Real Estate.

Real Estate Marketplace

A MERN-stack real-estate marketplace where users browse, list, search, and inquire about properties, with Google OAuth (Firebase) plus JWT/cookie auth, a user dashboard for listings and inquiries, and filtering by price and location. Styled with Tailwind CSS.

A live demo is deployed at https://real-estate-marketplace-v6ch.onrender.com.

Project Status

Portfolio project. The listing, auth, dashboard, and search flows are implemented. Not under active development.

Key Features

• User registration and login with email/password and Google OAuth (Firebase)
• Property marketplace: list, search, and explore properties
• Detailed property views with image galleries and descriptions
• Inquiry/contact forms for properties
• User dashboard for managing listings and inquiries
• Advanced search and filtering by price, location, and other criteria
• Cookie/JWT-based session auth (Express backend); role/ownership checks on listing mutations

Architecture

flowchart TD
    B["Express backend (api/)<br/>port 3000"] -->|/api/auth| AR["auth.routes<br/>signup, signin, google, signout"]
    B -->|/api/user| UR["user.routes<br/>CRUD user + user's listings"]
    B -->|/api/listing| LR["listing.routes<br/>CRUD listings, search"]
    B --> SL["Serves built client<br/>client/dist"]
    AR --> DB[(("MongoDB"))]
    UR --> DB
    LR --> DB
    C["React client (client/)<br/>Vite + Tailwind + Redux Toolkit"] -->|VITE_FIREBASE_API_KEY| FB["Firebase<br/>(Google OAuth)"]
    C -->|fetch /api/*| B

In production, the Express server (port 3000) also serves the built React client from client/dist. In development, run the backend and the Vite dev server separately.

Technology Stack

• Frontend: React 18, Vite + SWC, Tailwind CSS, Redux Toolkit + redux-persist, react-router-dom, react-icons, swiper, Firebase (Google OAuth web SDK)
• Backend: Node.js, Express, Mongoose, bcryptjs, jsonwebtoken, cookie-parser, dotenv
• Database: MongoDB (Atlas or local)
• Auth: Firebase Google OAuth on the client; cookie/JWT verification on the server (api/utils/verifyUser.js)
• Deployment: Render (single web service hosting both API and built client)

Repository Structure

.
├── api/
│   ├── index.js          # Express app, mongoose connect, serves client/dist in prod
│   ├── routes/
│   │   ├── auth.route.js     # /api/auth: signup, signin, google, signout
│   │   ├── user.route.js    # /api/user: user CRUD + user's listings
│   │   └── listing.route.js # /api/listing: listing CRUD + search
│   ├── controllers/      # auth/user/listing controllers
│   ├── models/           # user.model, listing.model
│   └── utils/            # verifyUser (JWT), error handling
├── client/
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── firebase.js   # Firebase web config (uses VITE_FIREBASE_API_KEY)
│   │   ├── redux/        # user slices + redux-persist
│   │   ├── components/ # pages/ # store
│   ├── vite.config.js
│   ├── tailwind.config.js
│   └── package.json
├── package.json          # backend deps + build/dev scripts
└── README.md

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• MongoDB (local instance or MongoDB Atlas connection string)
• A Firebase project with Google sign-in enabled, and its web API key (for the client)

Getting Started

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/dilrukshax/Real-Estate-Marketplace
   cd Real-Estate-Marketplace
   

2. Install backend dependencies (the backend package.json lives at the repo root):

   npm install
   

3. Configure environment variables. Create a .env file in the repo root from .env.example:

   cp .env.example .env
   

   Set MONGODB_URI to your MongoDB connection string and JWT_SECRET to a long random value.

4. Start the backend:

   npm run dev      # nodemon api/index.js (http://localhost:3000)
   

5. In a second terminal, install and start the client:

   cd client
   npm install
   npm run dev      # Vite dev server (http://localhost:5173)
   

   Set VITE_FIREBASE_API_KEY in client/.env so Google OAuth works in the Vite dev server.

Environment Variables

Backend (.env at the repo root; see .env.example)

MONGODB_URI=your-mongodb-connection-string
JWT_SECRET=your-jwt-secret
PORT=3000

Client (client/.env)

VITE_FIREBASE_API_KEY=your-firebase-web-api-key

The remaining Firebase web config (authDomain, projectId, appId, measurementId) is present in client/src/firebase.js and is safe to keep in source (Firebase web config is public by design).

API Endpoints

All routes are prefixed as below; the server runs on port 3000.

Database Setup

MongoDB schema is created by Mongoose from api/models/. No migrations to run — Mongoose creates collections on first write.

Running with Docker

There is no Dockerfile or docker-compose file in this repository; the production deployment uses Render.

API Documentation

No OpenAPI/Swagger file is present. The endpoint table above is derived from api/routes/*.js.

Testing

There is no automated test suite (no test script in either package.json); tests were not executed.

Deployment

The deployed demo runs on Render at https://real-estate-marketplace-v6ch.onrender.com. The build runs the root npm run build script, which installs backend and client deps and runs vite build in client/; the Express server then serves client/dist on port 3000. Use Render's npm run start-equivalent (node api/index.js).

Screenshots

Contributing

This is a personal portfolio project. If you'd like to suggest improvements, please open an issue first to discuss the change.

License

Licensed under the MIT License.

Author

Dilan Dilruksha
Software Engineer | Backend & Full-Stack Development
Portfolio: https://dilandilruksha.dev
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dilan-dilruksha
GitHub: https://github.com/dilrukshax