Real Estate Investor Websites - 9 Top Qualities To Look For

You are a real estate investor, but you do not have a website for your business. Maybe you are looking to get the best website for real estate investing out there, but you do not know where to start.

Not to worry…

This article will reveal the best qualities to look out for in a real estate investor website.

I frequently still come across so many people running real estate investing businesses with no website even in this day and age.

Almost always, it turns out they do not know if they need one or not.

Lots of real estate investors do not even understand what this website thing is all about. Others think only the big guys should have a website.

Let’s get started.

- What Is A Website?

- Why Do You Need A Website For Real Estate Investing?

- 9 Top Qualities Of A Good Real Estate Investor Websites

- Examples Of Real Estate Investor Websites - 6 Common Business Models

 - Should You Combine Business Models In One Website?

- So What’s The Best Website Builder For Real Estate Investors?

WHAT IS A WEBSITE?

As I’ve mentioned above, I’m never surprised any more when I meet someone who doesn’t know what a website is – so let’s clear this.

If you are reading this article, you are looking at a page on a website. A website gives you a virtual presence online, where you can engage visitors.

In most cases, these visitors want to learn about you or your business and probably do business with you.

The website will take care of this without you meeting these people.

All websites on the World Wide Web have three things:

1) Domain name

This is a name that is unique to you or your business, such as myname.com.

You can only register a domain name once. Think about what name you would like for your business before you get a website.

There are numerous free tools to check if a domain name is take or not – such as godaddy.com or whois.com.

You can register a domain when you buy your website, or register it separately – either way will still work.

2) Hosting account

This is where the website is physically located. This is usually a space on a server.

Most real estate investor websites bundle their services with hosting, so you won’t have to think about it.

3) The website

These are the virtual files that sitting on a server that you see, such as this page.

The information you see when you go to a website is served by these files.

Again, when you buy a website for real estate investing, you will not have to differentiate all this as it would most likely simply come as a "website".

When you buy a real estate investors website, in most cases you will place a single order which takes care of the domain, hosting and website together.

WHY DO YOU NEED A WEBSITE FOR REAL ESTATE INVESTING?

It’s easy to think – I don’t need a real estate investor website. I’ve been investing without a website for years.

And I close deals all the time…

Don’t get me wrong. Offline marketing is powerful - Post cards, bandit signs, cold calling, etc.

But should you limit your marketing, reach and lead generation to just offline methods?

How many more leads would you get through your website?

How many more deals can you close just because you have a website?

With each deals potentially making you $5000, $10,000 or even more, how much more money can you make?

So here are the reasons why every real estate investor should have a website:

1) People can find you on the internet

In this day and age, almost everyone starts their search on the internet. This includes those looking to sell their houses or buy houses.

These leads can only find you if you have a website for your real estate investing business. These SEO leads tend to be higher quality than other leads because they are inbound – meaning they find you, rather than you running after them.

This makes them more receptive and more likely to close deals with you.

2) It attracts leads for you

Once your online marketing is set up on your website, your lead generation will save you time, money and effort.

It will keep generating leads probably for years to come with minimal input from you.

3) It makes you more productive

With the right kind of website (as we’ll discuss below), it becomes very easy to manage your real estate investing business.

You spend more time generating new business and closing deals rather than working on your business.

4) A real estate investor website tells your story

Long before you talk to someone, your website tells your story for you and establishes trust and rapport.

It warms up these people to do business with you before you even talk to them.

Ok…

So what do you look for in a website for your real estate investing business?

9 QUALITIES OF A GOOD REAL ESTATE INVESTOR WEBSITE

Just a regular “website” is not enough for your real estate investing business.

What should you look for when you need to buy a website?

Most people have simple informational websites. These websites rarely engage their visitors beyond providing information.

Here are a few qualities a good real estate investor website must have:

1) It Should Attract Real Estate Leads

Obviously attracting new business must be your primary focus in real estate investing.

A good real estate investing website must attract leads for you.

For this to happen, it should have the following qualities:

i) It must be optimized for search engines

This makes it easy for people to find you on the internet.

Motivated sellers and people looking to buy your houses or other prospects that you target can easily find you on the internet.

A well optimized website will place you higher up in the search engines. The higher you are, the more people will find you.

And the more leads it will attract for you.

So…

A good website needs to have superior on-page SEO for you to rank well.

Secondly…

Real estate investing websites that target a local market usually rank better in the search engines.

So a good website needs to have localized content optimized for keywords that generate leads for you.

Thirdly…

Search engines are now ranking websites based on mobile first. A mobile optimized website will rank better in the search engines.

ii) It should have good social engagement

Social media is huge in today’s market. People like to share things – such as your properties, or your web page.

A good real estate investors website should include social media engagement – this attracts more leads for you – and more closed deals.

2) It must engage those leads to take specific action

You only have about 10 seconds to win or lose a website visitor – or they leave for ever.

A good website should be equipped to engage visitors. Here are some of the tools it should have:

i) Video speaking models

Speaking models capture instant attention of a website visitor within a few seconds without being aggressive.

They must be natural, kind and friendly, and offer a message that appeals to the website visitor.

They should also offer a compelling reason for website visitors to take action, such as signing up.

Even though this technology is dying off, it’s still a pretty effective way to capture a visitor’s attention.

ii) It should be equipped with personalized Ebooks

People love free stuff that solves their problem.

A free Ebook is irresistible to most people. To get access to it, they should provide at least an email. This gives you the opportunity to nurture these leads with automated marketing (see below).

The Ebooks should be fully personalized with you as the author to add credibility.

iii) It must have squeeze pages for all purposes

A squeeze page is a landing page that offers a free gift (such as an Ebook) in exchange for contact information.

Again this allows you to nurture them to close deals once you have their information.

A good real estate investing website must come equipped with this, and the ability to create your own squeeze pages whenever you need.

iv) It must offer multiple clear calls to action

The goal is to get every visitor perform a targeted action on your website, such as signing up (such as to get an EBook, submitting their house information, etc.).

A website with good conversion optimization provides convenient call to action for visitors to take the next action.

Such as signing up on your website or calling you.

v) It must be optimized for mobile devices

In addition to being mobile friendly, a good website for real estate investing should also be optimized for conversion on mobile devices.

The content must be nice and easy to read on mobile devices.

Any phone numbers should be mobile active, you they simply need to tap on it to place a call.

When they are filling out forms, the forms must be short and easy to fill out. Addresses must be equipped with Google autocomplete that pre-loads addresses as you type.

This makes signing up easier.

3) It must nurture those leads until they are ready to close deals with you

A good real estate investor website must be equipped to nurture leads with automated follow-up email to warm them up to do business with you.

Most people need from 4 to 10 follow-ups before they can do business with you. Studies show that most people forget to follow up by the 4th follow-up. In the process they lose 80% of potential business!

When your website takes over to role of following up, it drastically increases your chances of closing deals with your leads.

4) It must be easy to use

Obviously you don’t want to spend days working on your website!

Preferably, you should manage everything from a simple virtual back office, even if you are new to computers.

You do not have to mess with stuff like HML, PHP, etc.

5) It should make your work easy

Having a good real estate investing website does not mean you should spend your life with your website.

Your business should become easier, such as automating follow-ups, making offers, selling, wholesaling or renting houses, etc.

It should therefore be fully equipped with all the features you need to run a successful real estate investing business.

It ends up freeing up more time for you to do more deals.

6) It must be adaptable to your business model

You must be able to adapt your website to suit any real estate investing business model.

So you won’t have to buy a new website every time you get a new business idea.

A good website should be easily adaptable without having to hire someone else.

7) It must have a variety of customizable designs or website templates

A good website must look good to the visitor. It must communicate trust and credibility.

It must be simple, well designed and informative.

And it must be created with conversion in mind, with all the interactive elements we have covered so far.

Having a choice of good customizable designs is a premium.

Equally important, you should be able to customize content, forms and other elements on the website.

8) It must be affordable

Sadly, most real estate investing web sites are quite pricey.

Most will offer a costly monthly fee which ends up costing thousands of dollars.

Affordable does not mean cheap and low quality.

Granted, if you lose one deal because of a bad website, it can cost you thousands of dollars. But a good website must also be affordable for you to use it in the first place.

A website that comes with a one-time payment will save you thousands of dollars.

9) It must provide ownership

A good website for real estate investing must give you full control and privacy.

It belongs to you. Its data belongs to you, and it must be treated that way.

You should also be able to host your website wherever you want with no limitations if necessary.

EXAMPLES OF REAL ESTATE INVESTOR WEBSITES - 6 COMMON BUSINESS MODELS

Websites for real estate investing generally get classified by the business model they are associated with.

Let’s look at the most common models.

1) “We Buy Houses” Websites / House Buyer Websites

Most real estate investors buy houses – so they need a real estate website for buying houses.

As we have seen above, these websites must be equipped with

a) Superior SEO, social media and blogging features to attract motivated sellers

b) Tools to engage these leads when they land on the website – such as speaking models, Ebooks, strategic calls to action, mobile optimization, etc

c) Inbuilt automation features that follow up with and nurtures these leads hands off to warm them up to do business with you

d) The must deliver motivated sellers pre-screened and pre-negotiated to give you a quick view if it’s a deal or not

e) Tools to manage the house buying process from getting the lead to closing the deal

2) Wholesale real estate investor websites

Wholesale real estate investor websites are quite popular with most people.

Most people use these websites to wholesale houses to other real estate investors. For this reason, they must be equipped with several important features.

a) It should allow you to publish your properties easily

A good wholesale real estate investing website should allow you to publish your properties and upload pictures and videos directly from a virtual back office.

On the front end, the listings should include Google maps including satellite and street views.

They should also include a walk score – what’s in the neighboring areas and their accessibility. This information makes it very appealing when you are wholesaling these houses.

b) You must be able to build a buyers list

When you are selling or wholesaling houses, you must build a good list of buyers to sell your house fast.

These people are usually other real estate investors in your area who buy houses and fix them for sale or rent.

A good website for wholesaling houses should offer opportunities to sign up potential wholesale real estate investor buyers.

c) It should allow you to email your properties to your buyers list

Once you list a new property on your website, you should be able to send it to your buyers with a few clicks.

A website for wholesale real estate investing should have a built-in email capacity so you don’t have to depend on third party services to send your deals.

d) It should offer extra features to market your properties

These include

a) Ability to share your properties on social media

b) Ability to display your properties on other websites – such as a partner

c) Allow limited access to edit properties by other investors

d) Easily integrate third party email services like Mailchimp, Constant Contact etc. if you need to

This allows you to market your properties faster.

3) Real estate investing websites for selling houses

The real estate investing websites for selling houses should also have all the features of the wholesale websites.

They should also allow you to list houses for sale on retail, for rent, and for lease options.

4) Private money real estate investing websites

These websites help you to attract private money for your deals.

They are usually most often informational. You should make sure you comply with FTC rules to make sure you are in compliance.

5) Other types of real estate investing websites

There are other types of real estate websites such we

• - Websites for buying notes
• - Websites for multi-family houses / apartments

A good rea estate investing website should be easily adaptable to accommodate any of these business models with minimal effort.

SHOULD YOU COMBINE BUSINESS MODELS IN ONE WEBSITE?

I’ll give you a personal story:

I once lost a deal worth thousands of dollar because of this.

I got a house under contract and promptly listed the house as a wholesale deal on my real estate investor website.

I quickly located a cash buyer – a wholesale real estate investor. We set a closing date and he wired the money to the title company ready for closing.

Unknown to me, my seller saw her house listed on my website. And I was making a chunk of money above what she was getting for her house!

She refused to go to closing.

That house eventually ended up in foreclosure.

I lost that deal because I combined conflicting business models on my website.

Should you combine business models this way?

I wouldn’t…

It’s certainly your call to make. At the very least make sure the business models do not cause conflict that can affect your business.

A good real estate investing website should allow you to make this call without any limitations.

SO WHAT IS THE BEST WEBSITE BUILDER FOR REAL ESTATE INVESTORS?

As we have discussed, the best real estate investor website should have some basic qualities:

a) It must be equipped to attract leads, engage them to sign them up and nurture them automatically by follow-up email so they are ready to close deals with you.

b) It must be easy to use

c) It should make your work easy

d) It must be adaptable to your business model

e) It must have a variety of customizable designs

f) It must be affordable

g) It must offer privacy

Ultimately, a good website for real estate investing should save you money, time and effort while allowing you to close more real estate deals – and making you more money.

In full disclosure, we offer interactive real estate investing websites that offer all the qualities listed here and more. As always, I encourage you to do your due diligence to make sure you get the best website for your real estate investing business.

If you have any comments or questions, please leave them in the comments.

About The Author

Simon Macharia invests in real estate in the Dallas-Fort Worth market. The also offers interactive real estate investing websites that help investors close more deals using less time, money and effort.