Best Practices on How to Create a Real Estate Website

If you’re in the business of selling apartments, houses, or office spaces, then you know that having a strong online presence is key to success. Your website is your digital storefront, and it can be a powerful tool for attracting new clients, business partners, and sponsors. In today’s digital age, potential buyers will often start their search for a new home or property online. That’s why it’s so important to make sure your real estate website is up to par.

Creating an effective real estate website takes more than just putting up some listings and calling it a day. If you want your site to really shine and attract attention from the right people, then you need to put some thought and effort into the design. That’s why we’ve decided to share our experience with you and offer some tips for making real estate web designs that will really impress your visitors.

As a company with years of experience in developing real estate projects, we know a lot about designing websites that pack a punch. Our Gapsy Studio team can create a real estate website for your business that is not only visually stunning but also highly effective in terms of communicating with potential clients. If you’re ready to take your real estate website to the next level, then keep reading for some helpful tips.

Just imagine these statistics: in 2019, 6 million flats were sold in the United States, and every second home was found using the Internet. That means people found their homes through an online search, not acquaintances, relatives, or friends’ advice. These statistics tell us that the role of the Internet is vital in the modern world, and you can make good money due to real estate websites.

The sale of apartments today is a highly profitable business and an excellent capital investment. If we want to buy an apartment, house, or office space, we turn to realtors to get a complete set of consulting and information services. Since the Internet has firmly taken its place in the life of a modern person, we begin our searches with the worldwide network.

Creating a real estate business on the internet has a number of advantages that can help you reach a larger audience and close more deals. Some of the benefits of having a real estate website include:

Reach a global audience

A website gives you the opportunity to market your properties to people all over the world. This is especially beneficial if you specialize in selling luxury or international properties.

Showcase your listings

A website is the perfect platform to showcase your listings in their best light. You can use high-quality photos and videos, as well as detailed descriptions, to give potential buyers an idea of what each property has to offer.

Attract more leads

By including lead capture forms on your website, you can make it easy for interested buyers to get in touch with you. This can help you generate more leads and close more deals.

Build trust and credibility

A well-designed website can help build trust and credibility with potential buyers. By including testimonials, awards, and credentials on your site, you can show that you’re a reputable and trustworthy real estate professional.

It is important to create not only a great website for real estate but also not to forget about mobile users. Read our article on Real Estate Mobile App Design Tips that will help to grab the user’s attention.

If you’re thinking of starting a real estate business, or if you’re looking for ways to take your existing business to the next level, creating a website is a great option. With the right design and content, your real estate website can be a powerful tool for generating leads and closing deals.

When we talk about a high-quality product, it’s essential to know what elements it should contain and what requirements it should meet to attract, retain and generate a visitor into a client. We present the key requirements for real estate websites below and provide some best real estate website examples.

The precise structure of information

The structure is the most crucial element of any website design creation. It should be created exclusively on the target audience’s needs, raise potential clients’ problems, and offer solutions. At the same time, each block should be logically set to convince the visitor step by step that the site’s offer is what he needs.

Buying or renting real estate for the user isn’t a spontaneous decision. Indeed, before viewing your site, the consumer has already visited several sites of your competitors or viewed real estate billboards. Therefore, he already partly understands pricing, the supply market, but he still has many questions once he gets to your site. Site structure helps a person quickly find answers to their questions. As if leading the user by the hand, the design orientates them in your proposal, helps to solve his problems, needs and offers what he needs at the moment when he needs it. That’s why the structure’s correct and logical design is essential for creating real estate web design. After all, at stake is an action that leads to the company’s profit or the client’s loss or refusal.

TIP: Incorrect, incomplete, or illogical web page structure is a critical error. Even minor drawbacks can lead to a complete failure of the site.

To avoid mistakes in your sites, you will most likely need a UX audit. Read one of our latest articles on UX audit, why your business needs it, and root out errors on your site.

Site design

The design of a real estate website must fully comply with the specifics of the proposal. For example, if an intermediary is engaged in the sale or rental of exclusively elite housing, then the design should tell about it at first glance. The site’s appearance, the arrangement of elements, the selection of colors, and the accentuation create the first impression of the site and the company itself.

It’s essential to work out all the elements in detail and combine them to be convenient and transparent for the user what and where it’s and how to do it.

Here is an example of the Gapsy Studio’s real estate project, just look:

Don’t forget to develop a responsive version for app design to capture mobile users. The site must appropriately adapt to all electronic gadgets. This is important if you don’t want to lose more than half of your potential customers. According to the statistics, more than 50% of visitors are mobile users. That’s why developing responsive design is essential.

If you want to know more about what responsive design is, read our article What is Responsive Website Design and How it Works?

Unique selling proposition

The first thing that site visitors see is the headline (USP, Unique Selling Proposition). Given the importance of the headline, you need to make sure that it quickly grabs the user’s attention. The USP should be precise, not too long, and reveal your proposal’s most important competitive advantage (read how to highlight competitive advantages here). The first headline plays a decisive role in converting a visitor to a customer.

Just look at this catching headline on a real estate project. Everything simple and exciting at the same time:

Not only does the content of the USP have weight, but also its design. For example, use a large and easy-to-read font with a color contrasting with the main background. In addition, the Unique Selling Proposition must match the ad’s content through which the user came to the site.

And don’t forget about the emotional component. USP should:

• hook,
• intrigue,
• reflect the profound emotional benefits of doing business or collaboration with you,
• BUT don’t create indifference.

Photo or video

High-quality photographs of objects or their video review will help attract the user’s attention and stimulate him to action.

Ideally, it’s better to place both on the site. But if the choice is between the two, then the videos generate more interest and trust in the offer, demonstrating its credibility. This is especially important when selling or renting luxury housing. A potential client doesn’t want to view hundreds of photos of one house. Instead, it’s easier for him to see his video review. Moreover, the higher the quality of the video, the better the impression of the offer itself. In practice, the owners of one-page or multi-page sites devoted to expensive real estate are less and less likely to use photographs to demonstrate their offers. In this case, the video becomes a universal tool. It reveals the actual look of the house/apartment and increases trust both in the real estate itself and in the company that sells/leases it.

Check out how beautiful the Charbonnel real estate video looks. They aesthetically bring the design of the room they provide to the smallest detail. Thanks to this video, the buyer immediately understands what products he can get right and sees how it looks in the interiors.

Tip: Don’t forget to optimize your images to keep your website loading fast on your computer and gadgets.

Calls to action (CTA buttons)

A call to action tells the user what to do and what the result will be. Therefore, it’s logical that the call’s semantic content should attract and motivate a person to act. At the same time, CTA should be simple so that the visitor understands what is offered to him, how to do it, and how to get the expected result. A great solution that always works is to place a constraint trigger to nudge the person to take action right now. Like in this example, the user is offered to invest in a real estate project:

Calls to action don’t have to be about solving one problem. For example, you shouldn’t suggest the visitor leave a request for consultation along the entire length of the page if the company offers other services, such as sending a price list or a photo of a specific object. But at the same time, it’s essential to focus on only one offer, surrounding it with calls to action. For example, if apartments are being sold, then you can call the visitor:

• download the layout,
• record for viewing,
• enter your data to receive mailings with notifications about the appearance of new options, etc.

Tip: You shouldn’t distract a person with several sentences located on one screen at once. This will lead to distraction and possible loss of the client.

Contacts

The contact block is essential on the site, regardless of its subject matter. However, without an entire and comprehensive block of contacts in real estate, the site can lose a significant portion of the leads.

The user should be given several options for how to contact you to choose the most convenient way. Therefore, include all existing contacts, including links to social networks. If, for some reason, you don’t use any type of communication, for example, e-mail, it makes sense to create it and indicate it on the site.

Example 1

This is an example of renting luxury villas. A terse site aims to capture the client with high-quality and beautiful photographs.

The functionality of the page is somewhat limited. However, when choosing options, you can read in more detail its characteristics. In addition, there is a video and just a few content suggestions.

Such sites are most often dedicated to luxury real estate when the target client does not need to be persuaded to make his choice. Comfort is more important to him, which he can appreciate based on the photos he’s viewed. This is a very worthy example that inspires with its simple yet stunning design.

Example 2

This is a real estate agency that demonstrates how simple yet effective the idea and concept of the page can be.

The main background of the first spread of the site is made with a video sequence, during which houses offered by the company are demonstrated. The design isn’t made in a standard style for websites. There are no bright inserts with a call, any triggers, and elements that motivate action. Instead, only high-quality photos effectively encourage the user to continue browsing the site. An active lead-generating button is placed under each heading. Ideally, its design could be more prominent, as it’s lost when changing footage. However, the excerpt from the concept suggests that this is the designer’s idea, which we will not argue.

Example 3

This is an excellent example of a real estate web design that works for results.

The design is focused on high-quality photographs, of which there are a lot of them. There is practically no information about the agency; there are no blocks of benefits, advantages, and even no lead-generating forms familiar to us by design. Instead, excellent functionality allows you to find real estate in the state and city of interest, indicating your wishes.

With incredible photos of houses, villas, and apartments, a spectacular tandem is created, positively affecting conversion.

If you’re in the business of real estate, then you know how important it is to have a website that accurately reflects your brand and helps you close deals. Fortunately, there are some tried-and-true best practices when it comes to designing a real estate website that will help ensure your success.

Some of the key things to keep in mind when designing your real estate website include making sure that your homepage is clear and concise, featuring prominently placed property listings, and including easy ways for site visitors to search for properties. Additionally, be sure to include market reports and other business-related content to help build trust with potential clients. By following these best practices, you can create a real estate website that will help you close more deals and grow your business.

Like no one else at Gapsy Studio, we know how to find a balance between supply and demand, providing our client with what he needs. Therefore, if you want to create a high-quality website design to sell real estate, we’ll be happy to make your dream come true. Convince yourself of our professionalism by our projects at Dribbble and Behance and take a look at the services we can provide for you.