FW Real Estate – Documentation

The Compare Properties add-on lets a visitor place up to four properties side by side in a single table — every field as a row, one column per property — with the best value in each numeric row highlighted. Choosing between similar properties is the hardest part of a property search, and it is the part a listing page does worst: without a comparison table, visitors end up juggling browser tabs and a notepad. This add-on does that job on your site instead.

Use Cases

• The final shortlist. Three or four properties that survived the search, compared field by field in one place.
• Deciding with somebody else. The comparison is a shareable link — send it to a partner or client and they see exactly the same table, with nothing lost in translation.
• An agent's tool. Build a comparison for a client and send it, rather than writing out the differences by hand.

What the Visitor Sees

A compare control appears on every listing card and on the individual property page. Clicking it adds that property to the comparison. Once properties are selected, the comparison table is available as a section of the My Account page — reached via the User Section block, the [fwre_usersection] shortcode, or the ?fwre_section= URL parameter.

The maximum is four properties at a time. This is a deliberate limit, not a configurable setting — a five-column table is unreadable on a laptop and unusable on a phone.

How It Differs from Favourites

• No account is needed. Comparing is a decision being made now, not a list kept for later. Any visitor, signed in or not, can use the comparison.
• The comparison is a shareable link. The selected properties travel in the URL, so the table can be bookmarked or sent to someone else and it opens identically for them.

What the Table Shows

Every field the selected properties carry appears as a row, including custom fields. Numeric rows automatically highlight the best value — lowest price, largest area — so differences are visible without reading every cell. Fields restricted by access level remain restricted inside the table; the comparison does not bypass any permissions you have set.

Email Lead Capture

Under Configuration → Add-ons → Compare, one setting group controls email lead capture.

• Offer "email me this comparison" — adds a button that e-mails the comparison to the visitor.
• Subject, body, and per-property templates — control the content of that email.

The visitor's address is recorded as a lead in FW Real Estate → Messages with the compared properties attached. This is the most valuable lead your site produces: someone who has narrowed the entire catalogue to three properties and asked for them in writing is at the end of their search, not the beginning.

Notes

• Four is a limit, not a setting. It reflects what actually fits on a screen — there is no option to raise it.
• The table reflects the fields you publish. Any field unpublished on the Fields screen does not appear as a row. If certain fields never differ between properties, hiding them tightens the table and makes the real differences easier to spot.
• Disabling the add-on removes the compare controls and the table; nothing else on your site is affected.

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.