Building A Better Real Estate Web Site For Buyers

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Building A Better Real Estate Web Site For Buyers

By HHI Golf Guy | November 6, 2007

The most common mistake of real estate web sites is that they are designed as billboards for the agent rather than focusing on the buyer client

If you have ever shopped for real estate on the internet or checked out your competitor’s web sites you will find that most have one thing in common - they focus on the real estate agent instead of on the buyer client. The fact is, most people just don’t trust real estate agents (maybe that’s why some agents promote themselves so heavily instead of concentratinbg on buyers).

Realtor web sites have improved over the past few years, adding items such as video, virtual tours, and maps. They help to give a better visual representation of each property and the surrounding area, but they still fall short of letting the buyer know what it’s like to live, work, and play in each community.

To combat this problem, some agents do provide community descriptions for their visitors, but most fall short of painting a complete picture. And when there are dozens of towns and residential communities in the service area, most people don’t have the patience to read page after page of community information, demographics, and school reports. When you combine all of that information with thousands of MLS listings, it can lead to information overload.

That’s where technology and the web can help users quickly find locations that suit their needs and lifestyle. For example, this Austin real estate web site features an advisor section called “Ask Julie”. The concept is quite simple, ask the user a dozen questions about their preferences including commute time, schools, and recreation and then display the resulting areas that most closely meet their criteria.

The above example is a simplified version of what can be accomplished. The next step is to provide a more in depth survey, or better yet offer two versions of the survey. One version is quick and easy like the one above, while the second asks for more details. This information can be used not only to pinpoint specific towns, but it can also be used to pinpoint specific residential communities or neighborhoods within those towns. With a little more coding, this feature could also display a list of available properties within those communities and plot them on a map for visual reference.

Actually, the programming for this application is not that extensive. It’s nothing more than a complex database query. However, the difficult part is setting up all of the criteria, especially if you are looking for comprehensive results. Web developers will need to work closely with their clients to ensure that the data is both comprehensive and accurate. But once it is complete, it is an ultimate sticky for a real estate web site.

The Kosloff Group will be adding this feature option to their web design packages beginning in 2008 in conjunction with the realease of their new CMS web suite.