Considerations For Your Real Estate Investing Web Sites

What should you consider when setting up your real estate web presence on the Internet.


Technology and the Internet are becoming more and more part of our lives and part of our real estate investing business. Most real estate investors have realized this and have started using databases to track prospects and web sites for marketing, credibility and pre-screening. Many investors face a lot of decisions about what kind of web site they need, and the choices and considerations are somewhat complex. This article deals with considerations when selecting the right web site for your business.



- Should you buy and sell on the same domain? This is one of the most asked questions by real estate investors when deciding to get a web site. The answer is it depends. If you are just getting started, you might decide to buy and sell on the same site. Later as you are doing more transactions and especially if it’s at a very high profit margin, you might want to consider getting a domain just for selling properties. One of the reasons investors combine the two, is the monthly maintenance (hosting) cost. Try finding a real estate web solution that gives you a discount for the second, third etc.. web site.



- Also as you find better domain names, you should be able to change the domain name of your web site and not be charged a fee. Many providers lock you in with the current domain name. You should be able to keep looking for better domain names as you get ideas or as they become available (the majority of domain name expire and are resold on the market).



- You need to be able to reconfigure your site on the fly without having to call anyone, pay or play phone tag. The reason for this is that you will develop a better marketing message as you learn more about the business and your target market. Don’t get lucked into one marketing text on the web site that you can’t change or experiment with. No one but you knows how to best write a good marketing copy (not even the experts – they don’t know your local market).



- One factor to consider is the ability to change the entire look of the site. For example if you plan to market for luxury properties you don’t want cheap junker houses on the site. You might want to auction off properties, you should be able to switch the site on the fly!



- Most web sites collect information from prospects (buyers, sellers, investors etc..). You should have the ability to change the forms to make them longer or shorter based on how much you want to pre-screen the prospects. Also the site should give you the ability to send the collected information to multiple destinations (cell phone, administrator etc…). All information should be logged automatically in a database system and have some type of follow-up procedure. The reason for this is that most deals are made from the second to the seventh contact and the fortunes are in the follow up. The vast majority of real estate investors do not have an efficient way to follow-up when a large number of leads are collected.



- Having the ability to add or remove pages on your site on the fly is critical. For example, if you get an idea for a special report or some type of promotion you can add it to the web site. You should also have the ability to rename all your pages on the web site as you see fit. You should also have the ability to change the position of the pages, for example the special report page might be second in importance, only you know where it should go and you should be able to change it again if it doesn’t work. Marketing is all about testing, testing and testing some more until you get it right!



- If you are wholesaling properties, in addition to listing your properties with maps and comps, you should have the ability to email blast the properties to the list of buyers who registered to receive notifications on your site.



- As your business grows, it would be ideal that you can create sub-accounts and give limited access to your birddogs, administrators etc.. This way they can add properties for example and not be able to see the list of private money investors. You can give access to your answering service for example just for entering prospects that call in and not have access to anything else.



- Support is another critical factor. No matter how simple the system is, you will have a learning curve, and the company should provide some type of support (not just web support) but real estate business support. For example how to build your list, how to market to them, how to set up comps to help you sell and so on. Most web site providers do not deal with the business side of things. Ideally they will have webinars where you can go to and talk to other users of the system so you don’t just learn to develop the best possible web site, but the best possible real estate Internet business that will help you be more profitable.



Obviously it’s hard to get everything listed here, and you probably don’t need everything for your situation. This will give you an idea what to ask when purchasing a system to manage your web presence.