Your Houzez website
What your WordPress site needs before the app can talk to it, and the two plugins we send you.
Your app doesn't hold a copy of your data. Every search, listing and enquiry comes live from your existing Houzez website, so the app is only ever as healthy as the site behind it.
Two plugins from us turn your site into something the app can talk to. Everything else here is standard WordPress hygiene you very likely already have.
What your site needs
| Requirement | Minimum |
|---|---|
| Houzez theme | Version 2.x or newer, active |
| WordPress | 6.0 or newer |
| PHP | 8.0 or newer |
| HTTPS | A valid certificate, not expired or self-signed |
| Permalinks | Anything except "Plain" |
Permalinks matter more than they look. The app talks to your site over an address like yoursite.com/wp-json/…, and that address only exists when permalinks are switched on. In WordPress: Settings → Permalinks → choose Post name → Save. If it's already set to anything other than "Plain", you're fine.
The two plugins
We'll send you both as .zip files when we start. They aren't on the public plugin directory.
| Plugin | What it does |
|---|---|
| Houzez API | Exposes your listings, agents, cities and enquiries to the app |
| JWT Shield Lite | Handles secure login, so your users can sign in from the app |
To install each one: Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin → choose the .zip → Install Now → Activate.
Install both, activate both. Nothing to configure — activating JWT Shield Lite generates its security key automatically.
Pick www or non-www, and don't change it later
This is the one that quietly breaks logins weeks later, so it's worth two minutes now.
Your site answers on several addresses — yoursite.com, www.yoursite.com, http:// and https://. WordPress treats one of them as the real one, and app logins are tied to whichever it is.
Check Settings → General. "WordPress Address" and "Site Address" should both be identical and should both start with https://. Decide on www or no-www, make both fields match, and leave it alone from then on.
If you change it after your app is live, everyone gets logged out of the app at once and has to sign in again.
Security plugins and firewalls
If you run Wordfence, iThemes Security, Cloudflare, Sucuri or similar, they may block the address the app uses. The symptom is an app that shows no listings at all while the website works perfectly.
Ask whoever manages your security setup to allow requests to /wp-json/. That's the only exception needed.
Rate limiting is worth a mention too: if your firewall blocks an address after a handful of requests, it can lock out an entire office sharing one internet connection.
If your site is multilingual
The app asks your site for content in one language — the language you choose for the app.
Check that your property types, cities, statuses and features are all actually translated in WordPress. Anything untranslated shows up in the app in whatever language it was written in, which looks like a bug even though the site itself is fine.
Property titles and descriptions are a separate matter: those appear in whichever language each listing was written in, and no setting changes that.
What to send us
- Your website address — the full
https://one, matching Settings → General - A WordPress administrator login so we can confirm the plugins are working
We use the login once, to check the connection, and we'll tell you when we're done so you can remove it if you'd rather.
Send the password using one of the safe methods on the checklist page — not in a plain email.