Need Help Building a Real Estate Site

[millionaire32]

I'm not sure if this if this is the right part of the forum to post this in but here goes...

I am a real estate investor/internet marketer and I am looking to get a web sight built. I want it to be a membership site that my subscribers can log into in order to see the properties I have available and it needs to have a user friendly back end for me to load property pics and videos for clients to see on the front end. I've heard good things about using the joomla platform, so perhaps this would be good to use for the site. If not, I have other examples of sites also.

I want the site to be very sleek and attractive. If you think you'd be interested in hearing more details, just PM me.

Thanks,

RJ

[millionaire32]

Hey guys,

Actually since I'm new, I have to have 7 more posts before I am able to respond to anyone via PM to a PM that someone sends to me. So, just respond in this post with a way for me to contact you.

Thanks!

[pinkfluffybunny]

RJ,

The real estate market is saturated on the web. I just did some real estate sites for a large company with millions to invest to become a national player (why they picked this time to start is beyond me). 8 months later they called it, bad time for real estate.
I recommended they purchase forclosed homes and hold onto them until the market picked up... but they had money to burn and burned alot - they just started laying off people).

But I'd recommend 2020 datashed, connect into the mls and have the information displayed in your site as opposed to iframes or using the local MLS. There is a service that will draw data from your state MLS and connect into your script. There are many open source scripts but 2020 datashed is a good (not fancy) script.

Do local (don't try to compete with the national market) and specialize.

Build a html site around the data driven MLS. Don't go for fancy flashy stuff, make it fast loading and easy to navagate. You can beat the local boys easy enought, but trying to capture the national market is very hard. Even if you place well, people aren't buying.

Europeons aren't effected by the US real estate market and they tend to pay cash for homes. Target them and other small groups. do some demographics research and target the groups who are buying now.

Good Luck

[millionaire32]

Thanks for the advice PFB,

I've been investing in real estate for a number of years, and my focus is on providing the best deals in my market for 30-50 cents on the dollar for investors that are in markets where it is difficult to invest and/or cashflow. I have a pretty strong investor base ,but I have some ideas for my site to make life easier for me and for them. I just need to find someone to build it. I will look more into the European investors you spoke of.

Ryan

[danparks]

Originally Posted by millionaire32

I am a real estate investor/internet marketer and I am looking to get a web sight built. I want it to be a membership site that my subscribers can log into in order to see the properties I have available and it needs to have a user friendly back end for me to load property pics and videos for clients to see on the front end. I've heard good things about using the joomla platform, so perhaps this would be good to use for the site. If not, I have other examples of sites also.

I want the site to be very sleek and attractive. If you think you'd be interested in hearing more details, just PM me.

It doesn't sound like you have any real special needs that differ greatly from a real estate agent. There are _many_ turnkey real estate website builders with templates out there. Many allow defining individual properties on individual web pages, with pics and video. Even though you don't mention being an agent, it seems like your needs are similar.

I'm involved in webhosting/design, but not real estate in particular. Google something like 'website builder real estate membership videos' or some such and I'll bet you'll find something. You might not need to spend money building a site from scratch.

Dan

[Fred Sanders]

PFB,

I am setting up the foundations for a real estate website too, and I'm looking to build an easy-to-use front end on an existing backend. Are you willing to sell me the code you created for your customer?

Fred

[pinkfluffybunny]

Originally Posted by Fred Sanders

PFB,

I am setting up the foundations for a real estate website too, and I'm looking to build an easy-to-use front end on an existing backend. Are you willing to sell me the code you created for your customer?

Fred

I had a dot net guy do the backend (for custom stuff), and also used 2020 to tie it into the mls and custom front end. Sorry, it belongs to them, I can't sell it.

It's not expensive to do what you want - unless you need custom backend work - (those turn key sites are partically worthless in todays market).

Here's the link to 2020 datashed (comes with a bunch of themes you can easily alter) - http://www.2020applications.com/list...ist=3&itemID=6 (remember this is only a part of the site)


Here's a video on MLS intergration - http://www.2020datashed.com/help/med...ntegration.wmv
the front end is important also - all the fancy bells and whistles, flashy themes and animated photos won't sell homes.....lol

Using a CRM is also helpfull (salesforce or your own crm)

They hired a Marketing guy that had no clue what he was doing and wouldn't take advice from anyone - he put himself out of a job. (The CEO of another company I worked with asked me to give him pointers - Oh well he got pointers all right - the doors that way >)

The most important thing you can do is some demographics research and target particular groups.

If you are going to hire someone to do it for you - first question you should ask him is has he done the demographics research and what's the marketing plan - if he gives you some lame seo bull - find a new guy.... you need a marketing plan (goals and objectives) not an seo webmonkey

[Fred Sanders]

Thanks, PFB, for your advice. I'll be setting up in an established, very competitive market so I need top SEO if this is going to work.

What do you mean by turn key sites real estate sites? Could you give me some examples please?

[pinkfluffybunny]

Just dropping in a cms (content management system) without html pages - like one of these - http://www.hotscripts.com/ASP/Script...ate/index.html

you have to build content to attract targeted people - lots of info etc.

Wow bad time for this market - web development business always picks up when the economy gets bad..... In the real estate market it's really getting bad - Local realtors might do ok on the web (maybe even get a return on their investment), but don't plan on going national or making a killing on the web right now.

[Fred Sanders]

Thanks for the info. Ever tried OpenRealty?
What do you think of it?

[pinkfluffybunny]

its free and worth every penny - Not seo friendly at all

go to this site and watch the top blue bar (top of the browser - blue bar very top) and look at the titles for each page http://www.realtor.com/search/listin...88367873&fhv=1

<title>
Single Family Home - 31 CASSINE GARDEN CIRCLE, SANTA ROSA BEACH, FL, 32459 - Realtor.com
</title>

With other seo features built in you don't see - these boys know what they're doing
It also uses asp / dot net . They've resorted to putting up ad banners - tell you where the market is....lol


You can bet these guys will upgrade to 2008 as soon as they can and take advantage of the features for this site. - windows server 2008 (out now) has great re-write and outstanding new features MS is going after business sites and intergrated applications hard - going to leave open source servers in the shadows for business sites - you get what you pay for.

[seo-web]

I had an experience in building a fsbo real estate site. And I used this script http://www.irealtysoft.com for that.

[kevalin]

Open Realty would be my suggestion. If you want MLS integration then get the IDX setup. Other than that it comes down to getting a professional template for the front page and then you set it to where people have to register to get access to it.

Another way, if you are not going to be using Open Realty, is to use Joomla and the Real Estate Components such as Hot Property and the other extensions you can get. Either way you decide to go it's easy to setup and manage, both of them support Virtual Tours, and member account setup.