Hi all, I was hoping to get a discussion going about what features in a real estate website are most important to you - the Agents and Brokers.

I have a list of some sample features here that perhaps you can re-order from most to least important.

• Price
• MLS/IDX Features - How well a client can find properties
• Form Factor (how pretty it is)
• Integrated Blog
• Listing Syndication
• Search Engine Optimization
• Content Included
• Ability to input your own listings (separate from MLS)

If you can give reasons of why these are important and the benefits you perceive them to have that would be very helpful to us website designers here.

Content and SEO, syndication,blog and how well a client can find properties fall under SEO imo.

If the content is provided it is probably canned and on 50,000 other sites; such as "top ten things sellers should know"... I really despise similar content it tells me it would not be a lot of fun driving around with you looking at places. If you have a hard time expressing yourself when you can edit it what would you be like live?

1. IDX with easy search, map display
2. Ability to add pages, delete pages, edit
3. Comprehensive Admin. Area: leads capture, tracking and management, contact management, file uploads, transaction management, etc.
4. Maybe a blog to help with search engines.

Main reason why people are coming to our websites is to search for listings, anything else is secondary. Easy and simple access to listings is the main ingredient for a real estate website.

I would have to say the ability to input my own listings and the blog.

A good search function is required, else the listings will never be found especially if you have a good number of listings. A good multi parameter search is very important. Above all, its the usability that matters.