It’s absolutely essential that every real estate agent have his or her own website today. Many agents, however, struggle to figure out the best way to create and manage one. You can hire a designer and build everything from scratch, you can opt for free blogging software, or you can buy real estate specific software to get the job done. Each option has it’s pros and cons.
To begin with, let’s look at what happens when you hire a designer. The main benefit to this is that you will be able to get the exact, unique design that you are looking for. No one else’s website will look just like yours, meaning that you will be able to stand out among the multitude of real estate websites currently on the web. There are some negative aspects of hiring a designer, though. For one, they are often very expensive up front and require extra payments for any changes or updates. Secondly, you often waste time managing the designer and ensuring that the project turns out as you desire. Many times, the project ends up taking longer and costing more many than originally expected – but by the time you realize this, you are generally too far into the process to turn back. The biggest problem is that end website may not look or work that way you expected it to. Only when you get to actually test the website do you start to realize that you missed an important feature or that it’s difficult for one to understand how to navigate your website.
Another option is to create your website using a blog like Blogger or WordPress. One of the benefits of choosing this option over any other is that it is free, whereas a designer or real estate software will cost you money. These blogs also make it quick and easy to setup and maintain your website, with well outlined options that don’t require intricate knowledge of website coding. On the other hand, a website created with these blogs must use a pre-designed template, meaning that your site will not look unique. These sites also make it tough to support searching and managing properties and are often difficult to integrate with your CRM software.
A third option is to pay for real estate software, also known as CMS software. This kind of software allows you to create a website using professionally designed templates that are created with the needs of real estate agents in mind. That means that they can be easily updated with new properties, are well-integrated with your CRM system, and are made to capture the attention of potential clients. Although other brokers may use the same design template as you, you often have the option to hire a designer to customize your design. This comes at an extra price, though, in addition to the large upfront fee or smaller monthly fee that you will have to pay for this kind of software. Also since you don’t necessarily own the site design, if you ever consider switching to another service providing CMS software, you could end up losing your entire design.
Now that you know the pros and cons of three different methods of setting up and maintaining your own real estate website, it is up for you to decide which method best suits you and your business needs.