30 Beautiful Real Estate Websites
Real estate is a valuable and often expensive purchase. Copious research is done by home buyers before venturing out to acquire real estate. In this day and age, gathering information about a property is typically done online, and an effective and captivating website design can make or break a home sale.
In this showcase, we’ll explore some great designs of real estate websites. We’ll also discuss some commonalities between them to tease out current trends in real estate websites.
Trends In Real Estate Websites
1. Traditional/Sophisticated Themes Versus Modern/Contemporary Themes
Property realtors want to convey the message that they’re reliable and well-established. They want home buyers to feel that they will be purchasing property from a company that’s dependable, steadfast and time-tested. That’s why most of them opt for a classic and sophisticated theme for their websites, rather than a sleek, modern theme.
2. Image-Heavy Designs
Home buyers want to see what they’re potentially buying without having to take the time to travel to a property. Real estate websites typically contain a lot of images for this very purpose.
3. Photo Galleries
Again, photo galleries allow website visitors to see what properties look like without having to leave their computer. That is why you’ll often find image galleries that feature properties that realtors currently have available.
4. Property Locator Feature
Many real estate websites provide a property locator feature for home buyers to find properties for sale in areas they are interested in.
Real estate property locator features are usually a Web form with various input fields — such as property type, property features, price range, zip code, etc. — so that you can easily narrow down your search to the exact type of property you’re looking for.
Many realtors use a third-party service or application (such as Google Maps) to enable this feature on their websites.
Showcase
Ranchline
Ranchline is an excellent example of a real estate website that embodies the trends discussed above: clean and sophisticated design, image-heavy and graphic-centric, with a property search feature conveniently located in the left-hand column.
Cantera Real Estate
Cantera Real Estate has a clean, captivating traditional design and presents a housing locator to visitors in the top half of the home page.
Naples Real Estate
Naples Real Estate features a property for sale on the home page to highlight a piece of real estate that they’re currently promoting.
MacAllan Ridge
MacAllan Ridge’s beautiful design uses an illustrated background as its defining feature.
Broadview Homes
Broadview Homes ventures out of the box with a dark and very modern theme.
Hillwood Residential
Hillwood Residential uses family photos in frames to give off a feeling of traditionalism and family values.
Ellicott Mack Realty Group
Ellicott Mack Realty Group captures the viewer’s attention by saying, “That warm house that is ‘home,’” and right under it, showing a family having breakfast.
Riverside View
Riverside View uses a light-blue color palette that evokes a feeling of modernity coupled with sophistication.
Under the Roman Sun
Under the Roman Sun captivates viewers with its large beautiful images of Rome in the top half of the home page.
Monica Ruggieri Real Estate
Monica Ruggieri’s design is a great example of using classic and sophisticated themes on a real estate website.
Lanikai Properties
Lanikai Properties uses a bold and colorful theme to portray the nature of its properties in Hawaii.
Stone Coast Properties
Stone Coast Properties has a dark background with classic and vintage design elements.
Signature Properties
Signature Properties has a clean and sophisticated design.
The Meadows at Historic Castle Rock
On the home page of The Meadows at Historic Castle Rock, you’ll see an image-heavy, Flash-based slideshow.
Coldwell Banker Real Estate
This well-established real estate agency, Coldwell Banker, has a clean Web form at the center of its design.
Belvedere Inc.
Belvedere Inc. uses a dark-brown textured page background and green leaf elements to evoke a feeling of nature and environmental friendliness.
Woolshed Grove
Woolshed Grove has images of families in the header.
Bluegrass Commons
Bluegrass Commons captures the viewer’s attention with the promise that, “This is the one.”
The Real Estate Concierge
The Real Estate Concierge’s website has a dark theme to create a sense of sophistication and affluence.
Marin Real Estate
Marin Real Estate relies on the slideshow on its home page to captivate viewers.
Bellingham Real Estate
Bellingham Real Estate has an engaging image of a mountain range in the header section.
San Clemente Real Estate
“Clean” best describes the design of the San Clemente Real Estate website.
BATICO
BATICO has a dark theme and image-heavy home page.
Oypro
Oypro, which deals with commercial real estate, has a very clean design.
Travis Marshall Realtor
Travis Marshall has a clean and sophisticated Web design.
REALTOR.com
REALTOR.com focuses on the content by using light, unobtrusive colors in its website design.
Best Plots
Best Plots couples a dark theme with a clean and uncluttered design.
Mike Gagne Realtor Services
Mike Gagne includes a photo of himself to create a personal, rather than corporate, touch for his website.
Kensington Lakes
Kensington Lakes’ dark-themed design makes the images really pop out.
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DKumar M.
April 23rd, 2009 1:15 pmExcellent resource of real estate sites. the work and the motivation behind this post is appreciable.
Just surprised you don’t list BlueRoof in your list… it’s one of the best real estate sites available on web. they also won the W3 Web Award Silver medal for their service.
Still it’s a good list. thanks Jacob for sharing !!
DKumar M.
@instantShift
Gary Simon
April 23rd, 2009 1:17 pmStop it with the stupid buzzwords, getting so ridiculous how nearly every post on every design blog either has “Beautiful”, “Fantastic”, or “Inspiring” etc etc.. in their headlines.
…and these real estate sites are only “Beautiful” to women and homosexuals.
Nick
April 23rd, 2009 1:30 pmMy site didn’t make it :-(
cssah
April 23rd, 2009 1:48 pmthanks
MF Machado
April 23rd, 2009 1:55 pm@Gary Simon chill dude, if you don’t like it don’t view it. I for one think they are (for the most part) beautiful sites, and I’m a straight male designer.
Great article, needed some good motivation as we regularly have been building realtors websites here in Florida. Thx
Matt Cassarino
April 23rd, 2009 2:12 pmGreat collection of designs here, thanks for putting this together. Plenty enough to inspire!
jwo
April 23rd, 2009 2:13 pmAny idea on how many, if any, were WordPress or other open source templates?
Marc
April 23rd, 2009 2:13 pmThanks for this great list!
Anrkist
April 23rd, 2009 2:37 pmWe do a lot of Home Builder websites and I’m always looking for new ideas. Good list, thanks.
David Desjardins
April 23rd, 2009 3:02 pmIt’s a great list, but sadly most realtors lack the foresight and willingness to embrace quality design. The vast majority like to pay $50 per month for a rented template site.
Oh – And if I see one more realty web site using the ‘LIVE, WORK, PLAY’ tagline, I think I will vomit.
A00A1
April 23rd, 2009 3:11 pmAs a former real estate web marketer, virtual tour, and site developer….this post was right up my alley. I had the pleasure of being employed by the top producing real estate team in the US (2005) and I can tell you personally that we spent thousands of dollars every year on our sites design to reach out to our target audience.
In real estate buyers are really all about virtual tours and the web before a call is even generated so having a great site with emphasis on UI is crucial. Even after having contact with a Realtor most correspondence is done on the web by sending virtual tour links and property listings to buyers. I still consult with Realtor’s on site design and UI and I feel that there will be a huge resurgence of real estate projects when the housing marketing comes around. Great Article!
Klaye Morrison
April 23rd, 2009 3:48 pmGreat post Smashing Magazine, and thanks for featuring Coconut Grove :)
friday
April 23rd, 2009 3:59 pmmany of these looks like free templates
Nixk
April 23rd, 2009 4:09 pmAwesome reference. Love this post.
Nadia
April 23rd, 2009 4:22 pmYes! Love it Smashing Magazine. Now, please, post an article about Tourism websites, something like the official tourism website from states, countries etc. I really need some good motivations and looking for new ideas.
Max.W
April 23rd, 2009 4:56 pmhartanovteam is a complete rip of a 2Advanced site so remove this cheapass immediately.
Nice list of sites, none really are comprehensive in the way of presenting information and property listings, most are too designy with too many design elements dominating the page.
Jacob Gube
April 23rd, 2009 5:44 pmThank you everyone for all the valuable comments!
@A00A1: That’s one thing I wanted to mention as well – virtual tours are very popular (or at least, they used to be popular). Thanks for adding your thoughts and giving us an insight about your experience!
@Kris Themstrup: Completely agree with you – it was hard to find individual agent sites, glad I somehow stumbled upon Mike Gagne, Travis Marshall, and Monica Ruggieri. People who take the time to make their web presence unique make me more confident to make an investment with them (in any field, even outside real estate).
@Nadia: I really enjoy reading comments because you guys have such great ideas! I’ll have to talk to the editorial team here on Smashing to see if I can work on this.
@Cyril: That’s actually not a bad idea!
Jessica
April 23rd, 2009 5:58 pmStop reading my mind Smashing Magazine…. lol
I’m actually working on a real estate website now… freaky :P
Kyle
April 23rd, 2009 7:35 pmThey didn’t get my site either, because it’s newer and different than all of these typical real estate sites.These are great for finding properties and whatnot, but what about finding the agents? Most of these are for higher end, and yeah theyre pretty too look at, but not applicable to most of us! Link
maryam
April 23rd, 2009 7:47 pmexcellent , thank u sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much
milder
April 23rd, 2009 10:55 pmI visits some of those sites and they all are slow (I have a 24Mbit connection). The most sites takes about 2 a 4 sec to load. Beauty vs. fast loading then i go for fast loading.
zarathustra
April 24th, 2009 1:03 amSomeone explain to the estate agents what rel=”nofollow” means! Quick!
Filippo
April 24th, 2009 3:42 amThe Under the Roman Sun shows a picture of Florence not Rome!!!!
Dimitris
April 24th, 2009 4:15 amAll these articles about “50 Stunning Somethings” and “40 Incredible Something-else” could be much improved if they were changed to “20 interesting Somethings” and “15 well-made Something-else”.
There is no reason to bury the good stuff among so much banality and you could really be bit more modest with the adjectives.
Tom Bradshaw
April 24th, 2009 4:23 amReally good showcase, I’ve bookmarked it for future reference. I particularly like MacAllan Ridge, Under the Roman Sun, Woolshed Grove and BATICO.
Josh Turner
April 24th, 2009 5:49 amHave you seen pureutah.com? [http://www.pureutah.com]
Excellent design and UI- among the best that I have seen.
Johan
April 24th, 2009 6:19 amUnder the Roman Sun is portraying the city of Florence at that specific screen shot, though it could be Rome by selecting it on the right. Besides that: great collection!
joe
April 24th, 2009 7:15 amall those sites looks pretty much the same and boring
Eduardo
April 24th, 2009 7:44 am@ Desjardins…lol..True..That makes me sick..but SM nice list
myDevWares
April 24th, 2009 7:49 am@joe If you have nothing else to say, then just shut up. You obviously know nothing about web design if you say “all those sites look the same and boring”. Add something useful to the discussion or do us a favor and fuck off.
And thanks for the resources SM. I would love to see more of these. It would provide me with lots of inspiration whenever I’m designing a website for a particular field.
Jason Barone
April 24th, 2009 8:14 amThose are some phenomenal sites. In my opinion, an agent’s website is the most important part of their business. Sadly though 80-90% of the agents out there simply can’t afford to get a site like those, it would be way out of budget. I’ve spoken to some of the designers of those sites and the price estimates for most of those are well over $5000…
Great post though, I’ll constantly refer back to it.
Andre
April 25th, 2009 11:58 amExcellent reference
Peter Ricci
April 26th, 2009 2:40 amAfter spending some time on these sites, it just shows how terrible most real estate websites are. There are some examples here that we can call nice, but the majority are very ordinary indeed.
As a test, have a look at some great examples of designer portfolio websites that have been promoted here on this site, would even of these examples make it onto those lists? I doubt it.
I also visited a number of these portfolio websites and none of these designerts have any real estate clients. This tells me a number of things.
1. It is troo hard to do real estate agent websites.
2. real estate agents do not care enough about their brand.
3. That hopefully we can revisit this again next year and see some truly beautiful designs and not just the word in a headline.
Real Estate is without doubt one of the leading reasons people use the Internet and it has transformed the way we all buy and sell real estate, what we need is someone to bring the style back into real estate agent websites. Yes, they must work as we delve deeper, but the above examples just amplify how poor the efforts are as of today.
We are hopeful that a new system to be launched publicly shortly will help web design and development teams create beautiful real estate websites off the Zoo Property Platform using the Zoo API.
Peter Ricci
MasaBird
April 26th, 2009 5:25 pmI think that last comment is totally wrong-headed. There is often a big gap between the web designers who get their websites on “most beautiful” lists, and web designers who actually have big accounts and make good money. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing, or a coincidence. Large websites for big accounts are very tedious, difficult things to build, and you have to make 1,000 compromises before the project is finished.
This kind of post is incredibly useful for web designers who are actually working designers – I don’t mean any respect to the newbies who are making cute WordPress themes and getting recognition for their work making websites for WEB 2.0 applications. That’s the right thing to do. But, my vote is for more of these posts, that show actual working examples for real world businesses.
Scott
April 26th, 2009 9:14 pmReal estate websites are just plain boring. I think it has to do with the nature of the information they need to deliver. (3BD/2BA/2500sq/2Car/.25Acre/$250,000/ PIC) Doesn’t matter how pretty you make it, this is what people are looking for.
I think the trend to single property websites is going to continue, as it demonstrates agents “actually” working, rather then talking about how good their work is. I think we are going towards the end of the period where agent (and company) sites are everything to everybody. (Buyer- clck here, Seller click here, my resume – click here, my team- click here, my listings – click here, the process, financing, escrow, inspections, featured listing, hot listing, deal of the week listing, ALL listings, how to fix the roof, paint the fence, etc, etc, etc.)
Seriously, casting a thousand lines doesn’t mean you”ll catch the biggest, or even the most fish. I guess I just wasn’t impressed by any on the list and I certainly wouldn’t pay $5,000 for any of them. Thay all look like template site to me, with only slightly better visual appeal. I don’t mean to put down the work that people have done, it’s all nice work, and they’re all real pretty, but at the same time, they’re all the same and kinda boring. Somebody do something different, please.
imoria
March 1st, 2010 1:34 amI tend to agree with this guy. I know Real Estate Webmasters has prices from 5k to 10k and in 2010 it seems like you could get these same websites for a lot less. I think the single property website will grow and of course it will be up the agent to learn the technology and back link it to their own website and build their brand. To the agents that sit on Active Rain all day. You got a prayer!
sanjeev
April 27th, 2009 11:21 amThanks a lot. Saved me loads of time just at the right moment.
Mike
April 27th, 2009 11:56 amthanks, some pretty good ones here, but I’ve also seen better. I’m still bias for mine, 4realvalues.com its design is 5 years old and still going strong!
Sam Wells
April 27th, 2009 6:00 pmBeautiful sites!! How can I submit our site for consideration?
perla bravo
May 20th, 2009 12:32 pmAre these templates free to use for your own business?
barb
July 17th, 2009 11:50 amJust as someone mentioned a bunch of template/word press looking web sites. Nothing original or unique about them….
Michelle Potter
July 28th, 2009 1:23 pmI’m an individual real estate agent weighing in late here….My web developer recently finished my site – denverrelocationbroker.com – I think it is every bit as good as the sites mentioned. I think he also did a great job of making sure it is seo friendly…
reidy
September 17th, 2009 4:42 pm…some great ideas and inspiration for building great web sites! i’m just beginning research into building such a site for a friend and wondered if there are any tutorials out there to guide a novice web designer to creating such work? i know that there are tutorials to create sites from psd to html but what about features such as property locator features etc? do they have to be purchased? any assistance greatly appreciated? keep up the good work!
Luke
September 17th, 2009 7:54 pmprobably time to update the remax search engine now.
The site has a completely new feel, a better feel if you ask me.
Then again I do work for the brokerage (not advertising).
Section 4. Property Locator Feature
Andy
November 6th, 2009 8:41 pmIn Minnesota the best site to use is homes.mn
Fast and functional. I like it at least. Check it out if you’re from MN.
Jimmy Brown
November 25th, 2009 7:07 amI really enjoyed reading this article and perusing the different real estate websites. There are so many out there that are good,…and some not so good :(
There is one real estate website in particular that I would like to suggest for this list. It is a RE/MAX site in The Bahamas that I use. RE/MAX Paradise Realty has a very easy to use website and it features many of the points you mentioned above. Check out RE/MAX Bahamas online at ParadiseBahamas.com
Keep up the good work!
web
December 24th, 2009 4:01 pmat usual I don’t post in blogs, but your blog forced me to post ..
this is the best collection I have ever seen !
thanks 4 share
Brent Dimmig
January 6th, 2010 7:29 pmI would just like to comment/question about limits to sizes on websites. The graphically rich sites, with multiple flash components and full background images do catch the eye but only after waiting (depending on the internet connection.) As a web designer and developer, site size and index-ability as well is something I try to always think about in addition to aesthetics. I guess I would just like to ask, what, if you do have a limit would you consider the limit to image sizes, file sizes and such? And what techniques can be used to keep these sizes down.
As web designers we should aiming to aid everyone with different systems, software and connections.
Thanks for the post. Very thought provoking.
Yashveer
January 20th, 2010 3:41 amthanks a ton.. a real inspiration to build my own website… ty
Adam
January 21st, 2010 3:42 pmNice sites, here is a site that I am going to start to re-do: MarinDreamHouse.com. I can use any ideas anyone has out here.
Sportfreunde Bulmke
January 26th, 2010 3:16 pmreally nice buildings :D best regards from germany
Jessica Miller
January 29th, 2010 4:27 pmJust wanted to say thanks for including our design, Signature Properties!
Abdullah Al Mamun
March 23rd, 2010 12:50 pmNice list. Thanks
tarek
March 30th, 2010 2:52 pmi like all this comments
Regards
Jenny
April 10th, 2010 11:39 amThis company does very nice custom layouts ! galtlinedesign.com
Kenny Hayslett
April 26th, 2010 5:41 amgreat set of websites…very inspirational! As a Realtor in Tampa FL – these provide good ideas.
mike ilsley
May 14th, 2010 5:26 amNice collection..thanks!
Laura
May 18th, 2010 12:12 amHi, does anyone know whether wix.com is an adequate tool for building a real-estate website ?
The company that needs the site, typically offers around 40 homes for sale, and expects to do updates twice a week.
And if not, any suggestions of what to use ?
Thanks much for your input,
L.
humphreyhale
May 20th, 2010 2:45 pmHi..
Wonderful Themes.. mind blowing….where did you collect from..
Anyways.. you must be appreciated for this collection
Regards,
Jeff Deckern
May 27th, 2010 10:36 amI am working with galtlinedesign.com these guys rock. Full Custom site, indexable props, every feature you need plus its built on open source. Ill post site later once it complete.
Andrew Mooers
May 28th, 2010 1:03 pmMany sites give you a little sprinkling of what you search for, or anything of value to glean, expand your own personal thinking on a subject. I leave your site with a greater sense of the next evolution real estate site I’m slowly building by handing, doing the heavy lifting on using the joomla platform. Have a wordpress stand alone blog but still fence strattling on why not implement that familiar direction and scrap the 3 joomla books, Joomla site between my ears.
carter
July 1st, 2010 3:00 pmWow, just looked at the designer of the site above and she does some Amazing work. Thought I would share with you.
Jackson Taylor Web Design
John Young
July 5th, 2010 4:14 amReally good showcase,Thanks for sharing it.I recently visited a site called housingnepal.com in Nepal, it has good design and excellent user friendliness
John
August 2nd, 2010 4:48 pmBeing an agent for 4 years and an investor for longer I would say all the sites are not providing the value I want out of a real estate site. I can say to you, that my site sucks horribly, yet I still update it and try to provide as much value as possible.
With respect to the individuals that are asking for change, you need to ask yourself “why do these sites lack value?”. Fundamentally, real estate is about lifestyle and not the guts of your home. Someone said above 3bed/2bath…..south facing, 42′ maple cabinets, brazilian cherry wood flooring, granite counter-tops, ss appliances etc… The list goes on and on of standards depending on the part of the country you live in.
If you were to develop a proprietary system of searching based on your lifestyle along with a CPI model that can define the life “I” want to live, along with where I should be living = big money. You can have it hyper local or national based because the same principles apply. “I am looking for schooling for my children, within 1 mile to a Train station, near a skate park, access to a major highway, parking garages, parks, South facing unit, taxes under X, Lot size X etc…” You would have your innovation. You can actually auto populate most of this information from you local govt or 3rd party apps and then your search becomes more user based and you put back the control into the buyer.
I feel the agent is pointless, being one I should not be saying this, but book your own appts and don’t listen to a thing a Listing agent is telling you because you have to first decide where you want to live your life and then just pick out the box and if you don’t like the kitchen, give ‘em 25k less and call it a day or move on. You don’t make money buying your own home. National averages of home ownership have historically been 64% until 2000 and somehow they shot up to the lower 70′s. This will correct itself out and the rules of the game have changed completely to a big Unkown. I can tell you that FMV of a property is what someone is willing to pay. Sorry, you bought for x, but what were the forces that made you pay, Greed, Lack of Information, Plain Stupidity, Untrustworthy sales people. Think about it. It all starts with a lifestyle you want to live and then from there it’s a box you sleep in and raise your kids in.
Agents, get risky and try to innovate. I tried building the site I was just speaking of and found out it would cost me an arm and a leg, so I didn’t do it. I did build a full wire frame etc… and then found out that I don’t know anyone under the age of 14 that knows how to code or a family member who has any idea with coding is. Anyway, sorry for the grammar, but I thought this was something that someone could run with if you know what your actually doing. I would be willing to give you everything because after getting older you have to realize R.O.T. and I’m not looking to spend 90 hours a week anymore. Sorry for the poor grammar, but I thought people needed to see some idea of what a change would look like…..Also, newbie webmasters, do some old school seo and do a link exchange or something. I went to a ton of the sites and they were garbage. Unfortunately, most RE sites are trash and you have little to work with. Sorry for poor the poor grammar.
John
Vinny
August 26th, 2010 6:00 amThere are many nice websites displayed here. I think many real estate agents can benefit by integrating social media on their websites. It’s a great way to easily distribute and share their content and listings, among many other benefits.
Chandrani Jana
September 12th, 2010 9:24 pmReally good site!! Thanks for sharing it.
Sabina Huq
September 13th, 2010 4:28 pmGreat collection of websites. Very inspirational and provides much food for thought!
parry
September 15th, 2010 12:53 amnice list..very inspiring..
Steve
October 12th, 2010 11:59 amNever seen so much beautiful templates together!
Jean Marie
June 15th, 2010 3:44 pmGood review for internationals on the buying process in Portugal. Virtually no graphics, rather flat and boring.
Cherie Young
July 2nd, 2010 1:22 pmI could certainly drop a few names of people that are happy to rip off your designs and sell them to someone else. They are included in this list of so called fab designers.
I never knew that Hartnov’s design was modeled after http://www.2advanced.com/ design for Hawaii. I LOVE THESE GUYS (www.2Advanced). They are light years ahead of the competition and sorry to see that the Hawaii site was clearly used in the concept. http://www.hawaiirealtyinternational.com
You will always be able to watch the trends of a particular design company and creativity or lack of. It takes a village to create some of these masterpieces and it’s sad when someone rips you off. BUT, the never ending creative ones, like 2Advanced will also call their own space and be leaders.
Cherie Young