Hi,
I think, for creating a website hiring a vendor company is always beneficial, because most of us didn't know about the technical aspects of the website. The work done by an expert having its own importance and charm, and one can get desired product/website through that.
Rather than creating a website by own, I prefer to create a blog, because writing a professional/official blog is a bit easy and one have to write about the working sector and the experiences we have while working. This includes very few technical issue.
Well, these are my views, others have their views.

It depends. What is your level of experience. How much time you have to learn? How much time you have to work on your website? Some people assume that people want to build and manage their own websites. For some it might be the right way, but others prefer to hire a professional.
I think once you answer the above questions, you can get a better answer.

If you are technically savvy and know some HTML and PHP than the answer is definitely make your own. If you are technically Savvy but do not know HTML and PHP than invest some time to learn and make your own site. If you are not technically savvy, than hire a IT student to build you a Site with back-end feature where you can easily update the content.
Good Luck!

check out studiopress and their agentpress word press theme. Very easy to use and lots of feature. At $95 it is good value for your money. An no you do not have to know PHP or css. Plug and play.

Your primary website should not be made with blogging software such as Wordpress.

Google treats blogs differently than static websites. While this is primarily the reason why Realtors find their blog ranking well in search engines it is also the reason why you should not use blogging software for your primary website.

Google treats blogs as "news" and loves to report the "news" right away so right after you write a blog post it takes very little time for it to rank in Google. What is not to like about this? Nothing - it is great... at first.

The problem with "news" is that it becomes stale and once it does Google is not so keen on having the stale news showing up in the search results. This past month Google tweaked their algorithm some more precisely to help then better identify the age of blog posts.

It seems like a great plan to spend time carefully crafting blog posts to capture visitors searching for "long tail" keywords with the idea that all of these posts will be cumulative and that the traffic will just become more and more each month. Google however is saying that all of those posts have a shelf life and the posts you wrote a few years ago will probably not show up in the serps if there is other content that is newer that Google can show instead.

For the long term it is better to create content on static web pages on a site that can not be identified as having been built using a blogging platform.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't blog. You should have both a blog plus a "real" website if you want lasting exposure and traffic from search engines.

I have been saying this for years and getting scoffed at for saying it.

I stopped blogging on my sites years ago and only blog on 5-6 other sites for the contextual links back to my sites. My articles get better exposure and I get great links.

You should have a blog here.

You have been correct for years Bigtoe. People frequently repeat misinformation as gospel and to your credit you thought it through and realized the crowd is wrong.

The changes Google made last month say that they are not changing their view on blogs and just because blogging software makes it simple for anyone to have a web presence that doesn't mean you should rely on it for anything other than the short term.

As you are doing, blogging elsewhere to get links back to your site is really the best thing to do.

I have my own site that I develop and manage myself, in addition to several other sites with templates.

Spending time working my own site is enjoyable to me but the learning curve understanding SEO, keywords, and website design took a while to learn.

I had already learned website development before I became a licensed agent and used those skills to develop my real estate investing website. So when I got my real estate license, I was ready to get my own website together.

In addition to my own site, I blog on several real estate sites and have another independent site that has search engine optimization tools so I can add my own title, keywords, and page description with each post. It pulls up really good in Google searches so I plan on continue to use that site as well as my main site.

By maintaining a blog (or several serving different niches) with fresh, updated content, and intelligent, consistent backlinking one can easily dominate the SERPS in RE for even the most competitive keyword.

Great advice, WestfieldNJGuy - this seems to be the consensus opinion for all of the most highly touted web savvy real estate experts in North America as well.

Then why do the majority of web savvy experts have static websites instead of blogs?

wordpress gets my vote. What's great about doing a website in a blog format is that every article you write has the potential of being picked up in the search engines and getting you some good traffic. A static website with only listings is not going to help you near as much

Sure is a lot of misinformation out there...

Except that blogs have a date stamp on them that limits the time the posts generate traffic. If you have really exceptional content it is best used as an article on a static website where it will generate traffic forever.

What about having a Wordpress based blog on a subdomain of your RE website?