email user when listings match their criteria

[bddotnet]

I've recently been hired to design a site for a lady who does FSBO properties. I would like to include a way for people to sign up to receive email updates when properties are listed that match their search criteria. I've seen this done on many MLS and realtor websites.

Her properties, sellers are both in separate MySQL database tables. My question is:

Do I just look at code for a way to do this and use someone else's creation?

Something tells me that if I were to store the buyers/email subscribers and their criteria into a MySQL database table and then create a table that logs the date/time that each email was sent, then I could somehow automatically email them the list of properties that have those keywords in the listing, correct?

Thanks in advance!

[Autoload]

Open Realty sounds like a good fit for what you need to do... no need to reinvent the wheel.

http://www.open-realty.org/product_info.html

[BerksWebGuy]

Its a good thing sellers and properties are in different tables (the way it should be).

If you think this is going to get HUGE...one way is to have one row per seller and serialize (or delimit) the property ids. So you would have:

auto | seller_id | property_ids
1 | 398 | 345687,6337562,466344,34342

When sending an email, query the seller_id to get all property_ids. Only email those ids that don't match and update those new ids to the property_ids table (so they don't get sent again).

Easy...1 table with 3 fields. If you want to add a date field for latest email_sent, you can do that.

[bddotnet]

Its a good thing sellers and properties are in different tables (the way it should be).

If you think this is going to get HUGE...one way is to have one row per seller and serialize (or delimit) the property ids. So you would have:

auto | seller_id | property_ids
1 | 398 | 345687,6337562,466344,34342

When sending an email, query the seller_id to get all property_ids. Only email those ids that don't match and update those new ids to the property_ids table (so they don't get sent again).

Easy...1 table with 3 fields. If you want to add a date field for latest email_sent, you can do that.

I hope it is going to get HUGE. That could possibly generate more affiliate income for me and more profit for the client.

I will try OpenRealty. It looks like exactly what she's wanting. And I agree, Autoload....no need to re-invent the wheel.

Thanks guys!