Real Estate Institute of Tasmania

Tasmania’s peak real estate body was locked into an ageing platform that couldn’t keep up, and they needed a new website built while their team was already stretched thin managing a much larger migration.

The Client

The Real Estate Institute of Tasmania (REIT) is the state’s peak body for the real estate profession. It represents agents and agencies across Tasmania, provides CPD (continuing professional development) training, publishes property data and industry resources, and serves as a public reference point for anyone looking for a licensed professional. The organisation serves two very different audiences from the one website: its members, and the general public.

The Challenge

REIT was leaving a supplier that hosted both their website and their e-learning platform. The website was built on an older .NET system, a Microsoft-based technology stack that had become difficult to maintain and update. The main focus of the migration was moving e-learning to a new platform, a large and complex undertaking that consumed most of REIT’s internal capacity. The website rebuild needed to happen in parallel, on deadline, and largely without close client involvement during the build.

That context shaped the approach. Because REIT’s team couldn’t dedicate much time to the new site, the existing content was migrated across as a working baseline. That meant transferring roughly 90 pages, 700 media releases, 50 course pages, and more than 2,000 downloadable documents. The site needed to be functional and credible at launch, not just a placeholder.

What Was Built

A WordPress Platform Built for Two Audiences

WordPress was the right platform here for several reasons. It has built-in user authentication, a mature ecosystem of plugins for managing protected content, and, critically, a plugin that connects directly to the new e-learning system REIT had migrated to.

The site handles two distinct user experiences from the one build. Public visitors can browse all publicly available content, read media releases, find a licensed agent through the public-facing parts of the site, and link through to REIT’s course catalogue. Members log in through the site itself, and once authenticated, the navigation changes to reveal pages and resources that are invisible to everyone else. Protected member pages return a 404 error to non-members, meaning they don’t just block access, they don’t acknowledge the page exists at all. Sections within public pages can also be marked as member-only, so the same page serves both audiences without duplication.

Member Resources and Content at Scale

The member area handles a significant volume of content. There are around 1,800 entries in the member directory, more than 2,000 downloadable documents, and a system that verifies membership before allowing any download to proceed. Course pages are built as a custom post type in WordPress, with live data pulled in from the external e-learning platform via plugin integration. This keeps course information current without requiring manual updates on the WordPress side.

The document protection system was considered carefully during the hosting setup, ensuring files couldn’t be accessed directly by bypassing the website. Download counts are tracked through a plugin, giving REIT visibility into which resources their members actually use.

The Result

The site launched on deadline alongside the e-learning migration, giving REIT a clean platform to move forward on at a moment when their team had little capacity to manage the process themselves. The client was pleased not to have the website become another pressure point during an already demanding migration.

For an organisation of REIT’s scale, the practical measure of success is simpler: a large, complex site with protected member content, integrated e-learning, and thousands of documents and records, running reliably and managed without a developer needed for everyday updates. The site remains on a monthly hosting and support plan, with ongoing maintenance handled as the platform continues to grow.