List any and all real estate sites that you think are excellent and are prime examples of what should be done for a real estate web site. Include great sites for design, individuality, usability, etc. Starting an inspiration thread, not an advertisment thread.

Here are some I found with good designs:
http://www.colliers.com/Markets/TampaBay/Services/ServiceGroups/CommercialManagement/
http://www.cawhite.com/professional.html
http://www.fxrealty.net/
http://www.pamgolding.co.za/default.aspx
http://www.savills.co.uk/

Edit: Added more -
http://www.realtor.com/Default.asp?poe=realtor
http://www.century21.com/home.aspx
http://www.greyflame.com/ -Great looking Real Estate Forums
http://recenter.tamu.edu/
http://www.realestateabc.com/
https://www.ccim.com/
http://www.luxuryrealestate.com/
http://www.irem.org/home.cfm
http://www.ravenswoodhomes.net/
http://www.calcagni.com/
http://www.leadingrealestate.com/

Edit: Round 3 kids...
http://www.cptaction.com
http://www.dallashomes.com/

My site isn't a traditional real estate site, but i think it works well:

www.leadingrealestate.com

Can't say that I've seen to many agent sites that I like...

If by "isnt traditional" you mean it doesnt totaly suck from a visual standpoint, then you are right. Nice job on that site, you have some good design ideas. However, you should look into making the jump to a tableless CSS format for easier reformatting and better semantics. Also, start nixing the strong attribute tags and other depreciated tags. If you need any help, you can go to http://www.codingforums.com for a huge resource of net knowledge.


Yeah, agent sites are notorious for being horible. If I didnt do sites for a specific company as part of my job, I would almost start doing agents sites for free just to do the world wide web a favor.

While it's true that most realtors sites are horrible, I would not listen to this guys advice. Tableless CSS? That is the LAST thing a realtor should be worried about at this point.

Realtors need sound Internet business advice, not complicate tehnical babble.

On that note techmonkey- Thank goodness for a man named Brain Rogers and his power marketing center!! (coming soon too computers near you ).......

Here's a couple:

http://www.calcagni.com

http://www.ravenswoodhomes.net

Double post :rolleyes:

Lol, you gotta be joking me. Just because you don't know what it is, doesn't mean that it is "complicated technical babble". It is a very simple add-on language that is incredibly easy to learn (I got the jist of it down in about 2 days of after work research). It is incredibly helpful and will make your site more cross browser compatible (or is "cross browser" also complicated technical babble?). It keeps all your info organized and easy to alter, and doesnt take too long to put into a site. If you look at it and decide you dont need it, then thats fine too!

Heres a great site to learn about web-coding everything: http://www.w3schools.com/
Heres some examples of what you can do with CSS and a little creativity:
http://www.csszengarden - only 1 html file, and several CSS "stlysheets" from different authors that change the looks of the site.
http://www.cssbeauty.com

Ignorance is no excuse for dismissal. How can you not recommend it if you dont even know what it is?

Anyway, if your going at it from that angle, why have agents do thier own sites at all? Why should they worry about "complicated technical babble" and just spend a little money for a pro to worry about it for them? Why be a good real estate agent who makes a crappy website, when you could be a great real estate agent who is too busy to worry about such things? Or whynot be a good real estate agent who makes a killer website and actually (dare I say?) impresses people with their sites and then becomes a great agent and a great web developer?

-P.S.: I'll add the links you guys supplied...they look good!

I know both the agents that own these two sites and they both do what a real estate website is supposed to do; bring in business to the owner.

http://www.come2az.com/

http://www.dallashomes.com/

Another good source of outstanding real estate sites is http://www.ired.com/

I nominate that post for Understatement of the Year, specifically regarding Judy McCutchin's site.

My understanding is that website is so strong that there's a guy Judy hired who does nothing but respond to the leads it brings in on an hourly basis and man the chat function.

No shortage of strong Realtors in this town!

I've heard great reviews of this website:

http://www.cptaction.com

Not to shoot anything posted in this thread down... But I'll related a comment back to MCA's original post.

Before that... Maybe we can all give some input as to what criteria is used to define a good web site, a good real estate web site, an outstanding web site? Saying the number of leads generated as the sole reason is not a good one and has too many variables attached to it... Right Rich?

Where do people get these "great reviews" of their sites? From the people that they close business for? Are these rave reviews balanced against the number of negative reviews? Or even better, potential clients who hit the back button because they don't like the site??? How about "rave reviews vs. number of hits"???

I've viewed many of these sites from the viewpoint of Usability and design. Coming from a background consisting of 15 years of client/server & web development with a major emphasis on "real" usability as defined "Human Computer Interaction"...

Many of these sites are very original.

Many have some great design ideas, but they may not apply to a real estate site. Maybe more to a "flashy" marketing service, advertising company or "fad based" product.

TechMonkey - Totally agree. Real Estate Agents shouldn't have to worry about tersm such as "CSS". Nor should they be worried about W3C compliance. If they are that inclined, there is a whole other market called web development.
Too bad the "presence providers" don't understand much more than the basics themselves. Some great coding on the web servers, but the layouts used are horrible.

Montanaland - Brian is great for marketing... I agree. Still wondering about Web-based marketing as I question a lot about the efficacy of his site. He even asked....

MCA - I would love to see a site developed by one agent is is also a great web developer... Sorry, too much to know on the tech side to even deserve the label of web developer. Frontpage or web-based html generators do not make a web developer.
Seriously, I would like to see one great agent who is a great web developer. Backed by facts not hearsay.

Jimlee- on the 2 sites you posted. May generate business, but how much business d othey lose. you never hear about the business that the sites lose because the ISPs won't tell us because it says that they are doing a poor job.
Some good "drag-n-drop" javascript. NO way did they write that code. That was written by an experienced C++ or VB coder... And usability? We won't go there as it doesn't exist on those sites. Design: not impressive. Flashy but not what I would call designed for the market...


As for the number of leads they generate, that is market related as well. I can point out a dozen agents who dominate their market for a number of reasons and could do so with a frontpage web site... Their marketing and advertising budgets can be outrageous though...

Dude, there is no "May generate business" for the 2 sites I posted. Those two ladies have the two finest and most productive real estate websites currently online by an individual agent.

I didn't wrote the code for mine either but I designed it to bring me business.

www.DallasHomes.com, owned by RE/MAX agent Judy McCutchin

08/19/02 - Judy McCutchin was honored with an invitation to speak at Real Estate Connect in San Francisco.

05/25/02 - Judy McCutchin is featured speaker at national real estate on-line convention and exposition

Judy was just featured in Kiplingers magazine, read all about it online HERE

02/17/02 - Judy McCutchin of dallashomes.com provides Private Websuites for Dallas-area buyers and sellers

01/27/02 - RE/MAX Judy McCutchin sets pace for real estate industry with innovative high-tech advantages for buyers and sellers

And Alice Held's marvelous website www.Come2AZ.com

http://www.come2az.com/acknowledgements/awards.htm

Alice is an Allen Hainge "Cyberstar" a group of top producing real estate agents nationwide. Membership requires a minimum commission income of $100,000 per year. (Alice makes considerably more than that)

Alice's website is also one of 2 websites used by NAR's e-PRO course as a model for what a good, income producing real estate website should look like.

The point I'm leading up to with all this is that these two ladies and their websites have a multi-year, solid track record for producing business for them and in my opinion they are both top notch.

If you have any example of sites you've designed or own that might be better and do more of what a successful real estate website is supposed to do for the Realtor then let's see them.

Otherwise I suggest you might not be so quick to deliver your opinion about something you apparently don't have a clue about; a successful real estate website.

People do that every day. Mostly in politics, but it can be especially dominant in our industry as well. Also, don't use "dude" when trying to prove a point to a group of professionals. Use it when explaining why you thought it was a good idea to hit your buddy in the face with an empty beer bottle.

BGlines-
Don't waste an entire post arguing over technicalities of semantics used in this post. If you really want to do things like that, please visit http://www.aclu.org and become a member if you're not already... it seems like a good fit for a person like yourself.

As far as the grading criteria go, they were explicitly stated in the first paragraph in the first post. Mostly looking for web sites that simply look great. I am tired of the 2-color 1-pic limited info sites developed by people in the real estate industy (mostly in the home-ownership division) that plague the net today. So, pretty much anything that would have a great look as well as a good amount of flexibility and usability.

I couldn't give a flip if my websites exhibit great "design, individuality, usability" or anything that can be described in an acronym, unless that acronym happens to be GCI (gross commission income).

Much like the game of poker, this business is not scored in terms of style or technical merit - the winner is decided by counting the money. I don't want to win any website design awards, I want lots of clients.

My thoughts exactly!!! GCI all the way baby!!!

hey MCA gimme some thoughts.

www.detroitinvesting.com


and the people who complain about learning how to work the web over the "normal" real estate business.
I personaly know 2 people who now live off of referrals (also doubling their income to almost 300k a year) because of their sites.
All they have is a clean site with under 10 pages, idx, and idx software to capture their info.

Wow, that's really great. Thanks for sharing that one with the rest of the class, but it doesn't really help add anything to this thread. I will open up a "sharing time" thread later so you can post things like this.

So you don't care about NOI, NNN, CSS, HTML, HTTP, or any of those. That's cool of you to stand up against the man like that. Acronyms aren't bringing you down!

Oh I see, you're just sad because you haven't gotten any awards yet. Well I now propose that you get the double-secret website award. Gonna need some more votes on that one but I'll let you know the outcome.

XsutdioX - While the site does look great, and while I am adding it to the list, this is not the place to get reviews on a web. PM me or start a new thread and I will be happy to reply.

Remember Kids: This is not a thread on "how is JFlynn's website doing", a "which rad acronym do you like best, baby", or even a "rate my site" thread. It is just a set of good looking real estate sites that work. Design is the most important thing here, followed by accessibility, and amount of available information.

sorry about that, the last 8 off topic posts sucked me in.

i normaly know better!

MCA, this is a real estate forum and our goals are centered in that business. What do you do for a living? Two of your interests seem to be rap music and web design.

JFlynn, your posts are not helping find any real estate web sites with good design. But, since you posted this at 11:43 PM, you must have been thinking about these things all day and you need an emergency reply, so I will try to help you out.

I was hoping that this was the case, and that is why I signed up. I am glad that I now have a second opinion on the matter.

A powerfull tool exists called "deductive logic". I will help you learn it so you can figure this one out on your own. I'll give you two clues:
1) As you said earlier "this is a real estate forum and our goals are centered in that business."
2) I am a member of these forums.
If you do not know what deductive logic is, a good website to learn about it is: http://members.aol.com/wutsamada2/crithink/wilson10.htm or you can google search it at:
http://www.google.com/search?q=deductive...:en-US:official

Please take my polite advice and do not keep stirring the pot

Hey folks,

I don't want to be accused of being the post police but let's keep things on a professional level and not let this post deterioate any further.

Everyone obviously has different standards when it comes to websites and everything else in life:) That's why they make Timex and Rolex;)
Take a deep breath and resprct everyone opinions whether they're right or wrong in your eyes.

So it's OK to call this group of 'professionals' "Kids" but it's not OK to call one a Dude??? ;-)

I found these websites to be pretty outstanding.

http://www.seattleinfoguide.com/
http://www.flaghomes.com/
http://www.debbieferrari.com/
http://www.flwaterfront.com/
http://www.athomecharlotte.com/
http://www.lanerealty.com.au/
http://www.texasbest.com/

All modesty aside I think my website is pretty cool too.

http://www.KnoxvilleMLS.com

Two I like, no idea how profitable they are:

sbestatehomes.com
westaustinrealty.com

I think a lot of you guys misunderstood BGlines when he talked about how much business they lose... yes they do great, but being a former web developer myself much like BGlines himself, I would have to say the useability on both sites has some things that need to be addressed. Now do not get me wrong, I know they do great, Alice's website was used in my post-licensing course, what I am saying is that business aside there is much to be desired, and with the amount of traffic she gets I can guarantee you there are many people lost everyday, probably not as many that are gained. But when you speak of optimizing everything and being very efficient there is even more opportunity there than what it is currently doing. Just imagine if a single agent had the marketing dollar to hire developers to put together a site the caliber of an www.amazon.com then you could talk about maximizing.

-J

Play nice or I'm locking this before it gets out of hand. Snide personal comments will not be tolerated. I expect us to be able to have differing opinions like adults

You asked, I'll deliver.
If anyone would like to see a usable site, PM me. I'm not going to post it here just to be ridiculed childishly.

One thing needs to be clear: I used to be an engineer. Very analytical, less opinionated. Very factual.
Any statements made about websites are based on facts that can and will be delivered to back all stataments upon request. Some facts are derived from 15 years of professional experience.

Therefore, ask about a website, I may respond. Many have received reviews and appreciated them. Applying feedback into their website. Why? Because they were objective reviews.

But note, I am a Real Estate Agent, a member of this forum and a former web developer and systems architect. If I feel I have input from experience, I will give it.

I respect your positions as Real Estate Agents with more experience that me, respect someone else with more web technology experience than you.

Brett
Web Design and Usability Reviews
Pay someone else to get them to your site, I'll help you keep them there.
BGlines@i-summit.com

No one's ridiculing you or any sites (well, maybe the one with the talking dog). Some of us have just pointed out that technical merit, useability and other metrics are not the yardstick against which real estate websites should be measured.

For all I know a difficult-to-navigate site might in fact deliver more leads than an elegant one because the visitor gets frustrated and just picks up the phone to ask "so how many bedrooms does 123 Main Street have anyway?"

A successful site is one that delivers lots of quality leads. Period. I'd rather capture 100 leads out of 500 visitors than capture 50 leads out of 50 visitors. In my estimation the more important and tightly related issue at hand is not how useable or artistic a site is, but rather what the capture to abandonment ratio is and how best to improve it.

This is a public forum, and in participating you should expect some discussions to veer off on tangents as issues come up. Fortunately or unfortunately, as the case may be, there's no rule that the original poster gets to decide what kind of replies are allowed.

Either way some area is lacking?

If it is the 50 for 50 scenario then the website is probably not in a position to capture enough traffic, either because of its placement in search engines or the level it is being marketed at.

If it is the 100 for 500 scenario then you are doing better at bringing the traffic but your site is doing something poorly as far as converting those visitors.

Either scenario has room for improvement and I'd much rather know that my site is converting 100% of visitors and I just need to figure out a way to get more there. It is much easier to get your visits up from 50 to 100 than from 500 to 1000.

-J

Personally, I'll take the 50 leads out of 50 leads. That means the site is working very well. 100 out 500 means its working 20% of the time and I would be inclined to want to know why the 80% aren't producing leads.

Then I would be calling someone up, like Rich or Doug, and pursue SEO and other techniques to bring more visitors to my site.

And yes, it is a public site. That means people of all walks of life are welcome. People of varying backgrounds and experience. Being a professional site, I would expect statements from professionals speaking from experience to be respected. And not result in name calling or childish insults.

Sorry, I wouldn't be calling a fellow professional a childish name or throw insults at them and then sign off on the email with "Realtor". Takes away from the reason I pay dues every year and mirrors the "used car salemen appearance" that we are fighting to avoid..

By the way, ACLU won't take me because I didn't vote for Theresa Heinz Kerry.

I agree BGlines.

I think these sites incorporate all these things
http://www.hartorsuwanee.com
http://www.selectahome.info
http://www.denverhomeshere.com/

I believe my sites show you can have the best of SEO, Usability, Professional CSS Design and strong Lead Conversion Enhancement.

1. Southlake Real Estate, Grapevine TX Realtor

2. New York City Apartments

3. Fort Worth Real Estate Agents

4. Lehi Utah Homes for Sale

5. Frisco Realtor & Celina Homes for Sale