How much does a real estate website cost

If you a looking for a specific number for how much a real estate website should cost, you won’t find it. Real estate websites can be expensive, very expensive. But that does not mean you can’t get an affordable one. In this post, I am going to show you several options to get a real estate website that will elevate your business without breaking the bank.

You may not need a website

Before we get into the cost of a website, we should first see if you actually need a website. A website is a tool. Like any other tool, you have to take good care of it for you to get the best results. What this means is, just having the website alone will do little to grow your business. If you are not ready or don’t have the capacity yet to keep adding content and promoting your website, you will not enjoy the full benefits of owning a real estate website.

There are several other options to promote your properties online. Social media pages like; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin will give you a lot of reach for free. You may need to pay, to get the best results on some social platforms, especially Facebook. Another popular option to get lots of leads online is using property listing websites. Property listing websites get a lot of traffic from genuine leads. People in a specific stage of their home or property search.

Check out our list of top property marketing websites in kenya.

Why your business should have a website

The first and most common reason why people get a website is to grow the business. This can be through increased lead generation or better brand visibility. Other reasons you may want to get a website are;

To increase your credibility among new customers
Differentiate your brand
Improve service delivery
Automate several aspects of your business
Your customers expect it
Get more listings
Your business can be available 24/7 when you are not
Compete with industry goliaths

The cost of a real estate website

The cost of a real estate website varies a lot. Ask ten web designers, and you get ten different answers. There are three different budget levels for a property website. The price for these may vary depending on the developer but you will always find three different tiers.

Let us look at each one of these budget tiers and see what you get;

Template Website

Est Price: KSH 5,000 - KSH 30,000

Hosting and Support: KSH 5,000 - 15,000 per year

These are websites made using a common template. With a few tutorials, you can easily learn how to create one of these yourself. You can hire a web developer at a very affordable price to set up one of these for you. The developer will customize the template, adding your logo, images, content and brand colours to make it a bit unique.

You will typically be charged a setup fee and the ongoing hosting, security and support service fee only for this type of website.

The biggest benefit of this type of website is the fast development time and affordable price. However, for those benefits, you give up control over the structure and layout of your website. Your website will also look the same, in a way, like many other agents.

Website as a Service

Est Price: KSH 2,000 - KSH 10,000 per month

Hosting and Support: 0

This type of website is provided by marketing or website developers who package a portfolio of online marketing services including a website. For a fixed monthly fee, depending on the developer, you will get a custom property website as well as essential marketing and support. Some developers also include yearly website refreshes. Typically packages include SEO marketing, Content Marketing, Website updates and online ads.

Custom websites

Est Price: KSH 30,000 - KSH 1,000,000

Hosting and Support: KSH 5,000 - 60,000 per year

Custom websites give you complete control over the look and structure of your website. A web developer will work with you and your team to develop design mockups that encompass everything you are trying to accomplish with your website. A typical design phase will include several back and forth between you and your web designer until the design is perfected.

Once the design is complete a website developer will bring your site to life following the design from the first step. You get a website that is unique and the best representation of your brand. You also get to integrate several lead capture features and automation. Most websites will have a contact form, email signups, custom landing pages, analytics integration as well as several more integrations to make capturing and responding to leads a breeze.

For all the benefits of a custom website, you must be ready to part with a hefty amount and be a lot patient as these have a very long turn around period.

How to keep the cost of a real estate website down

One of the best ways to avoid spending much on your website is to use a website designer who specializes in creating real estate websites. You will get the peace of mind of knowing that your project is in good hands. You will also get a better quote as the developer already has most of the technology and processes tuned for efficiency.

The other generalized website designers are going to quote a higher price as they have to develop the entire website architecture, the databases and lead capture integrations from scratch. You end up paying more for a poor quality website.

You should also be careful when choosing developers who build the entire site using WordPress. This can be challenging to update or add more features due to the limitation of the WordPress ecosystem. It also exposes your site to all the vulnerabilities of the WordPress framework, requiring you to frequently update the website. Newer real estate specific website developers will build your website on service-based software that receives regular automatic updates.