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Stop 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.

thanks

Great article. We have done some pretty nice real estate website design as well, such as http://www.rwm.com.au and http://www.rentmycarpark.com.au

Any idea on how many, if any, were WordPress or other open source templates?

Some more for the list:
http://www.bhgrealestate.com/
http://blueroof360.com

Definitely keep an eye out on http://www.prusantafe.com as well. It’s powered by blueroof and is getting a complete overhaul in the coming months.

We do a lot of Home Builder websites and I’m always looking for new ideas. Good list, thanks.

It’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.

As 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!

http://streetfolio.com is another great real estate website (property management) for homeowners and investors

many of these looks like free templates

Yes! 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.

Nice!.. the websites looks great.

Great site in Charleston, SC

http://www.danielisland.com with awesome home finder … http://www.danielisland.com/Real-Estate/home-finder-search.aspx

Thank 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!

Here is a local site that has taken a minimilist ‘no fluff – its all about the properties’ approach, while sitting inside rigid brand guidelines as far as design are concerned. http://www.remaxpn.co.nz It serves it purpose well, to efficiently show and inform about current properties for sale to proposective buyers. Some of the above possibly serve the designer a little more than the purpose. A nice article and I really like the industry specific showcases which can tend to form trends within themselves as alot are often compared and researched against each other. Cheers.

excellent , thank u sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much

I 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.

What about the new grupo DB website http://www.grupodb.com Link

One more i missing in this list:
http://www.bauhaus-bautraeger.de

All 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.

Great article! There are some really good sites created around the Real Estate Market. Here is an elegant site that features historic properties in Georgia. http://historicrealestateofgeorgia.com/

Thanks for this post! It’s great to see real estate websites becoming more appealing to the eye. I bookmarked this for future reference when these two websites I designed need to be updated:realtyspace.com and realtymillionaire.com.

Hartanov is definitly a rip off of http://www.hawaiirealtyinternational.com (launched in Feb 2006). They clearly got their *inspiration* from this website. Anyone who knows REW and their methods won’t be really surprised, at least I’m not ! Jacob, you should remove this website and give the appropriate rewards to 2advanced….

Have you seen pureutah.com? [http://www.pureutah.com]

Excellent design and UI- among the best that I have seen.

Under 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!

just look how beautiful this layout is Vasundhara Homes

There is also http://www.chambres-guide.com use in France Provence which is beautiful and functional with jQuery

all those sites looks pretty much the same and boring

@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.

I think this Scala Land website (http://www.scalalandgroup.co.uk) works well

thanks, 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!

Beautiful sites!! How can I submit our site for consideration?

Hey, another really good example using some of the great functions suggested from this site… Comerty.com – UK commercial property portal.

Here’s another very unique site, this one is about the world’s Largest Residential Airpark’s leading Real Estate Company, Spruce Creek

Great post. Interesting to see the different creative aspects of the various sites. I came across one for a small developer (The Briarwood Organization), by chance when searching for local developers in the NYC area. I think they did a great job of compiling all of their projects, including pictures and descriptions of each.

Company states to have been around since 1912, very rare that you find a small developer that has lasted through several economic cycles. Check out their site:
http://www.briarwoodorg.com

I think this site has a very nice use of design/layout. . Plus the navigation is easy to use.

SEO is key, but that is not the topic. I believe these are all beautiful, in some way, some more functional than others. As an RE, I know both need to apply. I believe my site (although a template), does both. – http://www.LovingCharlotte.com. A key designers forget about too is the actual IDX (MLS) feeds. This data comes from the local mls, and needs to be very searchable by search engines. Then the data can become more functional, by allowing for Microsoft Maps ariel views or Google Street view. This helps capture the client and keeps a lower bounce rate!

Hey how come our sites don’t show up here? http://www.cherieyoung.com.

http://www.bigislandoceanfront.com is just one of many.

I’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…

…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!

I have found some very good looking sites for real estate in Centralamerica. Check this one out http://www.cccostarica.com

In 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.

How would you rate austintxhomes4sale.com on your list?

Thanks for the help with finding visually great sites. I have lots of new ideas to implement as we develop colinandcarly.com
I hope that 2010 is a prosperous year for everyone in real estate.
Be Blessed,
Colin

thanks a ton.. a real inspiration to build my own website… ty

I’m starting Real Estate Auction in the Niagara Region Canada. Do you have a site for this purpose, example & costs. Looking to start shortly.

Thanks,

Bill

How do you feel about claytonrealtygroup.com?

Very great websites, they looking professionell.
auspuff