Aspasia has its own property search engine which works in a similar fashion to the well known property portals like Rightmove, Prime Location, FindaProperty, etc., except that data is restricted to the agent's own site.

Applicants are able to enter their own search criteria and are then presented with full details of suitable properties including unlimited photographs, floorplans, virtual tours, etc.

The Aspasia search engine is fully configurable and is easily made to appear part of an agency web site. Detail sheets, summary sheets, etc. are all fully customisable.

Many features exist within the property search engine like, for instance, the ability to show a "Featured Property" and it's associated details just by one click of a mouse.

Customers can fill a "portfolio" with properties of interest then source details of all such properties in one go. Moreover the customer can complete full registration details and these, together with any selections made, are automatically available to agency staff within Aspasia without any re-keying of information whatsoever.

A choice of 3 options

In response to requests from customers who want complete freedom in how they design their web sites and to have the ability to use live data, it is now possible for web developers to be as creative as they wish in designing your public property search facility. All they need is the skill to be able to handle data returned to them in XML format. Alternatively web designers can be given access to the HTML code that drives the property search engine.

This means that there are now three distinct ways of handling property search functionality on public web sites. They are:

1) Use the standard Aspasia interface. This is the option chosen by most people. Advantages: can range from giving your web designer hardly anything to do right up to giving him full control over the look and feel of this part of your site. It also uses live data which means that anything done within Aspasia is immediately available on your web site (price changes, etc.). It also allows for integration with Google mapping so that all your properties for sale or rent can be displayed on a map.

2) Take an overnight property upload (like the portals) and do your own thing on your site with your web developers. This is potentially the most costly way of doing things and the data is only as current as last night's upload. Advantages: freedom to do what you want. Disadvantages: not live data, probably costly to set up and maintain, does not use automatic registration of applicants into Aspasia, no viewing statistics possible from within Aspasia's marketing histories.

3) Use the XML Aspasia interface. This is a powerful option but it requires a degree of XML skill from your web developer. Advantages: freedom to do what you want, uses live data. Disadvantages: be prepared for a modest charge from your web developer for the design and coding involved (however they do not need to maintain their own database so maintenance should be minimal or non existent).