Solving the Unique Issues in the Real Estate Industry

Our job at JTech is to build online solutions for the various issues businesses face in their industry. Venture West is a real estate company in Bozeman, MT for whom we recently launched a new website. Real estate agents work in a competitive market — in addition to providing a positive user experience, their websites need to convey honesty and knowledge of the locale. When building Venture West’s new website, our team made sure to address these concerns and many other prevalent in the real estate market. Here are a few —

Displays credibility — Purchasing or selling property can be a stressful process. Venture West wants to ensure their potential clients understand their values and devotion to customer service. We achieved this through the site’s new content, writing copy that articulated their values as well as photos and bios of each real estate agent so that they came across as personable, professional people. On the home page, we tell some of Venture West’s story near the property listings so that visitors can easily relate the business and the faces behind it.

Superior performance — Real estate websites rely on integration with a third-party service in order to display current real estate listings and images — in this case, we were working with the Big Sky Country MLS. A consequence of this integration is that Venture West will not have control over the quality of the images the MLS provides from other realtors. For Venture West's own listings, we built their site with the ability to add enhanced imagery that will create an immersive experience for home hunters. Where images are provided from the MLS, we limited the space they would have to fill so as not to compromise the aesthetics of the site. The MLS also provided a pre-built listings map that Venture West used on their old site. By creating a fully custom new interactive map, our designers were able to create a much-improved design that offers more coherent and relevant listing information.

Performance improvements include building the new site so that it is accessible on devices of every size and an unobtrusive but powerful search and filter capability. The map and property listings page in particular will be beneficial for agents and clients alike to pull up on their phone or tablet while on the road looking at properties.

Search functionality — On the property listings page, having search and filtration functionality is especially important. Our team collaborated with Venture West agents to offer the filters that will best help clients find their new home. This essential set of tools includes: location, property type, minimum and maximum price, number of beds and baths and properties by agent. Users can sort results by featured listings, price point or distance from a location.