6 Best Real Estate Plugins for WordPress
A functional website might make the difference between a sale for you and a sale for your competitors. And real estate is something most people don’t buy every day. It is a sizeable investment, and for a client making a sizeable investment, you want to put your best foot forward, with a smooth-running, professional-looking, trust-instilling website. And Qode offers several real estate WordPress themes giving you precisely that look and feel. However, if you don’t want to invest in a theme due to budget constraints, or if you want to build a website from scratch, you might want a look at some WordPress real estate plugins.
You’ll probably want to concentrate on the property listing (or directory) function, its level of detail, clarity, and overall look and feel. This functionality is central to displaying your offer, since it’s what your visitors will mainly be using. Additionally, this is the main functionality most WordPress real estate plugins confine themselves to. But besides plugins focused on the listing feature, we have also added some suggestions for plugins providing non-essential functionalities regarding house viewings and house loans, which can help you help your visitors to their dream properties.
Here’s what we’ll be looking at:
WP-Property aims to be a one-stop shop for a real estate website. This free plugin’s central feature is the property listing, which allows you to fill in as many details as you want, including price, surface area, the number of rooms, property features, fixtures and fittings, and so on. You can, of course, customize the attributes to suit your listed properties the best, and use this to guide your visitors’ searches. This plugin comes with various customizable templates for different property types, making it useful not only for real estate businesses, but also for sales of other goods.
WP-Property provides several shortcodes which you can embed in your website’s layout. These include an overview of all properties, featured properties, a search form, property maps and others. If you are looking to localize your website, you’ll appreciate the fact that the plugin is translated into over a dozen languages and integrates with Google Maps.
Another free plugin, IMPress Listings’s claim to fame is MLS Integration. MLS (Multiple Listing Service) is a private database used by US real estate professionals. This plugin allows you to easily import listings from MLS. If your website is meant to serve primarily clients looking for properties in the USA, it is definitely worth a look.
Additionally, we found it relatively easy to use and beginner-friendly. It has a large number of out-of-the-box fields for your listings, allowing your visitors to sort properties by price, area, property type, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, garage, but also some luxury features such as swimming pools. Also included are solutions for image galleries and videos.
Of course, your customers will want to have a look at the property before committing themselves. One of the features we found especially interesting is the ability to list open house days and hours. The developers have also provided a demo of the plugin as it could appear on your website.
Estatik is one of the most popular real estate WordPress plugins, and for good reason. It has a very versatile free version which allows you to create a large number of custom fields, describing your listed properties. You can also customize categories, listing types, statuses, features, amenities and other, letting your visitors fine-tune their searches to perfection, and easing their way towards that perfect result. Photo galleries and videos are also especially useful for customers who want a preliminary viewing.
Attention had also been given to social sharing, extending your reach even further, and drawing even more visitors to your website. The developers have provided a demo of the plugin using its default look, showcasing its many features.
Its paid versions offer even more useful functionalities: unlimited custom fields, easy front-end listing management for agents, wish lists, saved searches, email alerts, and many more. If you are willing to invest into a premium plugin, be sure to look into Estatik’s plans.
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Easy Property Listings is a free plugin that really needs some paid add-ons to achieve its full potential. Still, even in its free version, it is remarkably easy to use and customize. It comes with over a hundred free and responsive layouts, making it easy to fit into most website designs. The plugin also comes with support for multiple different property types and statuses, for both sales and rentals, as well as templates for rural properties and commercial land. This plugin supports several real estate databases, such as REAXML and JUPIX.
However, with its paid add-ons, you can really make an impression. With Advanced Mapping, for instance, you can create a custom map, displaying an elegant and impressive overview of your listings with Testimonial Manager you can provide your visitors with an opportunity to give you personalized feedback, while the Market Research plugin provides you with a lot of data useful for guiding your pricing marketing strategy.
WPL Real Estate is a versatile real estate plugin designed with database management in mind. The key to the plugin is the custom field functionality – it allows you to add, remove, or change listing fields without the need to alter the database. This makes it easy for those without coding knowledge to easily customize exactly what types of information will be displayed on each listing. Your visitors will, additionally, be able to use these new criteria as filters in their searches.
WPL Real Estate is compatible with most popular WordPress themes, including Bridge. It is also compatible with Google Maps, and lets you create a customized map overview of all your listed properties. And while the free version of this plugin is interesting enough, some of the features we find especially useful, such as open house info, multilingual support, and Google Places integration are only available in the PRO version – possibly worth investing in if you have the budget.
If you decide to use a listing plugin which does not have a house viewing functionality but still want to offer that information to your visitors, you might want to check out Appointment Booking Calendar. This plugin will let your visitors choose a viewing time and date for each property, and book a viewing using a simple and customizable form. This plugin also uses e-mail notification to confirm bookings and avoid all confusion. It is completely free and very user-friendly, great if you are working on a tight budget.
In Conclusion
As you can see, setting up a basic real estate website can be done with little hassle and a low budget. The important thing is to have a straightforward yet detailed property listing. If your clientele is more on the tech-savvy side, you might also want to look into the house tour booking functionalities, and if you provide them with an easy way to calculate the actual expenditure, even better. If your website is supposed to serve a large real estate business, you may also want to invest in plugins with staff profiles and front-end listing submission functionalities.
A home is probably the single most valuable personal asset anybody owns, and the single most important purchase in a lifetime. Devoting care to your real estate website functionalities shows your customers you take their purchases seriously. And with one or more of our selection of WordPress real estate plugins, this is exactly what you will achieve.
