Real estate investing web sites - 8 golden rules

A web site is a basic necessity of any modern business – including your real estate investing business.

But you must get a web site that serves to make your business easy, profitable and fun to run without being a computer geek. Unless you do proper research, you risk falling into a trap that could not only be expensive, but also a big liability to your real estate investing business.

Here are 8 simple golden rules you must follow to get your real estate investing web site. If you are looking for a first-class web site for your real estate investing business, you must choose the best web sites that will make real estate investing uncomplicated and fun.

Here are a few basic must-do rules for selecting a good real estate investing web site.

1) It must be database-driven
It must be able to collect information into a database and allow you to manipulate it any way you want, such as sending email, importing and exporting data and so on.

Preferably, when someone submits information on the web site, you should receive an email and that information should be loggedinto a database.

2) It must be interactive
The ability to interact with visitors is a crucial, compulsory element of a modern web site, also extremely necessary in your real estate investing business.

You must be able to gather the information you want from motivated sellers, house buyers, or any other visitors that you target in your real estate business.

Your motivated sellers must be able to leave testimonials, a crucial element in real estate investing.

The web site must be simple enough for them to submit their information on the web site rather than make a phone call thereby you receive a fully pre-screened and pre-negotiated deals.

The ability to interact freely on social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook Myspace and others is a basic necessity. Even if you do not use these services, your friends (buyers and real estate investors alike) will share them with their friends in the same media resulting to a quick sale. Most real estate investors today share their properties on these media.

3) It must be easy to use
You do not need to be a computer geek to run a real estate investing web site. Preferably, the web site should be controlled from a virtual back office (admin panel). The front end should completely free of maintenance.

4) It must be adaptable
Your web site must adapt to any real estate investing needs your business takes You should be able to create new pages, add content easily, and create any forms to collect any type of information you want.

5) It must offer numerous designs
You do not want your web site to look like every other web site. It should offer a big selection of designs to choose from and the capability to customize the designs to suit your real estate investing needs. You should be able to keep your brand such as logo or even a custom look if you need to.
Preferably, you should not have to pay extra to choose any design you want.

6) It should offer automation capability
Your real estate investing web site must allow you to create unlimited follow-up autoresponders to handle email campaigns for your motivated sellers, buyers lists or any other lists you manage on your web site.

For example, if you wanted to send out a Thank You message to a motivated seller after they submit their information, all you need to do is to automate an instant message that says something like "Thank you for your enquiry. We will contact you within 24 hours" or something like that.

Similarly, you should be able to create automated reminders to remind you of any important events on your real estate investing business. Your busy schedule should not get in the way of important follow-ups so crucial to successful real estate investing.

7) It must be affordable
Sadly, most real estate investing products are just too expensive. If they do not hit you with a big upfront invoice, they get you stuck with monthly fees. This should not be the case. The web site must allow you to install it and run it from any web hosting account.

Be especially careful with companies that only charge a monthly fee (like $30) with no "setup fee". In reality they offer a template hosting service branded real estate investing web sites that must run on their server. You sign up with them, pay a monthly fee, but they own your web site. The minute you stop paying the monthly fee, your web site will stop working or be deleted altogether along with your business. Do not fall into this trap.
If at all possible, the web site should be a one-time purchase with no strings attached.

8) It must offer free lifetime support and upgrades
When you buy your real estate investing web site, you must get free lifetime support and upgrades. If a web site offers every little thing as a module for an extra fee, run the other way.

These are just a few tips to look out for when shopping for a real estate investing web site. There are many other little things but if you follow these rules, you should be happy with the web site you get.