Tech

7 Key Features of a Real Estate Listing Website

In the real estate or property listing business, it is simply not enough to have an average looking website to drive traffic. In fact, the website needs to be attractive, intuitive, thoughtfully designed, easy to navigate, and effective. That means it should make the process of looking up and buying homes quick and easy. The site should be updated with the latest information so that visitors can always get accurate data of the listed properties. Moreover, the property listing website should have features to remove concerns about the listed homes in the minds of the visitors. So, how to build such a website that ticks all the right boxes? Well, with the help of high-quality website design services, creating such a site shouldn’t be a problem.

Must-Have Features for Your Property Listing Portal

There are several components that go into making a good property listing website. Here’s a list of components that ought to feature in such a website.  

1. IDX Integration & Access to MLS

Multiple Listing Services or MLSs are local databases that list properties for sale. Through them, property owners and sellers can make their property visible to multiple agents in an accessible location. A good real estate listing website should make the MLS data visible to all visitors. Of course, this requires IDX or Internet Data Exchange integration to make it possible to share local property listings directly from the MLS. 

IDX integration also means you can have a page for each listing that you show on your website. An additional page with well-written content will be indexed by Google and is likely to show up on SERPs. While such individual pages may not rank very high, taken together, they can provide significant domain authority to your website and make it rank well. 

2. View Relevant Information

Prospective buyers would want to know the details of homes that they came across through search. Therefore, it is important to add as much information to your property listings as possible. Give your users an idea about the neighborhood the property is in, with details like the crime rate, how good the schools are, transportation options, demographics, average real estate prices, and more. If possible, give information about the construction company as well, or provide a link to their website. Earlier, such information would only be available to realtors, but now everyone should know exactly what kind of properties they are looking into before buying. Finally, if you have ways to verify the true ownership of the properties, make sure you include a list of verified properties. This will significantly help to build trust and foster credibility among buyers.

3. Advance Search

Searches on a real estate website have to provide appropriate results to the users, otherwise they’ll simply move to another website. This means your search option should come with a comprehensive list of filters to help visitors narrow down the exact properties they are looking for. Include filters for listing type, prices, home types, neighborhoods, amenities, facilities, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, year of construction, or anything else they might require.

4. High-quality Images

In order to get your future buyers interested, it is important to grab their attention right off the bat. And what better way to do that than by including great pictures of the properties listed. Use multiple high resolution images for each listing, making sure you cover the building(s) from all angles, indoors and outdoors, as well as a couple of pictures of the surrounding areas for context. Make sure the pictures are relevant and of high quality, and follow the norms related to their format, resolution, and size.

5. Virtual Tours

A virtual tour of all the rooms of a property can say more about it than any number of images. Of course high quality and detailed images are important, but a video tour through a house can provide users with a detailed view of the interior and exterior modeling, space, light, and more. In fact, website design servicesusing AR and VR technologies can make your property listing website highly engaging and competitive. Also, these technologies can provide a much more interactive home viewing experience than a simple embedded video.

6. Social Media Integration

Running a successful real estate business is all about staying at the forefront of the realtor network. This is to ensure that yours is the first name that comes to mind when someone thinks of buying a property. The easiest way to do this today is by leveraging social media and constantly keeping the accounts updated and engaging. Staying active on social media and uploading pictures, videos, and the latest news about the listed properties can be a great way to keep people engaged and increase brand awareness.

Conversely, integrate social media options into your website as well. This way, when you add listings and new content to your website, visitors will have the option to leave comments as well as share what they see on their social media profiles. Providing them with an easy way to share what they see with their friends and family is a great way to drive traffic to your website.

7. Bio & Contact

A bio or “About Us” page is a great way to let people know what you can uniquely provide as a real estate agent. Share your story as a real estate professional, and give people all they want to know about you and your work. This helps you build credibility and successfully lock leads. You can have a separate contact page as well. However, it is highly recommended to leave contact information, such as a phone number, email address, or social media handle on the bio page.

An inbuilt messaging tool can also be a convenient way for visitors to get in touch with you. A live chat feature is the fastest way to get feedback, but you can also include options for direct texts, emails, or other ways for visitors to contact you as well as the property owners.

Conclusion

Apart from the points mentioned above, you must also make sure that your website delivers a superior user experience or UX. Without a good UX, it is unlikely that visitors would be interested to do business with you. Further, a responsive design for the property listing website is a must today. This is because a majority of visitors would be visiting the website using smartphones. Hence, it would be a great idea to develop an app to complement your property listing platform. The app can provide timely push notifications (and other relevant services) to your buyers about new listings or other developments to get them interested. Further, you can avail readymade property listing solutions to get your property listing business up and running. Thus, with a great online presence, you should have no trouble enticing your visitors, bringing in leads, and even ending up with paying clients.

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