In December we’ve already mentioned Houzez in our research on Real Estate concept on ThemeForest. Unfortunately, two weeks ago this theme became unavailable. Some users on forum say it’s all about some kind of copyright issues, but that’s not the case here.
At Stattie we waited for two weeks to see how the takedown of Houzez affected WordPress Real Estate sales in general.
The red line indicates date when Houzez became unavailable
At first it seemed like all of the Houzez potential customers will choose other themes, but as you can see, the daily amount of sales in Real Estate decreased.
Those 100+ sales per week that was usual thing for Houzez for the last time weren’t fully converted in other authors sales. Items that were next to Houzez had slight increase in sales. However, it might be possible that the fact that Houzez is no longer available gave a chance to Home Villas that was published few days before the takedown happened. This theme is #5 now, and that is a great result, even for the Elite Author.
Do you think sales will go back to their normal rates? May the Home Villas be the new best seller in Real Estate?
I am new here and just had a web developer bring me over to Houzez from WP Real Estate Pro. It took them over 3 months to transition all of our listings (over 200) to the new theme and we are still fixing the mistakes weeks later. A real mess! So now I am hearing it is discontinued. Do I have to move again? Any input would be greatly appreciated.
@favethemes remain a very reputable and experienced, power elite author
Personally, regardless of how good the theme is, taking months to migrate a website raises questions around the investment and using a stock theme versus a more custom and purpose built solution.
It’s impossible to judge without having seen what the developer had to work with and update but that is a long time to spend and presumably a big cost to be still using a stock theme that relies on the 3rd party author to maintain
Also worth noting - you do not have a buyer badge on this account. Did you not buy the theme?
That would be a dangerous position to be in especially with the big investment.
Without having purchased the theme you will never have direct access to lifetime updates or support - this will only be accessible to the purchasing account, irrelevant of if a develop purchased it on your behalf
