The easy way to make your Maltese dream come true
In 2017, you don’t need much time and effort to find real estate in such countries as the United States or Germany. The same can hardly be said about smaller countries, where searching for an apartment or a house can turn into a year-long adventure. When you’re on a vacation in some exotic and beautiful country, you want to spend every minute you have with pleasure, relaxing in blue lagoons and sipping cocktails, not wandering in the side streets till midnight. Even then, there is a risk you may overpay for something that’s worth only half of its price. Surely, the situation is getting better every year as more real estate agencies appear. However, on a large scale, the issue remains unresolved.
One of the countries that’s becoming more popular among both tourists and those who’d like to buy real estate abroad is Malta. Located almost smack dab in the middle of the Mediterranean sea, it’s a genuine architectural pearl with views that you won’t find anywhere else on the planet. Just take a look at this photo:
You wouldn’t want to miss out on a place like this because of some issues with finding an apartment to stay in, would you? Speaking of lagoons, don’t say that this one doesn’t take just take your breath away:
Luckily, John Vella, a real estate specialist, came up with an idea to solve the problem and called it “RBMalta”. The purpose of RBMalta is to enable its users to effortlessly find real estate in the Republic of Malta through flexible and customizable searching filters on the website. In terms of functionality, RBMalta allows for a wide variety of options: from renting apartments to buying mansions. In addition, the website can provide you with information on how to contact specific real estate agents. John and his team of agents have a whopping 50 years of experience in real estate, so they know Malta from shore to shore. Such ample experience is one of the reason why the end application turned out to be so good. However, first things first.
If you’ve ever booked a hotel online, you probably know what the typical landing page of a hotel booking site looks like. RBMalta is nothing like that. John didn’t want to annoy the users with hackneyed pictures of some fancy, baroque-style buildings and went the other way around. Enough of the talking, this is how the landing page of RBMalta looks:
A cool drawing as a replacement for a typical “photostock-hotel-view-pic”
Moving to the functionality of RBMalta, it’s as simple as a website can ever get, but at the same time very powerful. You can use the search form powered by Elasticsearch to find custom options or click on one of the buttons to rent or buy commercial and/or residential property. By this moment, you might have guessed what the “RB” letters stand for: rent and buy.
After you enter a search query or choose either of the sections, you will be redirected to the page with the list of options and a map with a group of filters.
The list is fairly simple and very responsive. Moreover, it features a customized Google Map, which, among other things, gives:
- approximate location of the object;
- off-center circle;
- the ability to group nearby properties and browse them in the hover section;
- save location every time the map moves;
- the ability to match list/filter/query results to the current map area.
However, the real coolness begins when you start using filters:
The search and filtering features in the admin panel are even more advanced, so RBMalta can easily handle 1000+ properties. Among dozens of other features, we have also implemented:
- calendar schedulers for (auto) publishing;
- properties assigned to corresponding agents and the contact form for direct communication;
- good-looking property gallery and subtle watermarks on pictures for copyright protection;
Despite the lack of design and relatively small budget, we were able to develop a fully-featured and high-performance application with a snappy back-office panel that is easy to use and visually appealing at the same time.
We think, our dear reader, it’s time for you to go to http://rbmalta.com/ and have a look at some of the most beautiful real estate in the world. And, please, take a sec to give a thumbs up to John’s Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/rbmalta/
