Druid

I've been requested to create a website for a mortgage company.
Do you guys normally charge per hour, per page, or per project?

Since the client wants to be able to modify things themselves, I will be forced to use some sort of content management system. Do any of you have any suggestions as to which CMS w/ modules etc, would be best for a mortgage company?

I'm thinking that this is just a "we are here" type of website. But there is a potential for a bit of ecommerce. What type of security should I look into?
I'll know more when I call the client today.

PhilBon

I personally charge by Project. I calculate the estimated time I think it will take me, add about 1/4 of that time to it and then depending on the complexity of the site range from $10-20 an hour.
First question I have for you is what language are you going to be using? That depends on what server they currently have or what server you will be suggesting to them. If you are using the ASP.Net it will be a little more trouble some (IMO). Best bet is to go for PHP for a simple and pretty good looking system. I can show you a few of my examples if you want. Chances are you are just going to be having a system for what it says on the page, possibly a picture upload so they can put pictures on. Chances are PHP and MySQL or PostgreSQL will be the best unless you don't know PHP.
If you are going to do ecommerce on the site, you are going to have to make sure you have an SSL certificate. At that point I would stress of contacting someone else and learning more in depth what you have to do to be secure. When you finally hand over the software to them, you are saying, alright this is going to be safe, it wont have any bugs and everything will work. That said if you did have an ecommerce part and somehow someone did gain information it would be on your shoulders to repay any amount that might be a result of it.