Due to high competition in the market, property companies are continuously looking for new ways of publishing unique listings and easing the daunting ordeal of searching for and purchasing a house/commercial property.
User-friendly property listing portals are the solution.
Listing portal custom software development suits real estate companies that want to market their listings to clients in a visually appealing and informative way, all from a single source of truth and at a click of a button.
The main goal here is to let the client surf through the listings, choose the best-suited items, and contact brokers for further info without leaving a website.
Even though property portals have proven to be a fast-paced and convenient method to retain old and reach out to new target audiences, property companies face challenges in building listing portals with the right features for promoting properties, communicating with clients, and closing deals.
At Ascendix, we have a proven track record in building property listing portals for many residential and commercial real estate companies of different sizes. Having built several successful listing portals, we know what features should be added.
Therefore a list of core features for the custom listing portal includes:
In this article, we’ll discuss in detail all the mentioned-above features and explain how they help your listing portal to meet the competitive edge in the current market.
CRE brokers, real estate agents, property managers and other industry specialists, need to promote and market their listings by publishing marketing collaterals, so users can observe listings on the portal.
It becomes possible when your listing portal includes a publication tool with open listings indexation and search optimization.
Example of Property Listing Template (Preview) in Composer Online
Our team has analyzed many property listing portals and concluded that most listing portals aren’t SEO optimized, meaning that there are close-to-zero chances that your listings will show up in Google search results.
Listing visibility issues can be solved in 2 ways:
In one click, users get listings with proper headings, titles with correct tags, semantic structure (search engine will understand the relevant data placement on the website), optimized alt name of the listing (usually property address), and URLs.
How it works: when you publish a property listing on the website, Google receives information about new pages. To make them Google-friendly, they must have a proper semantic structure and heading hierarchy to be indexed.
Our team knows how to make your listing appear in Google search results by transforming your listing portal into a new customers’ marketing channel for brokers. No manual adding; everything is automated.
In case of technical issues or regular maintenance, you don’t have to worry about positioning published listings in Google while your system is down. We know how to provide SEO-friendly maintenance that signals Google not to make any changes on the website during system downtimes.
We’ve got 2 decades of expertise in real estate and SaaS development. Trust your project to Ascendix professionals.
The ability to filter property search results is essential for home buyers. No one wants to scroll through hundreds of listings that do not fit search criteria.
In terms of searching capabilities, there are 2 types of listing portals:
The ability to narrow down search options by applying filters and through API makes it easier to find and save properties clients want to talk over with your agent.
That’s why, having advanced search capabilities is a must-have feature for listing portal.
Users can perform complex searches of listings and availabilities by applying custom search filters, geolocation features, and geomapping tools (draw areas on the map to find relevant properties), price facets (you can set up price ranges and get categorized results).
Also, by filling in various search fields with required data, users get search results with different levels of relevance. In other words, you can search terms like “list001, 554McCenney street, sale, buy”, and get the results based on the number of mentions of these search terms.
Listing portals can be easily integrated with email platforms like Mailchimp.
Let’s walk through the process of marketing your property listing via email automation tools.
For example, listing platform and Mailchimp have common Contacts and marketing lists. To market specific listing to the Contacts from Marketing lists, you need:
Step 1: Fill in a form with basic data (campaign name, email subject, preview text, sender and receiver information) + add link for the promoted property listing, so clients can click and browse it on your listing portal
Step 2: Choose an email template
Step 3: Choose the listings you want to promote
Step 4: Choose marketing list (it is a list of prospective clients)
Step 5: Generate an email template that you’ll send to clients. Make a preview and send a test email to make sure everything looks fine.
Step 6: Start sending ready-made personalized emails to the clients from marketing lists.
You don’t need to fill in client details manually, create HTML templates, and track whether your emails are in spam folder. The cadence, design, and list of prospective clients are automated for you.
Ascendix team can build a listing portal that can be integrated with any email automation tool.
The two-sided synchronization of the listing portal with any CRM (Salesforce, Dynamics 365, etc.) simplifies the daily workflow for brokers and agents.
Thanks to the sync with CRM, you can easily pass along data about where your leads came from, the pages they visited and more. All that data helps you tailor your follow-up and measure the ROI on marketing spend.
Also, synchronization with a CRM empowers users with an advanced filtering system that allows setting rules that records should meet for successful creation and update during the sync. Users can also deactivate previously synced records with the help of the post-synchronization cleaning feature that removes items that no longer match filter criteria.
Your listing portal must have an intuitive design. Users won’t spend much time wandering across your portal and trying to figure out how it all works: if they can’t find something in 3 seconds, they quit your website.
The best solution here is to invest in advanced UI/UX design, create customizable search experiences so customers can filter their search results while system users can publish/update their listings at a click of a button.
Property listing management is about having a clear understanding of relationships and responsibilities.
This core feature allows users to set up relationships between properties, listings, availabilities, and brokers in a CRM system.
The aim is to prevent brokers from drowning in the endless sea of information that have to deal with daily.
Let us briefly explain how it works.
When prospects visit the property listing portal and find an interesting listing, they click on it and fill out the form to contact the agent. The system generates a lead for the broker upon filling out that form.
Then, brokers engage with them via phone calls and e-mail. This old-school workflow could be possible with a small number of prospects. However, as the number increases, brokers have more chances to mess up and lose leads.
To help brokers leverage more technology and automate communication processes, our team created solutions called collaboration rooms and deal rooms.
Using them, brokers can conduct private discussions and maintain a digital relationship with prospects without leaving a platform.
Adding this feature to your real estate marketplace is a must. When brokers assume a prospect’s qualification, they should be able to create a deal room with an autogenerated email for a specific lead which invites them to join the room for further discussion.
To accept the invitation, prospects should accept the terms of the confidentiality agreement, and this process grants a high-security level of further collaboration.
Such rooms will be a single place for storing and sharing sensitive content and deal evaluation in real-time for both parties of the deal.
Interface of Deal Room in MarketSpace
A functional, well-designed website aligned with your listing portal will showcase your listings, tell your story, and generate leads.
Ascendix’s groundbreaking Proptech practice, the first of its kind among leading real estate software development companies, combines 16+ years of experience in real estate and market-savvy technology solutions. At Ascendix, we have built multiple real estate software products and solutions, so we know how to do that right.
Our team has a deep understanding of:
Ascendix PropTech practice offers a unique hybrid of experience and forward-thinking tech services that come hand-in-hand with the needs of our clients. Leveraging our solid experience in building custom software solutions and property listing portals, we aim to assist our clients in capturing more growth opportunities.
We can help commercial and real estate businesses increase profitability by focusing on customer acquisition and services. Read our case studies and contact us to discuss your project.
The creation of a custom property listing portal is a complex process. Here’s a list of approximate steps required to build a solution from scratch.
Step 1. Find a vendor to start property listing software development
Step 2. Discuss the project requirements and scope of tasks
Step 3. Set up the list of features, functionality, and tech stack, and create a roadmap
Step 4. Create MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
Step 5. UI/UX Design
Step 6. Developing & Testing
Step 7. Integration & Training
Step 8. Continuous Support
If you already have a listing portal, our team offers technology migration, customization & maintenance of the existing portal. Feel free to contact us.
The cost of the project depends on the scope of features, tech stack, selected development methodology, number of specialists required for development, and their hourly rates.
Request a quote, and we’ll be glad to make an estimation of your listing portal development.
Kateryna specializes in creating engaging content about CRM software development for Legal Services and custom software development. In her articles, she provides relevant data, stats, business tricks and makes overviews and guides of new technology trends and CRM updates.
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