Useful price drop site: daftdrop.com

rat_race

Hi,

I have just finished developing http://www.daftdrop.com, a new Irish property price tracker. Although in its infancy, it is mature/complete enough to be useful, and hopefully more useful/usable than any alternatives...

I hope you don't see this as a shameless plug because I really have nothing to gain from this, I just think it's a really useful resource.

The most useful part of the website is at http://www.daftdrop.com/#searchView ... I've focused on making it as fast and easy as possible to use; all searching can be done without browing to a new page, and the results table is fully sortable on any column. Each house is clickable to retrieve the full price history, without leaving the page.

Please let me know what you think. Note that it is a non-profit, non-commerical project/experiment (more of a hobby) which I developed in my spare time, so go easy with your criticisms!



Cheers,
rat_race

Owen

Seeing as boards is owned by daft, this'll be interesting!

rat_race

Yeah, but I think daft are pretty cool when it comes to stuff like this. The main thing they might be annoyed with is the name...easily changed though.

Dades

Was sceptical... but just did an initial search around the Blackrock area and it works pretty good!

Good job.

Rowley Birkin QC

Nice idea. Best of luck with it.

smelltheglove

Cool idea, the text above the graphs is very small and hard to read so may be an idea to change that going forward. Also I am getting the warning box to say the site is causing my ie to run slowly too, still waiting for a breakdown as I type

EoghanConway

Great idea, but an interface to make the eyes bleed The hallmarks of a good techie.

rat_race

smelltheglove wrote: »

Cool idea, the text above the graphs is very small and hard to read so may be an idea to change that going forward. Also I am getting the warning box to say the site is causing my ie to run slowly too, still waiting for a breakdown as I type

Hmm, seems okay for most people. I bet it's something to do with the charting code; it has some loading to do (as a once off). Try a refresh?

EoghanConway wrote: »

Great idea, but an interface to make the eyes bleed The hallmarks of a good techie.

Haha, yes, I'll take that as a compliment rather than the opposite! It's funny, the colour was almost a joke at the start then I sort of grew to like it!

Dymo

Good idea and best of luck with it but the interface needs more work if I was to keep coming back to it. The iframes are a bit awkward to use on my computer and I notice when a price has gone up the percentage is a -%

rat_race

Dymo wrote: »

Good idea and best of luck with it but the interface needs more work if I was to keep coming back to it. The iframes are a bit awkward to use on my computer and I notice when a price has gone up the percentage is a -%

Yeah, the "-" is misleading, and will be fixed. Can you be more specific about the interface, apart from the colours? There's no iframes but I guess you mean switching tabs is slow/clunky? I have only tested on fairly beefy machines.

mconigol

Doesn't PropertyBee do this already? I don't see how this is better to be honest

rat_race

mconigol wrote: »

Doesn't PropertyBee do this already? I don't see how this is better to be honest

Well I've never managed to get PropertyBee to work, like a lot of people. It seems to be up and down like a yoyo!

Also, you're tied to using Firefox and it's extra software you must install on each machine you want to use. Although I haven't used it for these reasons, I'm sure it's quite good. I didn't get the impressions that the report it generates is anything like the one on daftdrop.com. I could be wrong.

John Mason

that was the most depressing read, i have had in a long time.

two houses on my road, have dropped their price by 30k in the last month

mconigol

rat_race wrote: »

Well I've never managed to get PropertyBee to work, like a lot of people. It seems to be up and down like a yoyo!

Also, you're tied to using Firefox and it's extra software you must install on each machine you want to use. Although I haven't used it for these reasons, I'm sure it's quite good. I didn't get the impressions that the report it generates is anything like the one on daftdrop.com. I could be wrong.

Don't get me wrong I'm not trying to find things to be critical about but building a website seems like a lot more work than having firefox installed tbh!

Anyway best of luck with it!

sweeno69

very nice - bookmarked

Ortiz

I think that's brilliant well done.

Quick question - Does it take into account properties on myhome.ie no?

rat_race

Ortiz wrote: »

I think that's brilliant well done.

Quick question - Does it take into account properties on myhome.ie no?

Thanks for the comment.

No, not currently. If there's a demand/good reason for it, I may add that support but I find the majority of houses on myhome.ie are always also on daft.ie, BUT I haven't any conclusive proof...that is just from manual checking...if you have an opinion I'd love to know.



cheers,
Cormac

tommycahir

Very nice site, it might be worth dropping it over to the website review forum also. Link

I just have one or two feature requests that might be useful for people in the future as per my comment on your site

I would recommend that a feature to export to an excel file is added as this enables people view the data offline also. I would also suggest that if possible the county selection box is enabled to allow multiple county selections eg I may want to see changes in Carlow and Wexford. (similar comment with locality selection eg Ballon & Bunclody) Regards Tommy

lainey316

rat_race wrote: »

Thanks for the comment.

No, not currently. If there's a demand/good reason for it, I may add that support but I find the majority of houses on myhome.ie are always also on daft.ie, BUT I haven't any conclusive proof...that is just from manual checking...if you have an opinion I'd love to know.



cheers,
Cormac

Sherry Fitzgerald specifically, and I think DNG - aren't both involved in myhome? - do not list on Daft unless a house has been for sale for a lengthy period or are under pressure, at which point they list it on Daft but with agent details anonymised. So it's only a subset of their properties on daft.

Dymo

rat_race wrote: »

Can you be more specific about the interface, apart from the colours? There's no iframes but I guess you mean switching tabs is slow/clunky? I have only tested on fairly beefy machines.

The site is using Frames which will rank your page poorly with Google and will look very confusing on a lot of people monitors, a bit all bunched up

<iframe src="javascript:''" id="__gwt_historyFrame" tabIndex='-1'
style="position: absolute; width: 0; height: 0; border: 0"></iframe>

Ortiz

Sherry Fitz, DNG and Gunne don't advertise on daft as they're not allowed to due to an agreement with myhome.ie so it might be worth looking in to as Sherrys and DNG are probably the two biggest firms in the country.

Just a thought - overall I love the site, it makes for very interesting reading! Can see myself using it very often

Dymo

lainey316 wrote: »

Sherry Fitzgerald specifically, and I think DNG - aren't both involved in myhome? - do not list on Daft unless a house has been for sale for a lengthy period or are under pressure, at which point they list it on Daft but with agent details anonymised. So it's only a subset of their properties on daft.

No, The Myhome.ie property web site was bought by the Irish Times for €50m in 2006. The website was set up by in 2001 by estate agents Sherry Fitzgerald, the Gunne Group and Douglas Newman Good. So they now can advertise anywhere now.

lainey316

Dymo wrote: »

No, The Myhome.ie property web site was bought by the Irish Times for €50m in 2006. The website was set up by in 2001 by estate agents Sherry Fitzgerald, the Gunne Group and Douglas Newman Good. So they now can advertise anywhere now.

Thanks - couldn't remember if DNG were a partner.

I wonder if there was something in the sales agreement to restrict their listings on other sites, as not one of 'their' houses I've seen appear on my home in the past month is listed on Daft. The houses I know are with DNG that are listed are listed without an agent name, but I know there are more for sale (including one I saw this week) with them not listed on Daft. Very, very few of the SF ones are listed, again without an agent name - actually none today that I can see. Neither is the only Gunne property I want to see.

This is only in the areas I am looking at in Dublin of course, can't speak for the rest of the country.

Ortiz

Dymo wrote: »

No, The Myhome.ie property web site was bought by the Irish Times for €50m in 2006. The website was set up by in 2001 by estate agents Sherry Fitzgerald, the Gunne Group and Douglas Newman Good. So they now can advertise anywhere now.

No part of the sales agreement restricted these companies from selling on daft as far as i'm aware. All you need to do is look online and you won't see a DNG or Sherry Fitz brand selling properties. The franchise and rental branches can advertise on daft for whatever reason but not the sales

rat_race

Dymo wrote: »

The site is using Frames which will rank your page poorly with Google and will look very confusing on a lot of people monitors, a bit all bunched up

The site isn't "using Frames" in the way which you have implied. There is one constantly hidden iFrame, which is solely used in a core feature of Google Web Toolkit: history & back-button support. Many other modern web frameworks use the same technique. This has nothing to do with anything visual that you think you may have seen and it causes me no concerns for search engine placement.

Let me worry about SEO, I have no concerns there -- but like all Ajax websites, there are challenges. That's not what I intended this thread to be about. I'm more concerned with how it was a "bit awkward to use" on your computer...but I can assure you it has nothing to do with frames.

If you're still confused, check out: http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/doc/latest/DevGuideCodingBasicsHistory.html ...



Cheers,
C

professore

EoghanConway wrote: »

Great idea, but an interface to make the eyes bleed The hallmarks of a good techie.

As a techie myself I rank functionality as 95% of the marks and if it looks pretty the final 5%. Considering this I give it 96%

rat_race

professore wrote: »

As a techie myself I rank functionality as 95% of the marks and if it looks pretty the final 5%. Considering this I give it 96%

Haha...100% in functionality? I'm happy with that!

What is it specifically though, the colour? The chart page needs a bit of work...also, there needs to be some padding fixed in various places (I notice the site looks rather different in IE, too)...but apart from these I thought it looked pretty nice.

That said, I made a conscious decision not to spend forever on the UI because I can often spend too long on making things pretty and not enough time on actually making it useful.

JOSman

Cool site. Best of luck.

lainey316

I don't like the slidey pages but that's just a personal thing

The search could do with being smarter/fuzzier. eg searching for harolds cross should bring back harold's cross as well. Also searching for D4, it ignores D4 - would be nice to have a message, looks like you ignore search strings below a certain length?

It would be nice to have a column with type of property, and ability to filter on that - I have no interest in apartments, for example, only want to see houses. Minor thing tho.

rat_race

lainey316 wrote: »

I don't like the slidey pages but that's just a personal thing

The search could do with being smarter/fuzzier. eg searching for harolds cross should bring back harold's cross as well. Also searching for D4, it ignores D4 - would be nice to have a message, looks like you ignore search strings below a certain length?

It would be nice to have a column with type of property, and ability to filter on that - I have no interest in apartments, for example, only want to see houses. Minor thing tho.

Yes, the Harold's Cross VS. Harolds Cross thing is a bug which I will get fixed...the problem is that quotation marks, etc., are ignored BUT then the comparison become "Harold s Cross", so "Harolds Cross" is not a match for "Harold's Cross".

You're right about ignoring search strings less than 2 (or 3) characters as well. This is a bug also.

Regarding filtering on house type, yes this would be nice but you risk missing properties you're interested in if you attempt to narrow it down. For example, look at these distinct types:

Semi-Detached House
Apartment For Sale
Terraced House
Detached House
End of Terrace House
Townhouse
Site For Sale
New Development
Bungalow For Sale
Duplex For Sale
House For Sale
New Home
UNKOWN HOUSE TYPE

...but I'll see what I can do.

Thanks,
Cormac

Mr. 2

Good site but it seems to be a replacement for Irish House Hunter rather than the property bee. The reports are much easier to read on Irish House Hunter though. The columns seem to be better spaced out. But I don't think it would take much to really improve your site.

Edit: I don't like the sliding/framing effect either.