Woohoo!

The first, early alpha version, of FlatSearch is now online. Go check it out at FlatSearch.co.za - Find Apartments. Only apartments in Stellenbosch are kept up to date during the Alpha phase. As exciting as this preliminary launch is, we're still a long way from where we want to be. The idea is to release soon, release often. The feedback we're getting is truly valuable, and we appreciate all the emails we've been receiving. The bug- and feature list is getting dauntingly long, but we're up for it - we're aiming to go to the Beta phase in early March.

Some stats

For our fellow geeks, the FlatSearch site is written entirely Django, with a PostgreSql database backend. At the moment it's performing well (~130ms to render a page), but we'll see how it scales as our userbase grows. Currently we are hosting at Webfaction, which is definitely the best shared hosting available for Django at the moment. We'll probably have to move to a dedicated server soon enough, however, so we've started working on that as well. That will be one of the goals for the move out of the Beta phase.

Finding a flat just got a whole lot easier

As always in this business, exciting times! From the early feedback we've received for FlatSearch so far, it's clear we're ushering in a revolution in the way real estate is acquired in SA.