🏠 UrbanNest — Real Estate Marketplace

A full-stack real estate marketplace to discover, list, and manage property rentals and sales. Built with the MERN stack, JWT authentication, and a premium amber/orange design system.

📌 Table of Contents

• Overview
• Screenshots
• Tech Stack
• Getting Started
• Environment Variables
• API Reference
• Deployment

🧭 Overview

UrbanNest is a production-grade real estate marketplace where users can browse properties for sale or rent, post listings with photo galleries, and contact landlords directly. Built to strengthen full-stack development skills — with a focus on secure authentication, RESTful API design, and cloud service integration.

Feature	Detail
🔐 Authentication	JWT (HTTP-only cookies) + Google OAuth via Firebase
🔑 Password Reset	3-step email flow — SHA-256 hashed token, 1-hour expiry
🏘️ Listings	Full CRUD with up to 6 Cloudinary-hosted photos per listing
🔎 Search & Filter	Filter by type, offer, parking, furnished · sort · pagination
📱 Responsive	Mobile, tablet, and desktop

📸 Screenshots

🏡 Home Page

🔐 Sign In & Sign Up

Sign In	Sign Up

🔑 Forgot Password — 3-Step Flow

Step 1 — Enter Email	Step 2 — Check Inbox	Step 3 — Set New Password

🔎 Search & Listing Detail

| Search |--------|---------------| | |

➕ Create & Edit Listing

Create	Update

👤 Profile & About

Profile	About

🛠️ Tech Stack

Layer	Technologies
Frontend	React 19, Vite, Tailwind CSS 4, Redux Toolkit + Persist, React Router v7, Swiper.js, Axios
Backend	Node.js, Express, MongoDB, Mongoose, JWT, bcryptjs
Services	Firebase (Google OAuth) · Cloudinary (image CDN) · Nodemailer (emails)
Deployment	Vercel (frontend + backend)

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js v18+ and npm v9+
• Accounts at MongoDB Atlas, Firebase, and Cloudinary

Setup

# 1. Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/AqibNiazi/urban-nest.git
cd urban-nest

# 2. Install backend dependencies
cd server && npm install

# 3. Install frontend dependencies
cd ../client && npm install

# 4. Add .env files (see Environment Variables below)

# 5. Run backend → http://localhost:3000
cd server && npm run dev

# 6. Run frontend → http://localhost:5173
cd ../client && npm run dev

Add resetPasswordToken and resetPasswordExpires fields to your User schema — see user.model.js.

🔑 Environment Variables

server/.env

MONGO_URI=mongodb+srv://<user>:<pass>@cluster.mongodb.net/urban-nest
JWT_SECRET=your_jwt_secret
NODE_ENV=development
EMAIL_HOST=smtp.gmail.com
EMAIL_PORT=587
EMAIL_USER=your@gmail.com
EMAIL_PASS=your-gmail-app-password
CLIENT_URL=http://localhost:5173

For Gmail, generate an App Password at myaccount.google.com → Security → App Passwords.

client/.env

VITE_WEBSITE_BASE_URL=http://localhost:3000
VITE_FIREBASE_API_KEY=AIza...
VITE_FIREBASE_AUTH_DOMAIN=your-project.firebaseapp.com
VITE_FIREBASE_PROJECT_ID=your-project
VITE_FIREBASE_STORAGE_BUCKET=your-project.appspot.com
VITE_FIREBASE_MESSAGING_SENDER_ID=123456789
VITE_FIREBASE_APP_ID=1:123456789:web:abc123

📡 API Reference

Auth — /api/auth

Method	Endpoint	Auth	Description
POST	/signup	❌	Register new user
POST	/signin	❌	Sign in, sets JWT cookie
POST	/google	❌	Google OAuth
POST	/signout	✅	Clear auth cookie
POST	/forgot-password	❌	Send reset email
POST	/reset-password	❌	Set new password via token

Users — /api/user

Method	Endpoint	Auth	Description
GET	/get-user/:id	✅	Get user profile
POST	/upload-avatar	✅	Upload profile photo
PUT	/update-user/:id	✅	Update account
DELETE	/delete-user/:id	✅	Delete account
GET	/user-listings/:id	✅	Get user's listings

Listings — /api/listing

Method	Endpoint	Auth	Description
POST	/create-listing	✅	Create listing
GET	/get-listing/:id	❌	Get single listing
PUT	/update-listing/:id	✅	Update (owner only)
DELETE	/delete-listing/:id	✅	Delete (owner only)
GET	/get-listings	❌	Search with filters

Search params: searchTerm · type · offer · parking · furnished · sort · order · startIndex · limit

☁️ Deployment

Both services are deployed on Vercel as separate projects.

Service	Root Directory	Framework
Frontend	client/	Vite
Backend	server/	Node.js

Production checklist:

• Set NODE_ENV=production on backend
• Update CLIENT_URL to your frontend Vercel URL
• Add Vercel domain to Firebase Authorized Domains
• Set JWT cookie secure: true, sameSite: 'none'
• Add vercel.json in client/ to fix React Router on direct URL visits

{ "rewrites": [{ "source": "/(.*)", "destination": "/index.html" }] }

👨‍💻 Author

Aqib Niazi — Full Stack Engineer

📄 License

MIT — see LICENSE for details.

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