. On the flip side, they cost money. So, you must consider what your goals are and where you see your website down the road. Are you building a website to showcase your family pet, or developing a professional real estate website that needs to function properly to justify its existence?

We are working to build a community of Open Realty addons, not just to sell addons… but also advance the development of addons and the interaction between developer and user. Our goal is to broaden the horizons of Open-Realty and help users achieve their goals, and enhance the features that Open-realty offers.

Recently OpenRealty Addons and JNTWebDesigns, Inc. have taken over the Open Realty XML Data Feeds from Ocean Voyage. The OR XML Feeds addon allow users to feed their listings to larger listing sites such as Google Base, PropSmart, Trulia, Zillow, PropBot, Vast, ByOwnerMLS, CityCribs & Properazzi. This allows site owners to increase their traffic exponentially, overnight.

OpenRealty Addons has recently added BackPage to the addons feed list and have plans to add FrontDoor and HotProps in the near future. The feeds can be purchased individually or all together with a discount. To view the OR XML Feeds addon, go to www.openrealtyaddons.com/orxmlfeeds