7 Trends to help your Real estate portal stand out

Today, more and more real estate companies are using dedicated portals to promote their services and bring together prospective buyers and sellers or renters and tenants. And, according to Statista, real estate websites have yielded the expected results so far, visited more than 120 million times each month over 2021.

Yet, with the proliferation of real estate portals, many companies are struggling to stay competitive and maximize audience reach. The most forward-looking of them solve this issue by implementing emerging technologies through real estate portal development. Here are some new features to incorporate into your real estate portal to stand out in the modern market.

 

7 real estate portal trends

 

1.   Neighborhood guides

The quality of life in the house greatly depends on the surroundings and basic amenities nearby. This is why the availability of stores, local businesses, transportation services, schools, and clinics greatly affect buyers’ decisions. Therefore, integrating detailed neighborhood information into your real estate portal can significantly improve user experience.

This is the information worth including in your neighborhood guide:

  • Real estate statistics. Provides insight into general neighborhood information such as average home prices, average selling time, or new events in the area.
  • For example, if a young family is buying a home, they will want to know if there are any other families with children around.
  • Services nearby. This information should include schools, daycare centers, hospitals, gyms, local stores, and restaurants near the property.

2. Google Maps integration

By integrating Google Maps along with location information in real estate listings, you can offer home buyers and renters map search tools and data visualization capabilities to explore new neighborhoods.

Google Maps integration will help users with:

  • neighborhood research
  • measuring distances to locations such as schools, restaurants, cafes, or stores
  • tracking the exact location of a property
  • creating a route to the property and saving it to their phone

3. Video tours

Video tours are a good tool for advertising real estate. They are not inferior to the actual viewing and greatly complement the existing photos of the property, helping to attract the attention of potential buyers\tenants. Realtors and sellers can prepare engaging videos with home reviews, testimonials, and comments to better present their property to buyers. Video tours can prove of great help for customers from another city or country who can’t physically attend a home viewing.

 

4. Social media integration​​

Social media integration can be a great marketing tool for real estate portal owners and give your audience more opportunities to interact with your brand. Synchronizing with social media channels like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram will allow users to:

  • connect with your company via social media
  • communicate with agents and sellers
  • Share information and listings on their profiles
  • rate offers and follow the latest real estate news
  • provide feedback and comments

Social media integrations also help increase reach and brand awareness and help attract potential buyers.

 

5. Virtual reality features

Virtual reality tours allow potential buyers to visit and experience the property through immersive simulations. Incorporating VR features into a real estate portal can bring many benefits to all types of users.

For realtors and sellers, VR features can:

  • simplify conducting tours and make them more cost-effective
  • get more traffic to the portal
  • increase closing percentages
  • generate more visitor engagement during a property viewing

For buyers, VR features help to:

  • save time and effort in viewing the property
  • make a more informed choice
  • View real estate 24/7
  • experience something new

6. Property cost calculator

The real estate portal online calculator can help potential customers correctly calculate the property’s financial information. For example, if a visitor wants to buy a house, they can calculate the loan amount, interest rates, and down payment.

The calculator can also help make smarter financial decisions for both buyers and sellers, including showing the advantage of buying a home over renting and vice versa, showing the proceeds after the sale, and comparing rental prices.

Also, as a real estate portal owner, you can measure the times the calculator is used and gauge the share of interested clients among the visitors.

 

7. AI-based personalization

Modern customers expect personalized content when they browse a real estate portal. Personalization improves the overall customer experience, makes it faster and easier to find the right listings, and creates a unique brand personality that sets you apart from the competition.

When browsing the portal, the visitor first looks for a property that meets their requirements, such as square footage, number of rooms, location, or price. Compared to searches based on predefined filters, AI-based searches allow users to find properties that match their criteria and discover new requirements and trends not yet reflected in the filter list.

You can also have visitors can rate search results and upload the scores into the recommendation system. Based on visitor interactions and explicit feedback, the recommendation system finds properties that meet the customer’s requirements and allows others to get the same personalized offers.

 

The bottom line

Real estate portals have undoubtedly become the most popular method of finding property for sale or rent. But is a visually appealing real estate website enough? A functionally rich real estate portal can open many new opportunities for your business.

In addition to the basic features, the advanced ones such as VR and video tours, AI-based personalization, property calculator, neighborhood guides, Google Maps, and social media integration will make your portal stand out, reduce bounce rates, and help achieve higher conversion rates.