10 companies that build great real estate websites in 2020

        (Listed Alphabetically)  

 

 

1. Agent Image 
2. BoomTown 
3. Dakno
4. Easy Agent Pro
5. InboundREM
6.  Luxury Presence
7. Placester
8. Real Estate Webmasters
9. Real Geek
10. Sierra Interactive

 

Real Estate Website Service Updates 2018 Thru 2020

 

Each year in August (End of summer) I review and publish a list of companies making the best real estate websites on the planet. From August of 2018 through December of 2019 and into January of 2020 there has been a single change in my list of recommended companies. Luxury presence joins the list of the top 10 replacing Resi. There have been many changes in price and service options from the companies that remain in the top 10. Here is a brief list of the companies that had the greatest changes in price, service or company structure. Jump down to the company reviews to find out the full details of any changes. 

 

• Real Estate Webmasters – Price and technology changes
• InboundREM – Price and technology changes
• Easy Agent Pro – Client Acquisition Strategy change due to ongoing product dev.
• BoomTown – Adds major ancillary services and changes it’s pricing and service features
• Placester – Significant pricing and design changes

 

 

I’ve worked for, competed against or founded the companies that make some of the best real estate websites on the planet. This blog post will show you how to buy the real estate website that best suits your needs and your marketing budget. This post has been updated at the very end of December of 2019 and the information should be considered current through December of 2020. I’ll be updating the infographics that have out of date pricing for 2019. Each company has a forward that will indicate that I reviewed their offerings from August of 2018 through December of 2019. Most years see some minor changes in what real estate marketing companies have to offer in terms of websites. 2018-2020 had a lot of changes from the major players. 

 

                                       If you have found and are reading this post for the first time START HERE.

 

Which type of real estate website do you need?

IMPORTANT NOTE: Most great real estate websites should focus on a primary objective. Knowing what your main goal is when buying a real estate website will make selecting a vendor much easier.

Real Estate Websites fall into three broad categories. ALL real estate websites have secondary features that enhance their core offering. I’ve listed the most common secondary features.

• Lead Generation – The websites might look the same but the companies that supply these websites design their service offering around producing leads. It’s their core purpose.
• Brand/Custom Design – The primary objective is to look different/better than your competitors. While these companies might claim/offer lead generation their core competency is creating a brand.
• Search/IDX – The primary of these companies is to offer a unique search experience. They might claim/offer lead generation, but their core competency is the actual search experience.
• Secondary competencies : 
  • CRM = Customer Record Management
  • CMS = Content Management System
  • Email Marketing =  As an integrated service connected to the website
  • Lead Management – Giving you a dashboard you or your agents can log into and manage communication with leads.
  • Landing Pages – The ability to create a special web page that would be a part of a marketing funnel
  • SEO – Creating great content on your behalf or giving you the mechanism to create it yourself.
  • Drip marketing = Automated emails sent to prospects that have registered with your website

 

Real Estate Lead Generation Websites Defined 

Real Estate Website companies focused on building websites that generate leads spend a lot of time building services around attracting and maintaining prospective clients.  Real Estate Lead generation sites will usually be templated designs because the companies that make them understand what the audience’s reaction to those particular designs will be. They can then give their prospective customers lead generation estimates based on facts and research as opposed to guesses. Each time you make a real estate web developer change design in a significant way they no longer have a fact-based experience to estimate lead generation. Small changes can occasionally result in big differences in lead generation percentages.  You do not own these websites (Except for InboundREM ). They use direct advertising(Except InboundREM who uses SEO AND direct advertising)  to generate traffic by spending money on Google Adwords, Facebook Marketing, and occasionally automated Craigslist posting. Prices range from $500-$5,000 set up with monthly costs between $750-$5000 M/O. Relevant examples of companies that fall exclusively/primarily into this category would be Boom Town, Real Geeks, and InboundREM.

 

 

 

 

 

Real Estate IDX Websites Defined

 

   IDX = Information Data Exchange. Any MLS that exchanges information with a real estate technology company is engaged in an Information Data Exchange. Any company I have put into this category is there BECAUSE THE MAIN SELLING FEATURE OF THEIR WEBSITE PACKAGES IS THE SEARCH EXPERIENCE. The secondary services they offer will often mirror those of a Real estate lead generation website which makes understanding the difference between real estate website providers a little difficult. One main way to define a true lead generation company is the way that they support the website. Both InboundREM and BoomTown provide end to end solutions where the only task the client has to do is manage leads (Boomtown and IREM both require some learning but this is a managed process with resources dedicated to stepping you through the process). ALL other providers make the client LEARN how to get leads from the website they are being provided with. If you fail to follow these companies’ tutorials(If the companies have tutorials at all),  they will promptly tell you the reason you are not getting leads is you are not using the website correctly. IMO a true lead generation company takes all that guesswork away from the client and if there is service education required it’s based on educating real estate teams on how to access and work leads.  A quick way to identify how RICH a real estate IDX website search experience is supposed to be is the price.  Prices range from $0-5000 set up and $56-1000 M/O.

 

 

 

Custom Real Estate Website Design Defined

 The primary reason you should seek custom design is if you have determined creating a unique brand is central to your real estate business goals. Luxury real estate agents are the number one consumers of this kind of real estate website. Custom design projects tend to be very difficult because to do them well you need a lot of detail and 80% of the time you do not have a client capable of giving you the technical/design specifications to pull off these projects without a lot of redos. ALL the companies listed in this category tend to customize PART of a website like the home page leaving the rest of the pages on the website pre-designed. Full custom(every page on the website designed to a clients specification) websites START at $10,000, and very few teams or agents would see a return on investment unless a site redesign/design was done in tandem with an expert level SEO/UX specialist AND an aggressive SEO campaign was scheduled for after launch. 

 

 

 

 

                    

Agent Image |  Semi-Custom Real Estate Websites 

 

 

 

Agent Image is Comparable to: InboundREM,Real Estate Webmasters

 

Agent Image Service and pricing updates for 2019/2020

 

In 2018/19 Agent image raised it’s hosting service pricing from $79 dollars to $99 dollars. This price increase was universal and applied automatically without notification to their account base. Something that is allowable under their TOC’s but wasn’t hugely popular with their customers. I am not currently familiar with all of their hosting environment protocols though I can say historically this is an area they made a lot of mistakes in. They may have raised their base prices by a couple of hundred dollars. As of September 2019, I am awaiting confirmation on a number of facts/details. All of the company officers updated their Linked In profiles over the last year. I haven’t met with them personally, but it appears Jon still manages finances Tiger check’s in on operations or combines the operations of his startup August 99 with Agent Image and manages both simultaneously and Luigi is probably running his online magazine and maybe surfing every so often.

Agent Image has focused heavily on it’s Google reviews in the last two years adding 452 reviews mostly 4.9 stars and above. On the other side of the coin, they had quite a few additions on Yelp almost 50% of which were extremely negative and the Trulia thread continues to grow which leads me to believe they have dialed in ASKING for reviews from anyone that had a positive experience. They are doing 50-70 projects a month at a minimum and for whatever reason, in terms of leaving unasked for reviews, YELP is still one of the top platforms. This ultimately leaves most of what I wrote in 2017 when I added this company to the top 10 list as valid. They stay on the list from August 2019 through August of 2020.

As with previous years, this company is producing a website you own with no integrated CRM. It is a branding website developer with mediocre lead generation solutions.

 

 

 

Agent Image Custom Real Estate WordPress Website Examples :

 Agent Image Custom Website Example – The Altman Brothers | Custom Solutions are 10k+

Agent Image Imagine Studios Website Example #1 | Fairfield County Ct| Brokerage

  Agent Image Semi-Custom Website Example #2 | Los Angeles CA | Luxury

 Agent Image Semi-Custom Website Example #3 | Florida | Luxury

Agent Image Website Pricing:

Agent Pro (WordPress real estate template website) – $1500-1800

Semi-Custom (WordPress real estate website with a customized homepage) – $2500-3000

Imagine Studio(WordPress website with customized homepage and interior page layout)  – $5500-8500

Custom Websites are $10-100k

Monthly Hosting was raised in 2019 to $99 per month (from $79 without notice or notification to their account base)

Agent Image Reviews:  

Agent Image Google Reviews [400] 4.7 stars out of 5       

 Agent Image Trulia reviews [200]Mostly Negative and far more detailed

 Agent Image Yelp [400]+ 3.5 stars avg.                      

LEADERSHIP/COMPANY SUMMARY: Agent Image

DISCLOSER: I worked for Agent Image from 2007 through 2010.

Agent Image has been making custom real estate websites since 2000. They have produced more than 18,000 LIVE websites which makes them the Number ONE custom real estate website company by a long margin.

Agent Image was founded 17 years ago as a division of The Design People to focus exclusively on Real Estate.  The founders are:

Tiger Bitanga  currently CEO Also Founder of August 99

Jon Krabbe currently CFO

Luigi Amante currently  Board of Directors

These three established The Design People out of an apartment nearly two decades ago. Tiger originally from the Philippines saw an opportunity to get high-quality design work done at a fraction of US prices and moved back to Manila to open up the design and operations side of the business. Jon and Luigi stayed in the states to manage the sales side of the business. This is how Agent Image operates in 2019. The day to day operations in Manila and the sales efforts in the U.S. are the primary responsibility of two key employee’s:

*ADDENDUM ( In September I met with Jon Krabbe and he reported that Mike Bitanga is no longer President of Manila, Mike’s LinkedIn page shows him still currently employed by The Design People the parent company of Agent Image. While I am sure Jon’s information was passed on accurately I am looking for a second source connected to the Philippines division before removing Mike from this article entirely)

Mike Bitanga – President of The Design people and Tigers brother. Operations in Manila.

Gregg Pitzele – Vice President of Sales – The Design People. He runs Sales for Agent Image in the states.

Agent Image – WEBSITE AND SERVICE DESCRIPTION: Link to detailed website “build information.”

Unlike most of its competitors, Agent Image does allow its customers ownership of their websites. They DO NOW ALLOW unauthorized plug-ins to be installed into your WordPress website so if you have some experience with websites this will be frustrating.

Agent Image has three website design options (with a possible hidden fourth option). The reason for the pricing differential is Agent Image allows its salespeople a “back pocket” discount they can offer if they feel a client is close to making a purchase but needs a little more incentive. Some salespeople simply quote the lowest possible price when you call in.

• Template (You choose from a predetermined selection of designs that you cannot alter much) $1500-$2000 
• Semi-Custom (You create a custom homepage, and  the rest of the website is a template) $2500-$3500
• Imagine Studios (A hybrid between full custom and Semi-Custom) $5000-$8500 
• Full Custom (All elements of a website design customized and potentially custom functionality as well) $10,000 – $25,000
• You have TWO options for IDX. I home finder OR IDX broker cost is comparable, but IDX broker is the much better choice. $36-56 m/o

Agent Image DOES NOT set up your search tools(IDX) for conversion. You will have to ask them to do it, and all they will do is activate a predetermined setting which usually produces mediocre results. NO ONE in either division is truly trained in Real estate website lead conversion though a couple of salespeople in the U.S. can talk a good game. If you purchase an Agent Image website go to YouTube and research lead conversion settings for the IDX provider you chose. Here is a video tutorial l I did in 2010 for IDX broker. It’s still viable today and should increase conversion considerably.

Agent Image ALSO has marketing options for both Direct Advertising (Google Adwords + Facebook marketing) and Search Engine Optimization. In 2011 the part of Agent Image that focused on marketing was purchased by the CEO at the time. The division and its employees left. Since then Agent Image has done marketing out of the Philippines. I cannot speak to the direct advertising solutions, but I am 100% sure their SEO packages are years out of date. Any readers that have Agent Image websites or purchased marketing in the last 3-4 years can set an appointment with me, and I’ll show you what a successful SEO strategy would look like in 2020.

Video Review | Agent Image | Custom Real Estate Websites

Boomtown service and pricing updates for 2020

 

 In 2019 I was a little behind and expect this information to be pretty current from August of 2019 through August of 2020. For BoomTown I was able to source information that contradicted the pricing information that I originally published in 2017. Since Boomtown does NOT publish its pricing I rely on customer intelligence. None of MY Boomtown clients were able to confirm a pricing change in 2019 so I left pricing static. The changes that were published elsewhere claimed that Boomtown had created a different product for smaller teams or individuals. That product REQUIRED a $250.00 per month PPC spend on top of the published rates available in this review/writeup. I will update this article as required if I receive incontrovertible proof Boomtown has changed its packages. I’ve had to alter the details of BoomTowns offer very little since 2017 when I first added them to this list and I’ve had no reason to update the video review I did in 2017. I DID update their reviews section in 2020.

Boomtown Website Examples:

Boulder Co. | Brokerage 15 offices| Example 1 

C21 | 6 offices | North Carolina | Example 2 

BoomTown Website Prices

$1500.00 Set up (One Time)

$1500.00 per month Licensing Fee 1-25 Active Users  +$35 for every additional user after 25

BoomTown Online Advertising Costs ( This is 100% necessary to generate leads) 

3-5 Agents $1000 Per month

5-10 Agents $1500 per month

10-30 Agents $2000 per month

There is an additional 15% Ad spend management fee.

Seller Lead Suite: $250 per month

BoomTown Reviews:

Active Rain Boom Town Reviews [6] 3 of 5 stars avg. 

G2 Crowd Boom Town Reviews [100] 9/10 

Updated in August of 2019.

LEADERSHIP/COMPANY SUMMARY: Boom Town

BoomTown was founded in 2006 by Grier Allen. Their company picture has 56 employees, located in South Carolina. (according to a press release in 2017 they grew to 96 employees from 56. Other websites in 2019 identify them as having upwards of 250 employees) There has been no reliable update on how many employees they have in 2019. 

Officers and their roles:

Grier Allen CEO

Rivers Pierce Director of Inbound Marketing                     Meet Rivers Pierce

Don Sedora  Director of Product Development (He is listed as an officer of the company but has a LinkedIn profile that states he is a consultant)

The company has been fast-tracking since 2006. They’ve made the INC 500 four years running.  They are the recommended lead generation company of Keller Williams and famously noted as a key ingredient to Ben Kinney’s meteoric success. The company has expanded into a renovated warehouse and has high ratings from the employee’s on glassdoor. The outward product and the internal reviews make this company the one to watch in the real estate marketing space. My only note here is this company is ripe for acquisition. They sought and received 20 million in a private bond release. This was the first time Boom Town sought or received funding which makes them unique in the tech space. [source]

WEBSITE AND SERVICE DESCRIPTION: Link to detailed BoomTown website “build information.”

• You do not own your BoomTown website.
• BoomTown websites are “Templates.” This means all Boom Town websites look similar to one another.
• BoomTown builds their websites on WordPress
• They manage customers information and behavior
• They provide one look “lead management” dashboards so a broker can see lead status and last contact in real-time
• Boomtown provides dedicated account managers that train agents and brokers on using the platform
• Boomtown will import existing leads
• While Boomtown talks a lot about SEO and shows signs of being able to apply SEO they are targeting mostly lower value terms for themselves and their clients backed with very FUNCTIONAL content pages but not very deep or interesting ones. IE: On a scale of 1-10 I would give Boomtown a 5 for SEO at least from a “what do their results” indicate standpoint.  My Video Review covers this topic in detail.

BoomTown SEO ADDENDUM: Boomtown might be adding in SEO as a “value-add” meaning they include it as part of their licensing fee. Any results that you get are a bonus. My analysis shows results that would match that kind of “marketing expectation.”

 

 

 

BoomTown Video Review | Real Estate Lead Generation Websites

 

 

                       Dakno Marketing | Custom Real Estate Websites  

 

Dakno Service and pricing updated 2019/2020

 

December  2019 update:  InboundREM Inc. the company I founded finally managed to get a Dakno customer to talk to us. His report should be taken with a grain of salt since he is ONE client AND we talked to him in the context of transferring his website over to us. The website which had worked well for many years was never updated by Dakno. I did get a chance to walk through the back end and while it was decent it also wasn’t comparable to any of the high-end options like BoomTown, or Real Estate Webmasters. Closest I could compare it to would be Boston Logic. My client was/is transferring leads to Follow Up boss which is comparable and by my estimate better than most of the back ends that are available. There is an additional cost($199.00) to pursue this solution. I have checked and updated all the Dakno example links and as near as I can tell prices, website examples, officer roles are all accurate in the latter part of 2019. One weird thing is Dakno has added ONE review on Google in two years. Once again I will comment that for a company that claims to be a “marketing company” they certainly don’t seem to pay much attention to marketing.   

Dakno Marketing Website Examples:

Danko Real Estate Website Example 1 | Dayton Beach FL| Small Team 

Los Angeles | Agent | Example 2 

Northern Virginia | Agent | Example 3 

Dakno Website Pricing 

Dakno Blog – $199

Signature Sites (Semi-Custom) – $849

Select Custom Sites – $1249

Full Custom – $1599

Dakno Marketing Prices SEO & PPC 

SEO = $560 OR $1125

PPC = $150 set up and unspecified management fee

Dakno Hosting|IDX|Management Cost

$139 M/O

Dakno Marketing Reviews

Glassdoor 7 reviews 2 of 5 stars

Google Reviews  [27]  4.8/5

LEADERSHIP/COMPANY SUMMARY: Dakno Marketing

Dakno Marketing was founded in 2003 by Brad Carroll. Dakno appears to have almost as many “live” websites as Agent Image which is 20,000+

Officers and their roles:

Brad Carroll  CEO – Marketing Consultant  – Flickr 

Bobby Carroll    Vice President  – Google Plus 

The reviews from CUSTOMERS about Dakno are stellar. I read all 26. Glass Door which is a website that allows employees to review their employer anonymously is exactly the opposite. Anything you don’t have to attach your name to shouldn’t be given as much weight as reviews that are attached to verifiable human beings. In this case, having carefully combed through every social profile and every review the evidence points in the direction of the glass door reviews being accurate. You should read them.

Brad Carroll seems to be an active voice in the digital marketing space. His social media profiles show him at various conferences and marketing “masterminds.” Despite complaints of low pay and long hours his company manages to deliver 5-star service. However, you need to pay close attention to my review of their website and service description:

WEBSITE AND SERVICE DESCRIPTION: Link to detailed Dakno Marketing Website “build information.” 

• You do not own your Dakno website
• Dakno’s design aesthetics are not comparable to Agent Image | Real Estate Webmasters| But Dakno is 50% less
• Dakno builds their websites on a proprietary CMS  – this isn’t as good for you as WordPress
• Dakno makes an IDX plug-in for WordPress
• IDX is INFERRED to be responsive (property results will work well on cell phones)
• Danko imports leads from Zillow,Trulia,Realtor.com
• Email Campaign functionality from within the platform.
• Round robin and first come first serve lead distribution
• Future updates are free and promised

Closing thoughts about Danko Marketing:  

This is one of the few real estate website companies on this list where I haven’t even SEEN the Danko back-end management system. Whether it performs as described is any one’s guess. There are NOT a ton of complaints online that I could find, so that is a good sign. There isn’t one single training video OR case study showing the Danko platform in use. The training videos are to be expected. They might not be accessible to the public. The case study is surprising. If they have that good of a tool why wouldn’t they demonstrate results via youtube?

Brad and Bobby Carroll both profess to be online marketing experts yet their social media, and their SEO on the Dakno corporate website is sub-par compared to almost every other company in the TOP 10, and they have been in business far longer. Their SEO packages are HORRIBLY out of date. I wish I could say for certain having seen the way their back end operates but my BELIEF with all available evidence is newer competitors like Easy Agent Pro or Placester both deliver a better starter website, and Real Geeks delivers a far better lead generation website all for a significantly lower investment. These newer options offer better online training and verifiable online case studies.  Love to hear from Danko customers past, or present and see what YOU thought about this company. If anyone wants to PM their Danko login, I’ll do a detailed analysis and update this review/comparison.

 

Dakno Marketing | Video Review 

 

Google Maps and Google Earth Integration

• We won’t go into a deep dive here. But you’ve never seen an integration like the one we are talking about.

Drag and drop editor

• Taking advantage of the latest advances in the WordPress platform our websites can be edited in minutes instead of hours or days creating a wildly adaptable website that is cheaper to maintain and will last 200-300% longer than most of it’s competitors due to being able to change the look and feel as technology and consumer tastes change.