Release Notes: Harbor Gets Property Search

Harbor’s most requested feature is finally here: proper property search. Ever since the theme launched as a home for real estate agents, small brokerages and property managers, the same comment kept appearing on the theme page: the listings look great, but buyers need a better way to find them. It took four months, mostly because agents kept giving us great feedback. Every time we thought the search was finished, someone in the beta group showed us how their clients actually look for homes, and we went back to improve it. This post walks through what is new, how it works and how to set it up on your site.

Why search took so long

Search sounds simple until you watch real people use it. In early tests, I gave a group of agents a basic filter bar with price, bedrooms and a city dropdown. Within a day, the notes started arriving. Buyers don’t think in cities, they think in neighborhoods and school zones. They don’t want a minimum and maximum price typed into boxes, they want a slider they can drag on a phone. They want to see results on a map without losing their place in the list. And they want all of it to feel instant.

Each of those requests made sense, and each one added work. I could have shipped a basic version in a few weeks, but Harbor buyers run real businesses. A search that frustrates their visitors costs them leads. So we kept going until the agents in the beta group told us they would use it on their own sites without changes.

Search like a buyer

Price, beds, baths, neighborhood and a map you can draw on. Results update instantly. That sentence covers the core of the feature, but the details are what make it feel right.

Filters that make sense

• Price: A slider with sensible steps, plus quick picks like “under $400,000” that you can set for your market.
• Beds and baths: Simple buttons for one, two, three or more, so nobody has to type a number on a phone.
• Neighborhood: Pulled from your own listing categories, so you can use local names your clients recognize.
• Property type: Single-family, condo, townhome, land and any custom types you add.
• Extras: Optional toggles for features such as a pool, garage, yard or new construction.

As visitors change a filter, the results refresh without reloading the page. The address bar updates too, so a buyer can copy the link and send their exact search to a partner or a friend.

A map you can draw on

The map view was the part beta testers loved most. Buyers can switch between list and map, or see both side by side on a larger screen. They can zoom into an area and tap “search this area,” or draw a rough shape around the streets they care about. Only homes inside that shape appear in the list. One agent in Charlotte told me her clients use it to draw around their kids’ school and their office, then look only at what falls in between.

On phones, the map slides up from the bottom so it never covers the filters. Pins cluster when they are close together and spread apart as you zoom in. Tapping a pin shows a small card with a photo, the price and the number of beds and baths.

Thank you to the forty agents who tested the beta.

Cole Bennett, theme author

Saved searches

Visitors can save a search and get an email when something new matches. For agents, this may be the most valuable part of the update, because it turns a casual visitor into someone who comes back again and again.

When a buyer saves a search, Harbor asks for their name and email address and stores the search in a simple list in your dashboard. When you publish a new listing that matches, the theme sends a friendly email with a photo, the price and a link to the property. Buyers can choose instant alerts or a daily summary, and every email includes a one-click link to stop alerts at any time.

You can see every saved search in the dashboard, which gives you a clear picture of what your visitors want. If twenty people are searching for three-bedroom homes under a certain price in one neighborhood, that is useful information for your next listing presentation.

Setting it up

1. Update the Harbor theme and the Harbor Listings companion plugin.
2. Open the new Search settings page and choose which filters to show.
3. Add your neighborhood names and pick your default map area.
4. Turn on saved searches and customize the alert email with your logo and colors.
5. Place the search block on your homepage or listings page and preview it on your phone.

Before turning on email alerts, check that your site can send email reliably. Many hosts recommend a dedicated email delivery service for this, and your host can help you choose one. It is also a good idea to review your privacy policy so visitors know how their email address will be used.

Speed and the small details

A search feature is only as good as it feels. We spent a full month on speed alone. Results load in small batches as you scroll, photos load just before they appear on screen, and the map draws only the pins in view. On a site with several hundred active listings, the search still feels instant on a mid-range phone.

We also sweated the small things. Empty results show a friendly message with a button to widen the search instead of a blank page. Sold listings can stay visible with a badge or disappear automatically. Agents can mark a home as featured so it appears first when it matches. And every part of the search can be translated, since Harbor is used by agents who serve clients in several languages.

Key takeaway: Update Harbor and the companion plugin, choose your filters, add your neighborhoods and turn on saved searches. Most agents can be up and running in under an hour.

What is next for Harbor

This release closes the biggest gap in the theme, but agents in the beta group already have ideas for what comes next. The most popular requests are an open house calendar, a mortgage estimate box that agents can tune for their area, and a simple way to compare up to three homes side by side. I am planning all three for the coming months.

As always, the roadmap is shaped by the people who use the theme every day. If you are an agent using Harbor, try the new search with a few of your clients and tell me what feels clunky. The forty agents who tested this release made it far better than anything I would have built alone, and I would love to hear from the next forty.