Real estate has become a flourishing industry and that encourages many webmasters to create a real estate website for profit. WordPress is a great site building platform that allows users to create websites for multiple purposes. Also, there are multiple WordPress plugins and themes available for site building and customization. Here, we make a step-by-step guide to help you build a real estate website with WordPress.
Below is a great example of real estate website. That is the homepage of Homes.com, a popular real estate website with comprehensive information.
What Should be Included in a Real Estate Website
A real estate website is created for sharing accurate and the latest real estate information with consumers who are looking for homes or wondering about home value. Each deal will bring a profit for site owners. To running a real estate website successfully, you are required to have a rough idea of the essential elements the site should have.
- Valued Information. The website should deliver anything related to real estate, such as the homes for sale, foreclosed homes, apartments for rent, home values, and so on.
- Accurate and Well-Marked Contact Information. Make your contact information public for the convenience of visitors who need to ask for help or get more detailed information.
- Intuitive and User-Friendly Web Design. Be careful to avoid messing up the web page. You should display all pieces of real estate information in a perfect order. That enables a great browsing experience for each visitor as well as helps consumers target any information at a glance.
- An About Page. Set an About Page on the website. That makes it clear on what the purpose of your site and what visitors can get from this site. Also, you can make a brief introduction of your team so as to leave a professional impression on visitors.
Besides the above-mentioned elements, you are encouraged to add something more useful or attractive to the real estate website. It all depends on you. Since you have mapped out a plan, it’s time to create a real estate website. A WordPress real estate plugin is selected here to make things much easier, namely, Real Estate Website Builder.
Create a Real Estate Website with WordPress Real Estate Website Builder
We assume that you have installed WordPress on your website. And then, let’s get started to set up your real estate site. The Real Estate Website Builder is created for real estate website building. This plugin includes rich features that help users create a functional real estate website with ease. This great site builder makes it much easier to create search listings, manage landing pages, promote featured properties and anything as you want.
Step 1: Install and Activate Real Estate Website Builder Plugin
There are more possibilities included in the Real Estate Website Builder. Install this plugin through WordPress dashboard and then take a good use of all advanced features.
Having installed this plugin, a window pops up and this is where to activate this plugin. Type your email address that the plugin is linked to and then click “Confirm Email” button. Make a decision on whether to use Placester. Click “YES” to add IDX/MSL to your site while click “No Thanks” to turn down this request.
Step 2: Configure this Plugin
Once completing plugin activation, an item “Placester” is shown on the menu and that further includes a list of options. Go to Placester > Settings and get started to configure this plugin. The Settings page displays which email address the plugin is linked to. The “Google Places API Key” section includes all steps to get your API key. That plays a vital role in plugin configuration.
Go to Google API Console and click “Create Project” button. A window pops up and you should name this new project as anything as needed. The project ID is generated based on this name. For example, we name this new project as “real estate site builder”. The project ID will be real-estate-site-builder. Click “Create” button to confirm all settings.
Search for “Google Places API Web Service” via APIs & auth > APIs and enable this API. And then, turn to APIs & auth > Credentials and select “API key” from the “Add credentials” drop-down list. Click “Server Key” and access to the “Create server API key” page. Name this new server API key properly and click “Create” button.
A popup window shows your API key. Go back to WP admin > Menu > Placester > Settings > Google Places API Key and paste the API key to the “Google Places API Key” field. Finally, update this API key.
Step 3: Set Up Your Real Estate Website
The Real Estate Website Builder allows users to add real estate listing in an easy manner. Go to Placester > Add Listing and start with the first piece of real estate information.
- Listing Type – Pick up a listing type from the drop-down list and makes it clear on the purpose of this listing. Here, we select “Residential Sale” for a housing sale.
- Property Type – Enter a property type in the Property Type field. Multiple property types are available for you, like residential, commercial, vacant land, foreclosures, waterfront, and so on. Enter any property type in this field according to personal needs.
- Location – Give the accurate location of the house for sale. Type country, county, neighborhood, unit, zip code, state, city and address as required.
- Basic Residential Sales Details – This is where to describe the basic details and lease details of the house. Introduce the number of rooms, total house area and the listing price.
- Images – Select one or more house images from your computer and upload those images to your site. The images help visitors have an overview of this house and decide whether it is a good option.
- Description – Make a brief introduction to this house. The description can be anything as needed, like assistant facilities, traffic condition, year built and some exceptional features.
Finally, click “Publish” button to confirm all settings and make this listing public. You can create as many listings as needed in the same way. All listings are shown under the Listings tab. You can delete, edit or modify any listings if needed.
Step 4: Customize the Web Design
The Real Estate Website Builder plugin comes with a theme gallery that includes a large number of themes for real estate websites. Take a look at the theme portfolio and select a theme for your website. A list of themes is available for you, like Plymouth, Franklin, Fremont, etc. Each theme comes with a version for single property site.
Perhaps, you can select a premium WordPress real estate theme released by other developers. The themes including Realty, Agent Press Pro and Homeland are recommended here.
To enable better browsing experience for each visitor, we suggest you to create an awesome landing page on your real estate website. That is a great method to collect visitors’ information and develop potential customers.
on the homepage, which allows visitors to customize the search range according to personal needs. That makes it much easier to find a favorite home.
Best WordPress Real Estate Themes
We introduce the best estate WordPress themes for you to have your website for showing the house information in a clear and efficient way.
WP Estate
Website: http://themeforest.net/item/wp-estate-real-estate-responsive-wordpress-theme/5042235
WP Estate is a powerful template for you to build your estate website. It allows you to add the positions of the houses in the Google map. In this case, the customers can know the locations well and find their favorite one easily. Besides, it supports you many practical widgets, such as mortgage calculator, advanced search, featured Listing, social links widget, and more. What’s more, you can add the items like lot size, price, type and others in the admin interface to edit the information of the houses.
WP Residence
Website: http://themeforest.net/item/wp-residence-real-estate-wordpress-theme/7896392
This template is a responsive template that can suit all types of devices. Besides, it can work well with many browsers like Firefox, Opera, Safari and more. Further, you can manage the property list in the admin interface. That is to say, you can choose the city, area and category of the house. As for the searching tool, it allows you to control whether the customers can filter the houses according to the price, type, location and so on.
Decorum
Website: https://www.wphub.com/themes/decorum/category/real-estate/
Decorum allows you to add Google map in the website for people who want to know the location information of the house clearly. With it, you can display a dynamic image of the street to draw people’s attention. What’s more, the front-end form for agents can help the customers login or register in a short time to save people’s time and energy.
Building
Website: https://smthemes.com/building/
This template has a user-friendly interface for you to add, remove, submit and modify the property in an easy and simple way. Besides, it allows you to design as many styles of backgrounds as you like. In order to help you create different pages conveniently, it offers you many page templates, such as listing templates, gallery templates, agent templates and more.
Garden
Website: https://smthemes.com/garden/
You can learn from the name that this template is for you to build your real estate website. It enables you to design anything for your website, such as the color, background, font and more. Besides, it is allows you to upload the logo and icon with just one simple click. What’s more, it has 8 different headers including real estate search, real estate recent items, real estate featured item and other headers for you to choose the most appropriate one for the site.
Apartment for Rent
Website: http://www.templatemonster.com/wordpress-themes/50931.html
Apartment for Rent has 600 fonts, 100 short codes, and 21 extra widgets for you to design your website easily. Besides, it has 4 different headers including recent object slider, map, search, and featured object slider. What’s more, it allows you to divide your houses into different categories by the taxonomy tool. In this way, the customers can find the house they want quickly.
RealSpace
Website: http://www.mojo-themes.com/item/realspace-real-estate-wordpress-responsive-parallax-theme/
RealSpace is easy for you to install by the step-by-step guiding. With this template, you can decide whatever colors you like for your website. Besides, it has 3 post types including client type, service type and property type for you to change your post page in an attractive way. In addition, it allows you to add social icons for your website to make it known to more people.
Exotic
Website: http://www.mojo-themes.com/item/exotic-real-estate-wordpress-theme/
This template has some useful widgets for you to start your estate business, such as mortgage calculator, affordability calculator, closing cost estimator, and more. Moreover, it allows you to upload clear and beautiful photos of your houses to attract more people through the Internet. It has 9 short codes for you to design the site with ease. Besides, it can work well with many popular estate plugins.
Housing
Website: http://www.templatemonster.com/wordpress-themes/46790.html
This template allows you to choose different page templates to design the page of your website, such as homepage template, portfolio page template, agent page template, and more. Besides, it has 12 custom widgets for you to choose the useful ones to suit your website well. What’s more, you can choose any colors you like for your real estate website.
ElegantEstate
Website: http://www.elegantthemes.com/gallery/elegantestate/
ElegantEstate offers 5 color styles for you to choose: black, blue, green, purple and red. It allows you to show five photos automatically in the homepage. Besides, there is a box on the image displaying bar to add information of the houses. If the visitors are interested in the houses, they can click the button of “view the listing”.
Best WordPress Real Estate Plugins
WordPress real estate plugins are specially designed for the real estate industry. WordPress plugin directory has a great number of real estate plugins optimized for different purposes. From list management to payment methods, WordPress real estate plugins offer a perfect toolkit to assist you with your job demands. Most plugins offer street view, Google map, property listings, property search functionality and photo galleries.
From list management to payment methods, WordPress real estate plugins offer a perfect toolkit to assist you with your job demands. Most plugins offer street view, Google map, property listings, property search functionality and photo galleries. Here is a list of top 7 WordPress plugins for professionals. They are not arranged in any particular order as they support different amazing features and layout styles.
WP Property
WP-Property plugin has all necessary features for your real estate website. Its dynamic property listing and usage flexibility make it a complete property management system. You can easily add listings, edit them and feature them on your website.
It supports automatic image resizing, shortcodes, Google map, and friendly-user interface to transform the on-site experience for your customers. It supports website translation into Italian, Portuguese and Russian. You can use different customizable options for different property listings. This plugin is well-optimized for your SEO needs and the requirements of your customers. Also, it has loads of great features. It is completely FREE!
Firestorm
It is a must-have plugin for any professional real estate agent. It can transform your blog/website to a complete new functional real estate website. This plugin is ideal for the following tasks:
- Design a fully functional real estate website
- Offer an easy to use interface
- Achieve the blog separation from listings
In this way, you can easily turn your blog into a real estate website, and you can also separate your blog from the listing section.
Real Estate Website Builder
This plugin can help you design a fully functional real estate website in a quick and efficient manner. The real estate website builder provides you with a fully customizable layout and customs widgets. You can add, edit and feature your listings in an easy way.
This plugin also supports international listings in 240 countries. It provides landing pages for each of your property listings. And this feature works great for SEO purposes. Real Estate Builder plugin comes with a number of free themes that can work amazingly well with your website.
WP-Listings
It is a free WordPress plugin with some awesome features. You can easily create your property list management system for your website. The plugin supports all WordPress themes and it can easily adjust to your site by using built-in templates. You can also add some useful details like price and location, property types, and property status.You can design your ways to classify your listings in different categories. It also adds a contact form in your listings so that your customers can ask questions about a certain property location.
WP-Real Estate
This plugin can help you build a user-friendly real estate site. You can add property listings, customs listing pages and images. The plugin is also offering a new translation feature that can empower your website to be translated into different languages.
It also provides advanced property search and property search widget. This plugin is particularly planned for real estate agents who require the function of listing properties on their website in a fast and effective way.
Simple Real Estate Pack
As mentioned in the name, this plugin is a complete package of real estate tools, and it comes with an easy to use interface. The plugin has all the tools to meet the requirements of the real estate industry. It has been particularly designed for real estate agencies that have to showcase the house information effectively. This plugin can become your assistant in your business tasks. Here is a list of features:
- Live Mortgage Rates Calculator
- Business listing integration with yelp and Google maps
- Street view and neighborhood profiles
- Cost estimators
It also supports financial and statistical charts. It can be regarded as one of the must-have plugins for any real estate business or agency.
WPL-Real Estate
This advanced real estate plugin is ideal for real estate agencies. It comes with a ton of features and supports many add-ons. This plugin is basically designed for data management tasks. It also has a property search function that makes it flexible and responsive.
The plugin can be expanded for different purposes. It gives you a flexible data structure and dynamic search parameters. If you are looking for a complete responsive plugin that can help you with a comprehensive and easy property listings management, then WPL-Real Estate plugin is the best for you.
Maintain Your Real Estate Website
Having completed all steps mentioned above, the WordPress real estate website is accomplished. Since now, you are required to give some thought to maintaining this site thereby getting more traffic. Here, we suggest you to integrate the real estate website with social networking. That’s an awesome method to let more visitors know your website.
Besides that, a reliable WordPress hosting company plays an important role in website long-term development, which guarantees perfect uptime and excellent performance. Below are the best three WordPress web hosts that have won a great reputation in this field.