FW Real Estate – Documentation

The FWRE Saved Searches addon adds a Save Search button to your property search module. When a visitor saves their active filters, they receive email notifications each time a new matching property is published — bringing interested buyers back to your site automatically.

How It Works

A visitor applies filters on the property listing page (bedrooms, bathrooms, price, location, and more), then clicks the Save Search button injected by this addon.

• Logged-in users — the search is saved directly to their account.
• Guests — they are prompted to register or provide an email address before the search is saved.

When a new property is published that matches saved criteria, the subscriber is queued for notification. Emails are dispatched when the cron URL is called (see below). If no new matching properties exist since the last cron run, no email is sent for that subscriber.

Subscribers can view and delete their saved searches from the frontend User Section.

Setting Up the Cron Job

Notification emails are not sent in real time. They are dispatched only when the following URL is called:

https://your-site.com/index.php?option=com_fwrealestate&task=cron

The exact URL for your site is displayed in Settings → Addons for easy copying. Configure a server cron job to call it at your preferred interval. For example, to send notifications every morning at 8:00 AM:

0 8 * * * curl -s "https://your-site.com/index.php?option=com_fwrealestate&task=cron" > /dev/null

This URL must be triggered externally via curl, wget, or a server-level cron scheduler — it is not called automatically by Joomla.

Email Template Settings

Email notification templates are configured under Settings → Addons.

• Email subject — the subject line used for all saved search notification emails sent to subscribers.
• Common email template — the HTML body that wraps the full notification email, surrounding all matched property listings in a single message.
• Property listing template — the HTML template rendered for each individual property entry within the notification email.

Additional Alert Types

Beyond new property notifications, the addon supports several extended alert scenarios:

• Radius and coordinate searches — when a search uses a map radius or geolocated center point, the coordinates and radius are saved and used for matching.
• Price-change alerts — subscribers are notified when the price of a matching property is updated, whether reduced or increased.
• Status-change alerts — subscribers receive an alert when a matching property's status changes (for example, from Available to Sold). Requires the Status Labels plugin.
• Open house alerts — when a new open house is scheduled for a matching property, an alert is sent to the subscriber. Requires the Open House plugin.
• Inquiry-to-saved-search bridge — after submitting an inquiry, a buyer is offered a one-click option to save a search based on that property's criteria. Requires the Contact Form plugin.

To install this addon, open the Add-ons panel inside FW Real Estate. See Getting Started → Add-ons for details on free addons, paid addons, and site verification.