I'm building a brand new real estate website using Claude Code, Vercel and the PropTx RESO API. I've built a few real estate websites before using Lovable with Repliers API providing the listings data. But I wanted a challenge. And while I've tackled publishing websites using the RESO API on Lovable, I wanted to give Claude Code a try. And if you're thinking of building your own custom real estate website using this stack, follow along to learn about my successes and mishaps.
The first step I took was to plan out my build. In previous attempts, I jumped right into vibe coding. After all, creating websites like this became a lot easier with tools such as Lovable. While token costs were being subsidized, it was cheap enough to do. But now, with the real costs of AI token use, you need to be efficient at building.
I started by planning out what my website needed. Like any typical real estate website, it needs a structure that includes a listings gallery, search filters, and basic content pages. To satisfy VOW (Virtual Office Website) requirements, I had to simulate sold listings hidden behind a gateway as part of my plan.
I opened up my Google Sheets and drew out my plan (and started a project log) so that I could keep this build a lot more organized than my previous builds. The steps I'm going to take are as follows:
Roughly outline what the website structure should look like and what components it needs.
Set up a prototype with Claude Code on my MacBook using terminal and running a local database.
Have Claude Code create a rough working demo of the website.
Make sure the website meets the requirements of my local real estate board (The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board a.k.a. TRREB) and the PropTx requirements for IDX and VOW data agreements.
When the prototype website is ready for data, publish it to Vercel and submit data agreements to TRREB.
If data agreements are approved, proceed with PropTx RESO API implementation (and this is where the fun begins). If I don't get approval, go back to the drawing board and fix up the requirements.
I'm an hour in as I write this to reflect what I've accomplished so far. I have a working website running on my MacBook, and I'm about to push it to Vercel and send the data agreements. Today being Sunday, the earliest I'll hear back from TRREB is tomorrow -- and I hope to be able to tinker some more with this website once I have the data feeds.