Today, most people looking to buy or rent property explore available offers and even decide online. A website for your real estate project plays a crucial role in attracting the right audience and meeting sales targets.
While there are plenty of options for designing a luxury real estate website, from using ready-made templates to hiring a team of professional developers, the best results are usually achieved by working with a web design agency specializing in real estate.
In the article, we’ll review the top 6 real estate web design studios, the main stages of the website design process, and valuable tips on picking the right agency for your project.
Vide Infra
Located in Riga, Latvia, Vide Infra has provided design, UX/UI, and web development services for over 20 years. The studio’s portfolio accumulated award-winning luxury real estate website design works and solutions for fintech, e-commerce, telecoms, and transportation — over 350.
Besides web design, the company may help you with branding, 3D, and print design for your real estate project. Vide Infra conducts full-cycle web development, from initial ideation and business research to QA and support.
Vide Infra’s team consists of 30 people and has received numerous (167+) awards and nominations, including ‘Top 5 Design Agencies Worldwide’ award by CSS Design Awards (2019) and ‘Studio of the Year’ nominee status by Awwwards (2019).
Portfolio highlights: Poklonnaya 9, Eniteo, Composition 24.
Notable clients: General Electric, British Airways, ABLV.
Outpost
UK-based Outpost creative studio has 15 years of experience providing such services as web design, brand strategy and identity, and social media content creation. In its works, the agency aims to achieve a meaningful connection between the audience and the client’s brand and develops unique branding that helps to stand out among competitors.
Having worked with companies in such industries as real estate, automotive, fashion, food & beverage, and others, Outpost has rich cross-industrial expertise.
The agency is regularly nominated for prestigious design awards, including TheFWA, Communication Arts, and CSS Design Awards.
Portfolio highlights: Elite Interior Design, Playa Grande Golf & Ocean Club, Silo Ridge, Mākena Golf & Beach Club.
Notable clients: Jaguar, Luxaflex, Private White V.C., Heineken.
EWM
EWM is a web design & development agency with HQ in Geneva, Switzerland, and offices in 8 countries around the globe. The company provides services ranging from 360° digital marketing to full-cycle web development. At the heart of EMW’s approach lies human centricity and bespoke quality with an ultimate goal to deliver innovation while remaining faithful to a brand’s legacy.
The agency’s outstanding expertise can be clearly seen in numerous works for clients in the fields of real estate, transport, social initiatives, and others. EWM’s name can also be regularly seen among various design awards winners and nominees.
Portfolio highlights: ROUSSEAU N°5, Size., RIVACANTU, Aesthetics Clinic.
Notable clients: LeCrans, Lamborghini, Naef Investissement, Bernard Nicod.
RUYA
With offices in UAE, US, and Argentina, Ruya is a full service visual, branding, and digital business strategy agency.
During its 8 years in the industry, the agency has partnered with over 150 companies in the spheres of real estate, hospitality, and government-supported initiatives. In its work approach, Ruya defines four main points: excellence in performance; work-life balance; combining tradition with innovation; being always one step ahead.
Ruya’s projects have received many awards, including Transform Magazine Awards, The Webby Awards, and others.
Portfolio highlights: Federal Youth Authority, Richland Real Estate, Emirates Nation Brand, FIVE Palm Jumeirah.
Notable clients: MERAAS, St, Regis, Henkl, EMAAR.
Fleava
Fleava digital agency is based in Singapore and Bali, Indonesia.
The company provides a full spectrum of digital services, including branding, web & app development, marketing, strategy, and media production.
While working with clients, Fleava discovers ways to improve long-term business growth by better brand quality, digital innovations, and creative impressions.
The studio’s portfolio counts numerous brands in real estate, consumer electronics, cosmetics, and restaurant industries. Since its foundation in 2017, Fleava projects have received over 50 awards and nominations.
Portfolio highlights: Samsara Ubud, Club Raia, Boga Group, Jannata Resort.
Notable clients: The Body Shop, Canon, McDonald’s, Marriott.
Luxury Presence
Luxury Presence is a California-based company that creates an all-in-one digital platform for growing real estate brands online. The company’s software tools include website templates, one-click property websites, and a modern MLS search tool, as well as SEO, Google PPC, and social media advertising services. Luxury Presence’s clients include some of the top real estate agents in the US. Since 2014, the company has helped to launch tens of unique websites for luxury real estate objects all around the world.
Portfolio highlights: Hilton & Hyland, Carlin Wright, Arlene Rutenberg.
Notable clients: Coldwell Banker, Compass, Keller Williams Realty.
Real Estate Website Design Process
When choosing a website design partner, it is essential to understand how the web development process looks beforehand. In this part, we’ll look at the five main stages of website development.
Strategy & concept
Creating a website begins with analyzing the market and competitors, and defining the target audience and website user flows. These insights and data are then used in the website’s concept ideation. As a result of this stage, you’ll have the project’s concept and a list of goals your website has to achieve based on thorough business research.
Defining the scope of works
This stage is when your website’s concept meets reality. Here you define what works to achieve the desired result and list them according to their priority. Then activities are placed on a timeline in a chart or spreadsheet. In the end, you’ll have a detailed roadmap to the website’s launch with milestones.
Site map & wireframes
Before full-scale development, a design agency begins with prototyping the future website. Firstly, they create a sitemap, a scheme of the website’s architecture with details of every page, their relations to each other, and overall navigation. Wireframes are schematic views of every page that serve as a guide to its design elements and content hierarchy. Depending on their digitalisation, wireframes can be low or high-fidelity. The final prototyping stage is the creation of a website’s MVP (minimum viable product) — a working version of a website consisting of its most essential features.
Design & development
The main stage of a website’s creation involves both designers and programmers. While the former design visual elements of the website, including color schemes, typefaces, interactive buttons, and animations according to the brand’s DNA, the latter code this all into actual functioning webpages. The coding process can also be divided into front and back-end development: the development of what people see when visiting the website and underlying logic and server-side architecture.
Testing
The website’s testing process overlaps with its development. Thorough testing is a critical step that helps ensure stability, regular operation of the website’s elements, and compatibility with various OSes and devices. The stage includes multiple tests focused on different aspects of the project, such as functionality, security, performance, usability, and others.
Launch and post-release maintenance
This highly anticipated step includes the website’s transfer to a live server, making it finally available to visitors worldwide. However, the release is never a complete end of the website development process. There are always things to improve, as well as bugs to catch. Post-release maintenance is a set of continuous activities aimed at keeping the website fully operational, in line with the latest web design trends, and supported by the latest platforms.
How to Choose a Web Design Agency
When searching for a web design studio, it is not uncommon for one to find themself being overwhelmed by a variety of offers and not knowing how to pick the best option. In this part, we’ll give a few tips on how to choose an agency that can create a great real estate website for you.
Don’t limit your search to a local area
While looking for web developers whom you can quickly meet in person at your office is logical, there are only a handful of reasons to limit your search area to a particular city or region.
Modern technologies make it easy to stay in touch and conduct regular online syncs with an offshore agency team, while various fintech solutions help to streamline cross-border payment processes. The main advantage of hiring offshore developers is that you can get the same level of quality for a smaller price.
For example, developers from Central and Eastern Europe have hourly wages of $50-70, standing in stark contrast to their US-based colleagues who have hourly rates in the $100-200 range. As a result, hiring an offshore design team can save you ⅓ – ½ of the project’s budget.
Review portfolio
By picking a design team with superior experience in designing real estate websites, you can be more or less sure they will do a satisfactory job for your real estate project.
However, if the team does only one type of project for a single industry, there is a risk of them repeating their design solutions, which can make your website quite similar to their previous projects.
Here, cross-industrial expertise gained from working in various fields helps — a diverse portfolio shows that a design agency can adapt to clients’ requests, get genuinely involved in the process and create a unique product. So, our tip is to look for web design teams with real estate expertise but don’t limit themselves to one industry.
Pay attention to the first impression, team size, and culture
When choosing a real estate website development partner, remember that the work can take several months or even a year to complete, so carefully review all aspects essential for a long-term partnership.
See how they act during the initial meeting: do they show a genuine interest in your project or are ready to start immediately, aiming to make money quickly?
The studio’s project manager is likely to be the person you’re going to interact most frequently with, so look for signs of mutual understanding and a sort of ‘professional chemistry’ right from the start.
Also, pay attention to the agency’s size. While large companies can offer very competitive rates, it is more likely that their creative process has similarities to a conveyor belt — you’ll get a website fast but it won’t be unique or good at reflecting your brand identity. Small and mid-size studios work on fewer projects at once and have a more flexible working process, meaning they can dedicate more attention to your project and adapt the development to your requirements.
Check reviews
Lastly, it is always a good practice to learn about a web design studio from a client’s perspective is always a good practice. It is excellent if you know those who have worked with an agency before and can ask for their advice. Still, if not, reviews from Clutch and Trustpilot can aid in learning more about the company, the quality of its work and overall client satisfaction.
What Materials Are Required for Creating an Award-winning Real Estate Website
Website designers depend heavily on initial requirements and available materials, as in any design-related discipline. As a car that won’t run well on the wrong fuel, designers won’t be able to come up with outstanding work in the absence of quality source materials. If you want to create a remarkable design for your luxury real estate project, then the following initial materials would greatly help your selected website design agency achieve your goal.
- The project presentation provides a complete overview of the property — number of apartments, amenities, design elements, location etc. The more your design team understands the project, the better they will be equipped to highlight any critical points for customer communication on the website.
- A brand book provides a comprehensive visual identity guide, positioning overview, and key messages that may be used in communication. These would give the website design team a clear understanding of how to present the project to differentiate it effectively against the competition and how to present it visually so that the website is in complete tune with other marketing communication activities.
- 3D renders that offer high-quality, artistic visualization of the project. As we consume about 70% of information visually, images of the property are essential to convey your message. Top-grade, photorealistic renders will make your prospects envision their life in the property and significantly help you create desire, so invest well in creating genuinely great ones.
- Property and apartment plans communicate the property’s layout without clutter and redundant details. Make sure you offer your prospects not architectural blueprints with messy technical details but beautifully prepared plans with furniture and elegant design.
- Text is essential to understand the website’s structure and what could be shown and told on every page. The better text you may provide your website design team, the richer website you may come up with.
