So I understand having a website designed can vary depending upon the sophistication of the design. But I'm curious to see what some of you folks used/ paid to make your website come to life?

Any input would be appreciated.

I had to sacrifice 3 goats to get it going and 1 virgin to get to page 1.

i have cms based website on which i have complete control what i am adding, modify so i have site that have enough feature require by us real estate agent and for that i pay only $200 to website design company

I work for a major brokerage firm here in Canada, my brokerage provides a couple of cookie cutter website solutions, one costs around $200/year, the second one has an upfront fee of $400 plus a monthly cost of $50. The second option obviously provides more functionality than the first. If you're not tech savvy, and you want to just establish an online presence I say go with what your brokerage offers, it's usually cheaper and easier to set up.

For my blog, I paid for the domain name and hosting. I created it with Wordpress (free). Total cost per year is about $70 ($9.99 for the domain name, and $4.99 per month for webhosting). I write my own posts.

I have WordPress website created by me and I've installed livezilla for Live chat . I've paid for hosting and domain name.

My wordpress theme cost $95 and I'm happy with it. $83 per year to host it. Just 500 hours aggravation making it.

I would never use a site from a broker. What would happen if you changed firms. You need to own your site.

Thats about right for me too, domain is best first investment that way you have a permanent and custom email address too.

Hi,
I have paid from domain name to internet marketing and believe me choosing right domain name and get it is not so easy. There are lots of competitors already exists, having keywords in their domain names.
Other than that, now I am planning to add a video to the main page to increase the conversion rate, it includes some cost too.

I think a real estate agent should never pay more than $100 dollars for their website with the emergence of WP and Joomla. I am a fan, though, of agents spending a little extra cash for designers to make your site more aesthetically pleasing and integrating the IDX. I run into a lot of real estate websites where the IDX is horribly iframed into the page and doesn't match the exterior. Another example is if you want something a little more functional. Our site at http://visumrealestategroup.com/map-search has a neighborhood search function that requires a little more coding than we could handle ourselves.

Not necessarily true. In the web design world you get what you pay for. Your web presence is important if you're going to be obtaining clients from the net, so it's worth the extra money purchasing something better than some wordpress or blogging software which isn't meant to replace a full blown website in the first place.

most agents have no clue how to code in java, php or http or anything else for that matter so they really forced into paying some degree of money for not only hosting/domain but also for development. the cost for hosting/Domain is simple (around $100 - $200 per year), the cost of a coder/developer can vary widely depending on how interactive and what features you wish to employ.

Besides the cost of domain registration and hosting, the cost was around $700 to customize a WordPress Template for my Site.