BP Update 7.2.1: Navigation Update, Properties Removal

[Joshua Dorkin]

Today we announce more very important changes to BiggerPockets, which are the result of Project Simplify, whose goal is to improve our site and how you use it.

New Navigation
As you can see on our blue navigation bar, there have been some changes made. The forums now have their own menu item, as does our real estate marketplace. As two of the most important areas of the site -- the forums are where discussions happen and the marketplace is where users can advertise and solicit (where commerce happens on BP) -- we felt that they needed their own distinct areas.

We've also eliminated the old "tools' menu item and combined it with our resources menu.

Overall, the idea is to make the most important areas more obvious to our users, and we believe that this change does that.

Removal of BiggerPockets Task Manager
Did you know that BiggerPockets had a task manager? Most people didn't. In fact, the tool was so under-used, that the last update that any member made to the system was made over a year ago. In getting rid of the clutter, the Task Manager had to go.

Removal of BiggerPockets Properties System
This was by far the hardest move for me to approve, second only to the removal of our groups system. There are several reasons to get rid of the property system. First and foremost, the system was very much outdated -- while it got a fair amount of use, over the years it became very buggy and difficult to use.

We certainly believe that BiggerPockets needs a property directory, but we feel that until we can build our own system that is to the standards of other high-caliber systems online, it will be to the benefit of our users that we find an appropriate partner to provide the technology for us.

That said, users can still post their listings, deals, and opportunities in our Marketplace, which actually gets as much visibility as the just-removed properties system did.

BTW - Since we began the simplification process, site load times have improved dramatically, with pages taking around half as long to load.

We've got a lot of great improvements planned, and we will continue to debug, fix, and cleanup the site as we move forward.