Setting the Real Estate Bar in Corpus
Since the company was brand new, they had no initial reputation and trust. We needed to work on crafting a web experience that built trust and made a lasting first impression in the area. We also needed a CMS in order to be able to handle the houses that would be posted and be able to quickly update lists for the owner or employee.
We built a website that focused on the mobile experience since that is where most of the users are in Corpus Christi. The site also what Corpus Christi has to offer for people who might be moving here and lots of buying and selling information, in case they are first timers. We worked with webflow so we could use their simple CMS that gave the client easy access to be able to change wording if he needs to or quickly add in a new house to be listed.
The Goal
Royal Home Realty is a local real estate company that launched May of 2019. They serve Corpus Christi and some of the surrounding areas in the Coastal Bend, putting the customer's experience before anything else. That need to provide a great experience needed to translate over into their website, which didn't exist at the time since the company was just starting.
The Process
We started prototyping in Adobe XD with our initial goal, which was to design a site that Justin could use to highlight himself as a realtor and have his homes that he is currently listing. It was made to easily get to know him more as a realtor, see homes, and contact him. It was pretty simple in that regard.Once we had the layout all in agreement, we were to take it into Webflow to build out.
However, as we were about ready to build, Justin came back with a curve ball. He came back and presented some branding and a company name that was worked on for him to go all in and launch a company. He got his brokerage and worked on branding with another team. This presented new problems because we had to think on a larger scale, rapidly redesign, and work on presenting the brand digitally rather than the person. The XD design was scrapped and the company was to be launch in a month. We moved straight into prototyping in Webflow instead of bringing the designs over. We wanted to remove a potential slow down from working from one software to another. With some of our initial discoveries, we didn't want to offer homes at the scale of something like Zillow or Realtor.com. Users aren't trying to access a brokerage site for that information, it is mainly to see if they trust them to sell their home or find a new one. It is to learn what the company is about and create buy in.
Implementation
One of the most important factors was working with a simple and intuitive CMS. Well, thankfully Webflow also fit that bill! Webflow automatically creates the pages we design for the CMS to make it easier for the client to control listings. We were also able to tie in the addresses with map support for those who wanted to visit the house in person.
We wanted the key pieces of information easily viewable for the user so they can quickly make their decision based on price, rooms, or square footage. The majority of the homes they sell are within the 200-300k range on pricing since that demographic makes up most of Corpus. We chose to just leave it with the 3 categories as that is the biggest buying factor. It is important to see what their budget can get them. Our goal was to provide them with a simple experience.
Mobile
We were able to quickly implement and test mobile design within Webflow and test how well the site held up to responsive design. From there, we could quickly see what worked, what didn't, and what needed to be fixed. Mobile was one of our biggest priorities since that is were the demographic of Corpus spend most of their time while doing a home search. We also focused a lot on speed and optimizing the picture heavy nature of real estate sites. We didn't want the pictures to slow down the users experience, however, pictures are necessary to making your decision on purchasing a house.
Final Design
We finalized the site and launched in time for the planned company launch without any compromises in features.
The client feedback has been strongly positive and the design is something the company is proud of. When compared to the competition locally, they really stand out for their user experience whereas some of the local competition puts their web experience last. Users either leave the site or just try to navigate through a mess of a UI.
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