Every second of the six million homes that were sold in the United States last year was listed online. Through an online search rather than through friends, acquaintances, print advertisements, or agencies. This shows two things: first, the importance of the Internet is rising; and second, real estate website development is one of the easiest ways to make money.

Of course, in order to compete with Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor, this site shouldn’t just be another one with a nice design, a catchy name, and some type of IDX search. This should be a project that builds on the strengths of rivals and provides genuine value to users. You can find out how to accomplish it in this article.

4 Approaches to  Real Estate Website Development

Step 1: Real Estate Database

Users visit your site especially for the purpose of advertising. Additionally, users will be let down and stop using the site to search for real estate if the database is too small. That’s why creating a database appropriately is essential:

Own customer base:

If the website was built on the basis of the company, you are welcome to utilize your own real estate listings for sale. You will have the most up-to-date knowledge about these objects, and such trades will yield the highest profit. However, since the site’s users wants to see more than 40–100 positions, listing just your own lists won’t be sufficient.

This issue can be resolved by integrating MLS and aggregator listings, but this will make it less likely that people will select the items that are beneficial to you. Thankfully, there is a solution to this issue: when a person looks for real estate on your website, they first views your lists, and only after viewing them does the system load data from other sources.

Real Estate Website Aggregators:

Sites like Zillow, Realtor, Rightmove, among others, provide API interfaces that you may use to gather information on real estate listings for sale and incorporate it into your website’s database. If your own lists are insufficient and you don’t have access to any MLS databases, this may be an excellent option.

Implementing such an aggregator is simple, but you must be aware that the data it collects will enter your database slowly and part of it will be irrelevant. Strong, expensive tools can be used to solve this issue, but doing so may not be essential given that the expenses are likely to outweigh the possible rewards.

Connect to MLS databases:

MLS is collection of real estate data. The list is delivered in a conventional format, so that multi-listing can be used with various interfaces. If you are a realtor or agency, you have undoubtedly previously connected to such a service, either by creating the seller’s item in one of the MLS or by searching for offers for your buyers.

MLS databases are displayed on real estate websites using one of the IDX (Internet Data Exchange). Implementing IDX on your website can be carried out in several ways like iFrame, FTP, RETS & RESO.

It is advised to pick between iFrame and RESO when building a real estate website with an MLS connection because the first technique is straightforward and generally free, while the second is the most recent standard that makes it easy to access actual data. The two remaining approaches are merely outdated.

The best case scenario is if you compile a database of properties up for sale using several data sources. Thus, your users will have a sufficient number of options to fulfill their needs or successfully market their property. 

Step 2: Search results

External search: Google is where most buyers begin their search for their ideal property. And it would be wonderful if the pages from your website were first in the search results. This is a collection of strategies and tactics that give your website’s search results in Google and other search engines a higher priority.

In specifically, SEO improvements help with:

• Authentic, pertinent information that your site’s visitors will find useful and helpful.
• Marketing with visual content helps make material go popular.
• MLS listings that have been optimized with powerful search engine optimization.
• Social media presence and quickly loading pages.

Internal search: Users will start looking for specific items on your real estate website once they get there using the tools, filters, and criteria that are already there. And if users don’t like how these features are displayed, they’ll leave and never return to your website.

You must take the following actions to prevent this:

• Use geographical search (by address, region, and proximity).
• Implement an attribute-based search (price, house characteristics, proximity of important objects: transportation hubs, schools, hospitals, etc.).

Make searching simple by disregarding spelling mistakes and typos, autocorrecting, and auto-filling with generic words.

At the same time, your website’s internal search should operate quickly and have a saved search feature. Users and search engines do not like slow websites. Furthermore, the function of the saved search will help users who need to access it again.

Additionally, it’s necessary to ascertain the particulars of the area and the target market before launching an internal search. For instance, if your website sells real estate in Manhattan, New York, purchasers may be interested in knowing if cats and/or dogs are allowed, if there is a doorman, and if there is an open space inside the home or on the roof.

Step 3: Implementing Listings

Individuals pay more attention to visualization the more away they are from a potential purchase because they do not have the option to personally inspect the house or must invest a lot of time and money to do so.

HD images: The simplest and most important component in visualizing real estate. HD (1920 x 1080 pixel) resolution photos that are crystal clear and highlight the key features of the exterior and inside are preferred. Because of this, professional photographers are drawn; you may take advantage of their expertise or enter user photo criteria.

Virtual tours: They have gained popularity over the past five years as a result of the development of virtual and augmented reality technologies, as well as an increase in computing power. Utilizing virtual reality and/or 3D graphics is one way to implement such functionality. Because it costs money to create virtual reality, this depiction is used to market expensive real estate.

Live broadcast and video tour: Prior to now, this strategy was primarily applied to the selling of expensive real estate due to the great expense of producing high-quality videos. But now that everyone has access to a smartphone with a high-quality camera and high-speed Internet, it should be used. Even if the seller is unable to do so, it is required to introduce the capability of using such a function upon the request of the buyer (for a cost).

Step 4: Website Development

The UX and UI components of a real estate website design should receive equal consideration. Since three different user roles can personalize the user experience on real estate websites:

• Agents;
• Homebuyers;
• Home sellers;

Today, 93 percent of American homebuyers utilize real estate websites to look for a property. Only 7% of respondents claimed to have searched for a home without using any online resources. As a result, practically the entire sector came online.

Your site must also be mobile-friendly for greater commercial outcomes. Mobile devices accounted for 48% of all network searches; 36% of these users said they would look for homes while watching TV at home.

These findings support the notion that creating a website is a requirement for a real estate to be successful.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the real estate market has only grown over time. By 2024, the U.S. real estate industry will generate about $553.3 billion in income. Additionally, every year a new sort of real estate web software is developed.

In 2022, you will need to go digital whether you’re in the rental or real estate industries. To learn how to create a real estate website, you must:

• Choose your optimal monetization strategy
• Create the essential features of your website and give it a user-friendly look.

After that, look for and include a special feature that none of your rivals have ever offered. It will provide you a competitive advantage and assist you in finding your niche in the real estate industry. With several real estate website development projects under our portfolio that have been successfully completed, we can assure you that your site will be of the finest quality.

With our assistance, take your company to the next level. Let’s talk about your ideas right now!