6 Best Real Estate Website Design Companies for 2018

The best real estate websites design companies offer agents, teams, and brokerages the ability to capture more leads, solidify reputation, and gain more clients. We examined the best real estate website companies and reviewed them based on price, features, and other company offerings that agents could use to take their business to the next level.

Top 6 Real Estate Website Design Companies 2018

How We Evaluated Real Estate Website Design Companies

For a real estate website to be effective, it must offer a basic set of features that non-real estate websites do not. For example, IDX integration allows the user to search active listings. We evaluated the best real estate website design firms based on a number of criteria that could help agent, teams, and brokerages gather more leads and create a brand presence that would engage potential clients. Here are the criteria we used to evaluate our top six real estate website design firms.

• Price – While prices ranged in this area, we evaluated both monthly pricing and any additional fees on packages or features offered by the company.
• IDX Integration – Searching for homes on the site was considered an essential feature, and having a functional IDX integration was noted.
• Mobile Friendliness – Given the mobile nature of agents, we evaluated both the mobile friendliness of the site (responsiveness) as well as the ability of agents to use their site on the go.
• CRM – Having an integrated CRM may be a bonus for some agents, as it gives the ability to respond to and nurture leads. We were sure to note if sites included these features.
• Email Tools – Any automated email tools were noted if part of the website offered.
• Map Search – The ability to allow clients to search for properties via a map search was noted in our review.
• Lead Capture – Many sites included lead generation forms, tools, and even the ability to assign leads, so we were sure to note these in our review.
• Blogging Ability – Having a blog helps agents to connect with their potential clients and showcase their community knowledge. We noted if designs integrated a blog.
• Social Media Tools – Social media can help agents reach consumers across platforms, and we were sure to include the way in which each site was able to integrate social media.
• Reporting Tools – We included the types of reporting tools available and their use, since tracking leads can be one way to evaluate effective campaigns.
• SMS Tools – SMS is becoming increasingly relevant to how realtors operate and communicate, and we evaluated this important feature as it related to agent websites.
• Additional Offerings – Here we’ve included the services of the company or additional features of the website that were not covered in the comments about essential features.
• Customer Service – While real estate websites should be easy to use and navigate, customer service should be a cornerstone of solid design firms.
• Design – In our evaluation, solid design was not conceptualized as solely an aesthetic property, but could be reflected by other elements such as useability or load speed. While we examined areas like templates and customizability, we did not rule out companies from consideration based on aesthetics alone if their usability reflected a solid customer and agent experience.

Best Overall Real Estate Website Design Company: Real Geeks

We selected Real Geeks as the best real estate website design company for high volume brokerages because of its expansive feature offerings and ability to go above and beyond in lead generation, marketing, and incorporating over 15 third-party integrations. Real Geeks also offered additional add-ons to their website offerings that could further enhance the lead generation capacity for brokerages. And above all, Real Geeks is competitively priced given the range of features offered.

Real Geeks Pricing

Real Geeks offered real estate website pricing that was competitive and scaled well to accommodate brokerages, starting at $199/month for two users and an additional $25/month per user thereafter. While the price point was not the cheapest when compared to IDX Central, it did have a host of features that made the additional cost worthwhile.

*Note that marketing services by the Real Geeks team is at an additional cost. Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns start at $500 per month and Facebook marketing by the Real Geeks team is $300 per month plus your ad spend.

We appreciated that Real Geeks had a monthly fee that included hosting, and a number of features could be added or subtracted as needed. For example, your brokerage could decide to utilize their Facebook marketing services during the winter when the leads are a bit less plentiful than in the spring.

Real Geeks Features

Real Geeks integrates many impressive features into its website design, and that this technology can scale affordably with many users makes it perfect for brokerages. While we loved the IDX integration that updated every 15 minutes (compared to BoomTown’s 30 minutes), we particularly appreciated that the lead capture mechanism can be set to assign leads, an internal CRM, and that leads can be set to an auto-respond by the SMS system.

Real Geeks also offers a Facebook marketing tool, which is not offered by IDX Central or Intagent, which helps users create Facebook ads and track them. Like other real estate website design companies, Real Geeks does offer social sharing buttons and the ability for users to find you across platforms.

Lastly, we liked the ancillary features that Real Geeks offers to users to drive traffic to their real estate website. Real Geeks has an in-house marketing team that offers PPC campaigns and managed Facebook marketing for an additional fee, and a Craigslist posting tool absolutely free.

What Real Geeks Is Missing

Real Geeks websites are designed to perform, but may not be as chic and aesthetically pleasing as other offerings such as Dakno and IDX Central. The design of Real Geeks was wonderfully functional and provides a solid user experience. While the websites built by Real Geeks may not be the most design-forward, it gives busy brokerages all of the functionality they need. As a busy brokerage, some compromises may have to be made—and Real Geeks rightly sacrifices some form for function. While Real Geeks offers a plethora of features that many do not, the sites they design could be a bit more visually compelling.

Visit Real Geeks

Best Real Estate Website Design Company for New Agents: Placester

When examining real estate website design companies, Placester was our top choice for new agents for a number of reasons. Placester offers beautiful websites with plenty of features to get a new agent started. While we are going to review Placester’s typical website fees, there is a special deal that made it difficult to resist recommending to new agents.

As of the time of this article, if you are an NAR member, Placester will give you a website absolutely free to get you started. While seasoned agents can also take advantage of this deal, it was a great offer to get those just starting out on a great platform. Even without a wonderful deal, Placester takes a top spot for new agents given its price point, features, and uncomplicated structure that focuses on dipping your toe into the water of lead generation. For example, a great CRM, without necessarily diving into a Facebook marketing tool.

Placester Pricing

Placester pricing is not the least expensive on the market compared to IDX Central or Intagent, but it brings a solid website that is easy to manage without some of the more complicated elements. Placester offers two pricing plans, starting at $99 per month.

Placester Features

Placester offers a mobile-friendly platform, beautiful websites, some wonderful features, and a CRM that is both web- and mobile-compatible. While some companies like IDX Central do not offer a CRM, Placester offered one that was solid and functional.

The on-site features were especially well-suited for new agents. For example, there was a wonderful home valuation page offered on-site, which is an additional $50 for Real Geeks, and not offered by the rest of the companies we reviewed. Although admittedly not always accurate (see Zestimates), homeowners love this as a way of engaging with the site and giving their information. New agents can always use more lead generation, and this is one way to offer it.

What Placester Is Missing

Placester is a solid starting point for new agents, but is missing some features and offerings that you might find in competitors like Real Geeks and Dakno. The things we wished they offered were more extensive SMS tools and more robust customer assistance.

While Placester offers a CRM and automated drip campaigns for email, integrating more SMS features might be a solid way to increase service offerings. Real Geeks offered SMS templates and automated text follow-up as well as a Facebook ad posting tool.

We also hoped that Placester would offer better customer support. When comparing them to a company like Dakno, there was simply no contest. Dakno offers their clients 24/7 support through phone, email and an integrated chatbox in their CRM. While it would benefit Placester greatly to have improved customer support, currently their features are relatively straightforward and simple, likely not requiring much need for customer support.

Visit Placester

Best Real Estate Website Design Company for Agents Who Want a Simple Web Presence: IDX Central

IDX Central provides a website solution for real estate agents who may not be as technically savvy, but know that they need a presence online. It is a basic website that is mobile-friendly, has IDX integration, blogging ability, and some minor lead generation, but it is the perfect online presence for someone who may be established in their community by word of mouth and simply wants a presence.

Many real estate agents are accustomed to doing business offline, with little expertise in newer technology. For those who are not tech powerhouses fluent enough to use the many features offered by Real Geeks and Dakno, it was wonderful to find a real estate website design company that simply created the basics that met the needs of this particular group. They also provide support that allows phone and email contact.

IDX Central Pricing

IDX Central offers three straight-forward options with regard to their website construction. Clients can choose a standard WordPress website, semi-custom website, or limited edition website. Their pricing begins at $69.95 per month with a setup fee that varies based on the features that you select, the type of customization, and other variables you choose in the design process.

The pricing of IDX Central was one of the lowest we reviewed with the exception of Intagent at $29.95 per month, and significantly less than Real Geeks at $199 per month.

IDX Central Features

IDX Central offers the standard features a basic real estate website should expect to have. With a standard WordPress website as their base model, you are given a mobile-friendly website with hosting, IDX integration, lead generation forms, blogging ability, social sharing buttons and basic analytics features, among some other options.

IDX Central provides a basic real estate website that gives agents the ability to have a place on the web, collect leads, have potential clients search for homes via desktop or mobile, and be able to be found in organic searches. We realize that not all agents want the capacities that are far more extensive and expensive, and IDX provides a solid option.

This was a departure from some we reviewed, such as Placester with home valuation features for visitors or Intagent that contains drip email marketing campaigns. There is general lead generation ability, but IDX Central does not go the distance of Dakno or Real Geeks in their ability for SMS integration or Facebook marketing tools.

What IDX Central Is Missing

IDX Central is a basic real estate website, and that is both its strength and its weakness. While we appreciated an offering for agents that does not have all of the bells and whistles, we would have preferred some options to still be available. For example, we love the Facebook Marketing tool of Real Geeks that helps users to create ads and track them. Tools like this might be a well-suited fit for an audience that may not want to navigate into Facebook traditionally to post ads. We also liked the three built-in email campaigns offered by Dakno that contain scripts to help agents extend their reach more easily.

While the simplicity of IDX Central was its primary draw, we also think that assisting the agent with other elements would have been a strong fit for the demographic they likely serve. For example, Intagent helps you set up your social media accounts for an additional fee, and this might be very useful to a customer base that might not be as technologically savvy. Overall, IDX Central keeps it simple and functional and this is done well.

Visit IDX Central

Best Real Estate Website Design Company for High Volume Agents with Rentals: Intagent

Intagent was selected as the best real estate website design company for high volume agents, particularly those who deal with rentals. Intagent provides a free Craigslist postings tool, gives you the ability to create free single-property websites, and includes the ability to syndicate listings, saving you time.

While real estate website design companies like BoomTown will help you develop content, we appreciated that Intagent can not only help you develop content (for an additional fee), but has a free tool that helps you post your content across social media sites. While the features for agents cannot compare to Real Geeks or Dakno in breadth, we appreciated the depth of features for their particular niche. For example, listing syndication to places like Zillow, Trulia, Hotpads, etc., can save an agent who has to list multiple rentals a tremendous amount of time.

Intagent Pricing

The pricing for Intagent was incredibly competitive, and contained the least expensive starting point that we reviewed, at $29.95 per month. The closest competitor to Intagent in pricing was IDX Central at $69.95 per month or the monthly fees (after website construction costs) at Dakno at $39 per month.

Intagent had three options in pricing, listed below. We will be reviewing the entry level Design Pro option in our further review.

Intagent Features

Intagent’s features are tailor-made for busy agents dealing with rentals and who need an inexpensive solution that allows them a broad reach. Although containing the standard features you would expect from a real estate website, particular features we loved were the Craigslist posting tool, email drip campaigns, listing syndication, and the ability to create unlimited single property websites that was free with any client level.

Most of the features we appreciated simply save time for an agent who deals with a lot of rental properties. For example, posting to Craigslist and across platforms takes time, while the Intagent Craigslist postings tool allows you to click a few buttons and create a professional-looking Craigslist ad with your existing account or syndicate your property to Hotpads, Zillow and others, all in one sweep.

While the email drip campaigns were offered by Real Geeks, BoomTown, Placester and Dakno, the ability to create unlimited single-property websites was an unusual but useful feature. Unlimited single-property websites can be a separate subscription service unto itself, so this inclusion could save the right agent or brokerage money.

What Intagent Is Missing

More robust CRM and SMS tools would greatly benefit Intagent. We found their CRM more of a lead capture mechanism and less interactive than it could be, although this could possibly be customized with consultation to higher levels of service. We also found that they did not offer SMS tools at the level we reviewed.

SMS tools would be especially beneficial to an agent dealing with high volume or rentals. For example, the SMS auto-responder of Real Geeks would be incredibly useful for the plethora of responses people often send to ads, and the ability Dakno offers to text or call from your CRM via mobile would also be a useful integration.

Intagent did not contain a map search on its basic package, which likely could be customized at the semi-custom or Executive package level, but overall offered a great platform for a busy agent who has a lot of rentals on their plate.

Visit Intagent

Best Real Estate Website Design Company for Luxury Agents, Teams, or Brokerages: Dakno Real Estate Marketing

Dakno not only provides beautiful websites, but functional lead generation powerhouses with wonderful customer support. They offer a custom CRM that integrated email, social media, and the IDX system as well as offering three built-in email campaigns that come with scripts you can use. Dakno was the only company we reviewed that offered things like logo design and can do print work if you need it. While not necessary to our website design review, we found this to be a great addition.

Dakno’s website appearance and functionality, as well as the features they offer, is an impressive package. It’s fairly typical to sacrifice beauty for functionality or have a custom site built for $10,000 or more. The only company we could compare Dakno to in functionality is Real Geeks, but in our opinion, they were able to offer more to the agencies for less money in the long run. While Real Geeks offers an out-of-the-box solution, Dakno gives you a customized experience that is reflected in the final product.

Dakno Pricing

We liked that Dakno took a different approach to pricing than other real estate website design companies that we reviewed. In the Dakno model, you pay for the site up front (theme or custom) and then have a nominal monthly fee that starts at $39 per month. Rather than paying hundreds a month or more, you build the site and pay only for maintenance, any additional features, and their customer service.

*Monthly fees start at $39 per month

Other pricing models that were common were Placester with a “setup fee” of $99, and then a monthly charge ($99 in this case). Yet other models were the payment of the same fee monthly with no charge for the site, such as Real Geeks, BoomTown, or IDX Central.

Dakno Features

Dakno has an array of features that make them the perfect fit for luxury agents, teams or brokerages. Their custom and theme sites appear stunning, and the functionality that joins it is able to manage busy brokerages and agents without losing a very human element.

Dakno uses a custom CRM in their real estate websites. Their CRM is able to integrate email, social media, and information from their IDX. What makes this unique is that your CRM becomes a very usable tool that does not require using a separate one outside of the platform. An agent can choose to text or call from their CRM on mobile, and can even ask for customer support 24/7 through a chatbox in the CRM. The CRM from BoomTown does have some of this functionality (without the chatbox customer support) by allowing users to chat through text with leads, and Real Geeks does offer an SMS auto-responder and templates in addition.

There was no other company we reviewed with their level of personal customer support and availability. Dakno has phone, email, chatbox (via CRM), and online availability 24/7. When speaking on the phone with sales to gather information for this article, Dakno was the most generous company with their time and explanations that we reached out to (Real Geeks was a close second; they had no hesitation giving any information we requested). If their service to customers is reflected by their service to us, they seem a solid company in their support.

What Dakno Is Missing

It was genuinely difficult to find something missing from the offerings of Dakno. There are some features that were not standard that may be available if requested, such as listings syndication, and the only downside may be that a customized website is not typically easy for a nontechnical person to navigate.

While Dakno does offer WordPress themed sites, customized websites can keep individuals more dependent on services to maintain or update them rather than having the ability to do it themselves. While Dakno does offer customer training and education on their sites to remedy this possible difficulty, it was the only downside we could anticipate.

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Best Real Estate Website Design Company for Established Agents Looking for Lead Generation: BoomTown

BoomTown was our choice for established agents looking to expand their lead generation abilities and take their business further. While the price point of BoomTown likely puts it out of reach for new agents, established agents might find that the features and leads more than pay for the cost.

While the BoomTown website offered does not contain some of the tools that others may, the CRM and lead generation capacity was very robust. For example, you can see your visitor’s search habits on the site to get more information on the types of properties they may be interested in, allowing you to meet them where they’re at when you touch base.

BoomTown Pricing

BoomTown pricing was far more expensive than any of the other real estate websites we reviewed. Starting at $1,000/month for their Launch plan, the closest in price was Real Geeks at $199/month, with additional features to also be added to that monthly expense. BoomTown offered three plans to the consumer with a yearly contract only.

BoomTown Features

While the website had the features you’d expect, BoomTown shines in lead generation and their integrated CRM. We particularly appreciated the BoomTown CRM that allows you to stay in contact with leads and the ability to set up automatic touchpoints with them, and their lead generation system is very solid.

Their lead generation system gives you more information than many currently on the market. For example, analytics features allows you to track what those who visit your site are doing throughout, so that you have more information on your leads. This is a feature we did not see on Real Geeks or Dakno. When you do get leads, BoomTown has a team available to you to help map out a plan of nurturing by setting up an automated system of developing those leads within your CRM.

The CRM of BoomTown is solid. Not only can you set up an automated nurturing system, but like Dakno, you can send texts directly from your CRM. Working with a team to set up this automated lead nurturing system is something we did not see advertised by other real estate website design companies, though it may be available.

Other ways that BoomTown helps to generate leads is through their email drip campaigns, or paid ads that they assist you with on Facebook or Google. While both Dakno and Real Geeks have teams that also help you with these ads, services like Placester and IDX Central do not.

What BoomTown Is Missing

Although BoomTown seems to have solid real estate websites with good functionality and lead generation ability, we found that price point, customer service, and ease of use could affect adoption.

The price point of $1,000/month with a year-long commitment seemed a bit excessive. For example, even Dakno requires only a four-month commitment for a website and monthly fees. While many positive reviews show that people appreciate what BoomTown has to offer, many (perhaps not all) of the features they have can be found with other websites for far less cost. This makes them out of reach for most new agents, but even an investment for more established agents.

Customer service and ease of use were other sticking points in our evaluation. While customer service has mixed reviews online, our experience with them was challenging. When contacting them to find out the simple details of their product for this review, it was difficult to get pricing information, and the sales representative was not interested in reviewing any details, instead insisting on transferring us to voicemail. We hope this would not be reflective of a larger customer service philosophy. This was particularly concerning given that their real estate websites involve many complex components that might not always be intuitive to use.

Visit BoomTown

The Bottom Line

Reviewing real estate website design companies really came down to the end user and finding a site that fit the needs of that particular agent. While we reviewed simple but functional sites like those provided by IDX Central, we reviewed the highly functional Real Geeks, looked into Intagent for high volume rentals, Placester for new agents, BoomTown for lead generation, and also Dakno, which could be an all-in-one marketing company along with providing a phenomenal website.

While no single candidate might be a good fit for everyone, we certainly hope that you find one of these can meet your needs as you push your business forward.