The 2018 REAL Trends Real Estate Website Rankings are here. And once again, Real Estate Webmasters clients dominate the list. REW is proud to have more clients featured on the REAL Trends list than any other real estate technology provider. The annual REAL Trends rankings serve as a wonderful showcase of some of the most beautifully designed websites in the industry. Websites are judged in a number of categories including: Best Overall Website Best Community Best Design Best Mobile Best Property Detail Best Video Three of our amazing clients, The Agency, JB Goodwin REALTORS and Matt Curtis Real Estate Inc. all had incredible showings across the board—with each nominated in multiple categories. Congratulations to all three. We are honoured…

Real Estate Webmasters is pleased to announce our third and final product update release of the Summer. Yes, it's technically two weeks into Fall, but that's because we spent two extra weeks incorporating new client feedback and suggestions into the platform—making this an even bigger and better release. This update focused heavily on Discover—our newest and most innovative website platform yet. This update brings a combination of exciting new features, new color themes, and a handful of fixes that enhance both the frontend and backend experience. Here's what you'll see coming to the Discover platform in the coming days: New Property Details Page Layout While site visitors absolutely love image-heavy listing details pages, they can be a big challenge…

We live in a world that's downright obsessed with smartphones, tablets, and overall screen time. And yet, apps are nearly ignored completely by most real estate businesses. But they're starting to gain popularity with the heavy hitters. Zillow, Realtor.com, and Redfin now have mobile apps. It's time for agents to step up and take advantage of this underutilized marketing channel. Why would an agent need both an app and a website? As a real estate tech provider, we had to ask ourselves this question. When we did, we found overwhelming evidence that we should be building apps too, which is why we created the REW IDX App for iOS and Android. Here's what convinced us: 1. Apps provide a better user experience. Remember the main reason your clients are…

We no longer measure distance in miles or kilometers. We measure distance in time. In this post, we'll explore how this will impact real estate in a big way. Table of Contents: Measuring distance in minutes, not miles Why you should care about drive time What is INRIX Drive Time™? Two driving distance real estate myths How Drive Time makes you a better agent How to add INRIX Drive Time™ to your website We Measure Distance in Minutes, Not Miles Test yourself: If you were driving to work and your boss called you, would you say, "I'm 1 mile away," or "I'm 5 minutes away?" If someone asked "how far is it to the nearest gas station?" Would you say, "5 miles down the road" or "10 minutes down the road?" If someone were looking for a home,…

So this month I decided to join our sales manager in a really fun sales contest against our entire sales team. You can read about the contest at this facebook post (please feel free to share). As I've started to discuss projects (especially large custom projects or upgrades) the subject of the "queue" comes up. IE what is the wait time to get a project started / completed?People are often surprised by the answer (and that is there is a pretty long waiting list) and someone today asked me to explain why. Because part of my contest is social media; in the spirit of transparency and because I feel I will be able to reach the most people by putting in extra effort in more robust content that I can then share for the benefit of all, I've decided to write a…

REW is happy to announce our second product release of the Summer. This update includes exciting new features to Discover, the launch of INRIX Drive Time™, improvements to the REW IDX App, and bug fixes to REW CRM. Here are some of the biggest updates you'll see over the next few days: New Updates to Discover We designed Discover to offer the best real estate listing search experience in the business, and that's only improving with our latest release. So what's new with Discover? Support for Multiple MLS Feeds Discover now supports feed switching, meaning your website can feature multiple MLS feeds. The MLS feed switcher will be available to users both on the home page and the hybrid map IDX page—meaning users can conveniently select their desired…

One of the most common questions we receive from our clients is, "How do I become the top-ranked real estate website in my market?" Perform a quick Google search for real estate in any U.S. market, and you'll almost undoubtedly see search portal giants like Zillow and Trulia holding the top ranking spots. How have these search portals come to dominate the search results? And what can you do as an agent to surpass them? Why Do Users Love Real Estate Portals? To start, we must ask ourselves why users love portals to begin with. And the answer is simple: users love their intuitive platforms. Pull up any real estate listings portal and you're likely to see a "map to the left, listing thumbnails to the right" layout. This listing layout has become the…

The VR experience on Vision is going to the next level in the latest REW CRM release. Enhanced listings can now feature fully stereoscopic images and videos—taking your site visitors deeper into the places and properties they love. Virtual reality is an emerging technology that is rapidly becoming more accessible and expected in the real estate industry. Property seekers today have increasing time and affordability constraints that make property purchases a high stakes game. By employing VR, agents can help buyers choose which properties to view in person or make better decisions from afar without an in-person inspection. For sellers, VR offers another opportunity to create an emotional attachment between potential buyers and their property, increasing…

Look out for some exciting improvements coming to how leads can be prioritized in the REW CRM. At Real Estate Webmasters, our goal has always been to make following up with your most valuable leads as quick and intuitive as possible. We want you to spend your time on the highest quality leads that are most likely to engage with you. As part of the upcoming 2018 Spring C REW CRM update, we’re introducing two brand new ways for you to sort leads, so you can get in touch with your website’s hottest leads first. The new update will allow you to arrange your website’s leads from highest to lowest based on two advanced metrics: Score and Value. But how will Lead Score and Lead Value change the way I view my leads? We’re glad you asked! Lead Score A lead’s…

It’s time for another platform update, REW’s third release of the Spring. This update brings with it some dramatic enhancements as well as another series of requested fixes to our web products. We’ve committed to ensuring your REW CRM, Vision design, and REW mobile apps keep getting better, and I’m excited to share that our product development team have bundled your most requested changes into this release. Here are some of the biggest updates you’ll see over the next few days: Newly Designed Leads Manager We’ve totally revamped how the REW CRM leads manager works by streamlining the interface so that it puts the most relevant information and actions at your fingertips. Though you can still dig deeper into the details of a particular lead if you desire,…