How we launched a 10,000+ apartment catalog in just over two months

A property website with a fixed launch deadline

The property developer needed a new corporate website before New Year. The previous contractor had been unable to complete the technically complex project, so the client turned to an agency it had worked with for years. I was a project manager at that agency and took responsibility for delivery.

The agency specialized in property developers' websites, apartment catalogs, 3D experiences, and virtual tours. My work covered the full project cycle: client interviews, scope estimates, technical specifications, technical delivery requirements in contracts, and development management. The agency built sites in PHP using the Bitrix CMS, mainly with its in-house team.

None of the previous contractor's work was handed over. We had to build a replacement for the live website and plan a smooth transition. Several departments supplied requirements, including numerous integrations. The client had more than 10,000 apartments for sale, plus parking spaces, with data coming from different systems. Loading records was not enough: properties across residential developments had to appear accurately in one catalog.

We had just over two months. Launching before New Year was a firm requirement from the client's owner. The client offered favorable commercial terms and incentives for on-time completion, and the agency entrusted me with managing the project.

Coordinating several teams in parallel

I combined project management with requirements and data analysis. The agency had its own designers and frontend and backend developers, but not enough available capacity for this scope and deadline. We could not move everyone onto this project because other client work had to continue.

I proposed bringing in external companies for clearly defined tasks that would not depend on the core team's daily decisions. Once the design concept was approved, the agency kept the complex, key pages. I grouped secondary pages into batches and assigned them to contractors.

Design and frontend page implementation ran as separate workstreams, handled by different contractor teams. The agency's art director prepared guidance for the designers, while the lead frontend developer set standards for page implementation. This let teams work in parallel while keeping the pages consistent.

I reviewed the division of work with the agency's technical director. We needed to decide both what could be outsourced and how each team's output would fit into the finished site.

After a short review of suitable companies, I selected three contractors. I coordinated their work with the in-house team and stayed involved in resolving questions throughout delivery. Parallel development helped us meet the deadline, although substantial overtime was still necessary.

Agreeing on the essential launch scope

The deadline was the main risk, but launching on time was not enough. The site also had to meet the departments' business requirements. The migration needed to account for search rankings, user engagement metrics, and familiar user journeys.

I brought the departments' requirements into one roadmap and prioritized them. Together with the client's management and departmental representatives, we defined the minimum launch scope: the features and content without which the first release would not meet the brief.

That agreement was important for acceptance. The agency answered to the client's senior management, who in turn reported to the owner. Defining the scope early let us check that no critical requirement had been left out, rather than discovering a gap after launch.

Migration preparation was a separate workstream. I worked extensively with SEO specialists to reduce the risk of losing search rankings. We also reviewed how visitors used the existing site so that the replacement would not disrupt familiar journeys or harm engagement metrics.

Combining several CRM feeds into one catalog

The catalog was the main tool for choosing an apartment or parking space. Buyers could reserve an apartment using their phone, with SMS confirmation. Reservations worked in real time: once confirmed, the apartment appeared as reserved in the catalog.

The catalog relied on exports from the client's systems. Several CRM systems were in use, and changing all of them quickly to suit the new website was not feasible. We therefore had to build integrations around the data and formats the client could provide.

Those exports could not be used directly. Apartments from different residential developments needed a consistent representation without losing the meaning of the source data. The agency handled the data processing, and some of the solutions at this stage were temporary.

I examined the exports with the programmers, helping investigate discrepancies and agree on processing rules. We continued until apartments and parking spaces displayed correctly in the shared catalog. The same collaborative analysis helped us resolve other technical questions during the project.

Launching ahead of the deadline

In just over two months, the team prepared the new website with more than 10,000 apartments and integrations with several CRM systems. It went live about a week and a half before New Year, ahead of the client's deadline.

A year-change bug hid years of news

During the first hour of January 1, I opened the site to show friends the completed project and noticed that several years of news had disappeared from view. This was a large archive, not a few missing posts, and its absence posed a risk to search rankings.

I immediately called one of our developers. At first, he thought a request to check the site so soon after midnight was a joke. Once he understood the scale of the issue, he investigated. The cause was a publication-year calculation in the code. He fixed the bug in less than an hour.

That version of the website remained in service for more than seven years before it was replaced. It is no longer available to view, but I can discuss the catalog, integrations, and delivery approach without disclosing confidential data.

The lessons apply beyond urgent launches. Corporate websites and large catalogs with several data sources face the same coordination and integration questions. Whether an unusually short deadline is feasible depends on scope, dependencies, and the available team. I discuss this further in what to do when a project falls behind schedule.