10 Tips for Creating a Real Estate Website

Real estate portals are convenient if you want to sell or rent out a property, or if you are a user looking for a property to buy or rent. A large portion of today’s sales and rentals in the real estate industry take place via appropriate real estate platforms such as Immobilienscout24 or similar services. A professional real estate website is crucial to attract potential buyers and to create a positive first impression. The service is usually free for buyers or tenants, whereas the seller must pay for its use.

A professional homepage is important to effectively present your services and property listings.

If you too want to create such a real estate platform, then you have set yourself a big challenge, as it is a very complex and extensive project. To simplify your start and support you in your endeavor, our experts share with you seven useful and practical tips in this article for the successful creation of a professional real estate platform with an appealing and user-friendly design.

The Essentials at a Glance

Which Online Platform Would You Like to Create?

Examples of Well-Known Real Estate Portals

What Exactly Is a Real Estate Portal?

Essentially, a real estate portal is a modified online shop. The principle is the same, but instead of items such as electrical appliances or computers, properties are offered – either for rent or for sale. The advantage is that searchers can conveniently look for a property in their desired location online. This is practical because it can be difficult to, for example, access newspaper ads from other cities or municipalities, especially if they are farther away. A dedicated real estate agent website can offer additional advantages by specifically addressing customers’ needs and generating leads through optimal content design.

A significant difference from traditional e-commerce in a real estate portal, however, is that there are generally no payment providers or payment options. Buyers and tenants contact the landlord directly if interested and pay the amount via bank transfer, cash, or as agreed. At least in this respect, a real estate portal is simpler to develop. Nevertheless, it remains a rather complex and labor-intensive project.

Immobilienscout24 is the leading real estate portal in the German market.

Tips for the Successful Development of a Real Estate Platform

There are many reasons to create your own real estate platform. Some of these you have already learned about in this article. You have also discovered that this undertaking is a very complex and labor-intensive project. Thorough planning, preparation, and sufficient capital are important factors. A professional website builder can help you create an attractive and functional platform. In this section, we present our expert tips to help you succeed in developing and planning your online platform.

Real estate agent websites offer an excellent opportunity to professionally present your property listings and attract potential customers.

1. What Type of Real Estate Portal Do You Need?

There are a variety of different online portals. They differ in functions as well as in complexity. Additionally, there are differences in how the platforms are structured. Many simple portals can be found, for example, as plugins for popular CMS such as WordPress or Drupal, while more complex systems often have to be programmed from scratch. Another option is to use a ‘real estate website builder’ that has been specifically developed for real estate agents to ensure a professional online presence and to attract potential customers.

The first decision you must make when creating an online platform is the type of platform. Should it be a basic platform with simple functions? Or do you perhaps need a more sophisticated platform? For professional and paid portals, you usually cannot avoid a complex and sophisticated platform, as ready-made solutions and plugins are generally not sufficient in terms of functionality and flexibility.

You must therefore consider in advance what goals you want to achieve with your online portal and which functions the platform should or must fulfill. The decision you make here also has a lasting impact on the costs.

The more complex and extensive the online portal, the higher the effort and, correspondingly, the greater the required capital. If you plan thoroughly from the beginning, you can save money during the development of your online platform.

Before you continue with the development of a real estate platform, you must be clear about what type of platform you want to create and where it will be used. In many cases, a simple or medium-level platform is sufficient. Only in truly special cases is it necessary to develop a complex real estate platform from scratch.

2. The Financing of Your Real Estate Portal

The next important step, which is directly related to the point mentioned above, is the financing of your online platform. The development of your portal is costly and incurs expenses that you must cover during development, typically before your platform generates any income. Financing is therefore an important factor to consider. A professional website for real estate agents can be advantageous here, as it not only improves the user experience but also increases visibility in search engines and attracts potential customers as well as investors.

Basically, there are two possibilities. Either you have the capital to have your own platform of this kind developed and pay the incurred costs out of your own pocket, in which case you can get started immediately and begin the development of the platform with nothing standing in the way of the project launch.

In most cases, however, you will not have sufficient capital and can only provide a partial amount. In this case, you need to look for other financing options. One possibility is banks and credit institutions, which generally have no problem issuing a loan to companies. An alternative, especially in this context, is crowdfunding.

This means you present your project on a crowdfunding platform such as Patreon or Kickstarter and have the development financed in the form of pledges by interested parties. For this option to work, you need some equity and must create a prototype of your platform. In addition, you must use information, videos, and marketing to attract potential investors to your project and convince them to support you financially. In return, the backers receive something from you. This could be a free membership, a free advertisement on your platform, or something else entirely. Your creativity is key – basically, anything that can excite customers or investors is possible.

3. It’s Starting – The Green Light for Your Real Estate Portal

Once you have developed a concept for your online portal and secured the financing, the green light can be given. Now it’s time to get down to business and begin developing your online platform. It is important to work with a professional agency, such as Shopboostr. A professional real estate agent website is indispensable for generating more orders and reaching international customers. We have accompanied the development of various online platforms, online shops, and other applications several times and have been experts in this field for many years. However, for the development of your online platform to be successful, you must consider a few things. The most important points are:

• An excellent idea: Why should someone invest in your project?
• A strong development team to program the platform.
• A team for community management and building a community.
• Cooperation with real estate agents and landlords who will use your platform.
• A well-written whitepaper that presents your project in detail
• Professional marketing on specialized portals and social media
• A strong management team
• A professional agency that implements your ideas and concepts.

Immowelt is a good alternative to Immobilienscout24.

4. Your Idea and Its Implementation

For your project to be successful, it needs a strong idea. This means that you must solve a problem or offer a service that is interesting to customers and convinces investors to invest in your venture. You must also consider that there are now many competing platforms of this kind on the market. Many of these have been established for a long time and offer a wide range of services and functions. Often, many ideas already exist. Chances are, your idea is already represented, so you must convince investors why they should invest in your platform rather than a competitor’s project, or why they should choose you. A professional real estate agent website based on WordPress that integrates industry-specific features such as API connections and evaluation tools can be crucial in presenting your idea convincingly and differentiating you from the competition.

It is best to ask yourself whether you would invest in your project and why, or whether you would study your own offering or opt for another platform and why. Look at the problems encountered by other projects, especially those with a similar or the same offering as yours. Then consider how you can solve these problems and outperform the competition. That is the right path. The market is highly competitive and there are many rivals.

In some cases, it may be necessary or sensible to specialize in a specific area. For example, you might focus on a particular demographic or professional group, such as public service employees, students, etc. This would give you a significant advantage compared to the many general platforms. Additionally, you could establish yourself as an expert in the industry.

5. Start Small with the Programming

Developing a complete online platform is very complex and extensive. This is especially true if you want to have an advanced online portal developed individually. In that case, you cannot simply use a CMS or existing software and adapt it for your needs, which means that sometimes very high costs arise. In contrast, many CMS platforms are open-source software and can be used free of charge – you only pay for individual customizations. However, with an advanced platform, everything must be created from scratch. Thus, programming consumes a large part of the budget.

We therefore recommend that you start small. Develop a prototype and the basic structure (MVA) – everything you need to promote your project and attract investors. A good example is real estate agent websites that are often created using website builders such as Jimdo or Squarespace. These enable real estate agents to create impressive online presences without any programming knowledge, appealing to potential customers both nationally and internationally. Once you have achieved this goal, you can use the prototype to secure additional capital to continuously expand it. Avoid trying to perfect everything from the very beginning. Otherwise, you risk ending up without capital and without investors, as you won’t have a prototype to use for raising funds and marketing.

6. Assemble a Team of Professional Programmers

For the programming of your online platform, you need an experienced team of professional programmers. The implementation of your portal and the underlying technology involves complex areas. Accordingly, you need various developers who not only master different programming languages but, ideally, are also familiar with the respective industry or market.

Just as the project team and advisors must convince investors, your programmers must also do so. A well-designed website is crucial to showcase your team’s competencies, much like in the case of real estate agents. The best ideas are worthless if there is no capability to put them into practice. Experts and investors in the field are very discerning and will particularly look for evidence that your idea can indeed be implemented. For this very reason, a prototype can be very useful – it allows your programmers to demonstrate their expertise in practice.

7. Assemble a Team of Partners and Experts from the Real Estate Industry

Before your platform can go live, you must build a professional team. You need administrators to handle new members, registrations, possibly certificates, etc. You also need IT personnel to maintain the platform and handle security and technical issues. Additionally, you may require community managers, among others. Most importantly, you need a competent network of experts. This also includes real estate agents who build trust through positive customer reviews and an appealing online presence. These may include companies that advertise on your site, financing partners, payment providers like Stripe or PayPal that enable your visitors to pay directly via the website, and so on.

The Most Well-Known Real Estate Portals

There are already a multitude of online portals and websites in various sectors on the market. They typically already have numerous customers as well as partners and collaborations. Therefore, it can be challenging to gain a foothold with a new, private platform. Convincing arguments and features that competing platforms do not offer, as well as a specialization in certain areas, are useful strategies to overcome this challenge.

The analysis of these platforms and their projects or courses gives you insight into the competition and what projects already exist. Additionally, you gain insight into various online portals, their structures, and their functions. Many platforms offer the possibility to register for free or try out the paid functions during a trial period. We recommend taking advantage of this offer. This way, you can best learn about the offerings and possibilities of the competition.

Simple, Complex, or Advanced? What Makes Sense?

When developing an online platform, as you have already learned, you have various options. You must decide on a concept or model. Is a simple or complex platform sufficient? Or does it have to be an advanced platform or a professional website? And which platform makes sense?

We cannot give you a one-size-fits-all answer to this question in this article. It depends on the project, the functions, and your individual endeavor. In most cases, in our opinion and based on our experience, a simple or complex platform is sufficient. These already come with many functions and cover all the important options. A custom-developed, individual platform is only necessary in the rarest cases – namely when existing simple or advanced solutions cannot provide the required functions and these cannot be retrofitted.

We recommend that you consult an expert for this decision. Shopboostr is your expert for real estate platforms, online shops, and other online platforms. Our team is happy to provide you with individual and non-binding advice, and if desired, we are also ready to accompany you with your project. Simple, straightforward, and from the very beginning.

Conclusion and Summary

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