Have you ever wondered how your personal real estate agent website stacks against the Top 25 agents on the Real Trends 500?
Well, wonder no more.
To see how the masters of the real estate universe roll online, we decided to take a deep dive into their websites and kick the tires a bit.
Using a mixture of objective measurements (Domain Authority, Google PageSpeed Insights) combined with subjective measurements (how much we dig how the site looks), we came up with the Close Score, which is our shiny new system to rank agent websites.
Here’s how the websites of the Real Trends top 25 agents (by volume) stacked up in 2019.
1. Ben Cabellero
Layout & Design: Very good
After recently claiming a Guinness World Record as the most successful Realtor ever, it’s no wonder that Ben Cabellero topped Real Trends list. As you might imagine, his website scored solidly in all of our categories and came in as the most well-rounded site we tested.
The only thing keeping Cabellero from the top of our rankings is some agents having a slightly higher Google Page Speed Ranking and higher domain authority, and our own personal opinions about the way his site looks.
Don’t get me wrong―it’s perfect for the audience of big-time developers he’s targeting, but we felt it was a little bland compared to some of the other sites on our list.
Our Ranking of Ben Cabellero’s Website:
Website: https://www.homesusa.com/
Type: Brokerage Website
CMS: WordPress
Mobile Page Speed: Average
Mobile Optimization: Good
Desktop Page Speed: Average
Desktop Optimization: Medium
Domain Authority: 34
The Close Score: 4.6 (out of 5)
2. Chris Cortazzo
Layout & Design: Excellent
Chris Cortazzo’s site also did well in pretty much every category we measured.
Our Ranking of Chris Cortazzo’s Website:
Coldwell Banker
Website: http://www.chriscortazzo.com/
Type: Personal Website
CMS: Custom
Mobile Page Speed: No Data
Mobile Optimization: Medium
Desktop Page Speed: Average
Desktop Optimization: Good
Domain Authority: 38
Close Score: 4.6
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3. Mauricio Umansky
Layout & Design: Excellent
As one of the only boutique brokerage founders on the site, Mauricio Umansky’s brokerage site was one of the best we looked at. Designed smartly for mobile users and with a high domain authority, The Agency’s website was also lovely to look at and use.
However, this is not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison here, which is why we mentioned if the sites we looked at were personal sites, team sites, or brokerage sites. After all, developing a site for a brokerage is exponentially more expensive than for an individual.
Our Ranking of Mauricio Umansky’s Website:
The Agency (Los Angeles)
Website: https://www.theagencyre.com
Type: Brokerage Website
CMS: Custom
Mobile Page Speed: Average
Mobile Optimization: Good
Desktop Page Speed: Average
Desktop Optimization: Low
Domain Authority: 51
Close Score: 4.8
4. Alexa Lambert
Stribling (New York City)
Not applicable
Would you be surprised if we told you that the fourth most successful agent of 2019 didn’t even have a personal website? Lacking a website seemed to be a common theme for New York City agents in the Real Trends Top 25 list.
While we’re not entirely sure why only New York City agents seemed to lack websites, we’re betting it has something to do with one of the most tried-and-true cliches of New York City’s upper crust. Exclusivity.
Hell, we have so many members-only clubs, speakeasies with hidden entrances―La Esquina takes the cake, of course―nightclubs with velvet ropes, and even a private park, the act of not having a website is almost like a badge of honor for New York City’s elite agents.
5. Aaron Kirman
Layout & Design: Excellent
An office favorite, Aaron Kirman’s site was the only site to have a fast desktop page speed and good mobile optimization. A solid domain authority and our top-ranked layout put Kirman’s site at the top of our list with a 4.9.
While he’s not in the top 10 on Real Trends, his website looks like he’s leading the pack. This is why putting the time, effort, and money behind great branding pays off.
Our Ranking of Aaron Kirman’s Website:
Pacific Union (Los Angeles)
Website: http://www.aaronkirman.com/
Type: Team Website
Developer: Real Estate Webmasters
CMS: custom
Mobile Page Speed: No Data
Mobile Optimization: Good
Desktop Page Speed: Fast
Desktop Optimization: Low
Domain Authority: 25
Close Score: 4.9
6. Santiago Arana
Layout & Design: Excellent
Like his partner in the Real Trends top 25, we though Santiago Arana’s brokerage site for The Agency is damn-near perfect. Again, the aesthetic side of our rankings is purely subjective.
Our Ranking of Santiago Arana’s Website:
The Agency
Website: https://www.theagencyre.com
Type: Brokerage Website
CMS: Custom
Mobile Page Speed: Average
Mobile Optimization: Good
Desktop Page Speed: Average
Desktop Optimization: Low
Domain Authority: 51
Close Score: 4.8
7. Michelle Cohen
Not applicable
8. Vickey Barron
Not applicable
9. Serena Boardman
Layout & Design: Excellent
Another site on Sotheby’s lovely website platform, Serena Boardman’s site is just as well laid out and attractive as the others. Being New Yorkers, we might have a slight (clearly unfair) preference for Boardman’s site.
Our Ranking of Serena Boardman’s Website:
Sotheby’s
Website: https://www.serenaboardman.com/
Type: Personal Website
CMS: Custom (Sotheby’s Proprietary)
Mobile Page Speed: No Data
Mobile Optimization: Medium
Desktop Page Speed: No Data
Desktop Optimization: Medium
Domain Authority: 7
Close Score: 4.6
10. Tracy Campion
Layout & Design: Excellent
Tracy Camion’s site also boasts a sleek layout, gorgeous typography, and stunning imagery. However, it lost some points for having among the lowest scores on mobile and desktop optimization.
Our Ranking of Tracy Campion’s Website:
Campion & Company Fine Homes (Boston)
Website: https://www.campionre.com/
Type: Personal Website
Developer: Union Street Media
CMS: Custom (Bootstrap.js)
Mobile Page Speed: No Data
Mobile Optimization: Low
Desktop Page Speed: No Data
Desktop Optimization: Low
Domain Authority: 26
Close Score: 4.3
11. Max Lo/Stanley Lo
Layout & Design: Below average
While father and son team Stanley Lo and Max Lo are crushing it when it comes to sales, their site needs some work.
While we’re all for minimalism in web design, the site scored low for desktop optimization, and the dated layout seemed out of character for such a successful team.
Our Ranking of Max Lo’s /Stanley Lo’s Website:
Green Banker (Burlingame, California)
Website: http://maxlorealtor.com/
Type: Personal Website
CMS: Custom
Mobile Page Speed: No Data
Mobile Optimization: Medium
Desktop Page Speed: No Data
Desktop Optimization: Low
Domain Authority: 8
Close Score: 2.5
12. Christian Angle
Layout & Design: Good
Our Ranking of Christian Angle’s Website:
Website: https://anglerealestate.com/
Type: Brokerage Website
CMS: WordPress
Mobile Page Speed: Slow
Mobile Optimization: Medium
Desktop Page Speed: Average
Desktop Optimization: Medium
Domain Authority: 24
The Close Score: 3.6 (out of 5)
13. Jade Mills
Layout & Design: Excellent
One of the slickest and best-designed websites we looked at, Jade Mills’ website looked great on mobile, great on desktop, loaded quickly, and had a respectable domain authority.
One of our favorites for sure.
Our Ranking of Jade Mills’ Website:
Coldwell Banker (Beverly Hills )
Website: https://www.jademillsestates.com/
Type: Personal Website
CMS: Custom
Mobile Page Speed: No Data
Mobile Optimization: Medium
Desktop Page Speed: Average
Desktop Optimization: Low
Domain Authority: 34
Close Score: 4.7
14. Brian Bair Offerpad
Layout & Design: Good
Our Ranking of Offerpad’s Website:
Website: https://www.offerpad.com/
Type: Ibuyer Website
CMS: Bootstrap
Mobile Page Speed: Slow
Mobile Optimization: Good
Desktop Page Speed: Average
Desktop Optimization: Medium
Domain Authority: 42
The Close Score: 4.1 (out of 5)
15. Pamela D’Arc
Not applicable
16. Christina Condon
Layout & Design: Good
Our Ranking of Offerpad’s Website:
Website: http://www.cristinacondon.com/
Type: Agent Website
CMS: HTML
Mobile Page Speed: Slow
Mobile Optimization: Good
Desktop Page Speed: Average
Desktop Optimization: Medium
Domain Authority: 27
The Close Score: 3.7 (out of 5)
17. Rochelle Maize
Layout & Design: Excellent
Our Ranking of Rochelle Maize’s Website:
Website: https://www.rochellemaize.com/
Type: Agent Website
CMS: HTML
Mobile Page Speed: Slow
Mobile Optimization: Medium
Desktop Page Speed: Slow
Desktop Optimization: Medium
Domain Authority: 29
The Close Score: 4.6 (out of 5)
18. Keri Nicholas
Layout & Design: Good
Our Ranking of Keri Nicholas’s Website:
Website: https://www.kerinicholas.com/
Type: Agent Website
CMS: Bootstrap
Mobile Page Speed: Slow
Mobile Optimization: Medium
Desktop Page Speed: Average
Desktop Optimization: Medium
Domain Authority: 19
The Close Score: 3.8 (out of 5)
19. Dora Puig
Layout & Design: Average
While aesthetics is, by definition, subjective, we weren’t huge fans of Dora Puig’s website. It seemed a bit dated and cluttered compared to the other sites we looked at. Again, this is our personal take here.
Our Ranking of Dora Puig’s Website:
Luxe Living Realty / Fisher Island Real Estate
Website: http://dorapuig.com/
Type: Personal website
Developer: RESI Online
CMS: Custom
Mobile Page Speed: No Data
Mobile Optimization: Medium
Desktop Page Speed: No Data
Desktop Optimization: Low
Domain Authority: 23
Close Score: 3.3
20. Judy Citron
Layout & Design: Good
Our Ranking of Judy Citron’s Website:
Website: https://www.judycitron.com/
Type: Agent Website
CMS: Bootstrap
Mobile Page Speed: Slow
Mobile Optimization: Medium
Desktop Page Speed: Average
Desktop Optimization: Medium
Domain Authority: 14
The Close Score: 4.3 (out of 5)
21. Nancy Taylor Bubes
Layout & Design: Good
Our Ranking of Nancy Taylor Bubes’ Website:
Website: https://nancytaylorbubes.com/
Type: Agent Website
CMS: WordPress
Mobile Page Speed: Slow
Mobile Optimization: Medium
Desktop Page Speed: Slow
Desktop Optimization: Medium
Domain Authority: 7
The Close Score: 3.3 (out of 5)
22. Jason Saphire
Layout & Design: Good
Our Ranking of Jason Saphire’s Website:
Website: https://entryonly.com/
Type: Brokerage Website
CMS: Bootstrap
Mobile Page Speed: Slow
Mobile Optimization: Medium
Desktop Page Speed: Average
Desktop Optimization: Medium
Domain Authority: 27
The Close Score: 3.2 (out of 5)
23. Harald Grant
Layout & Design: Excellent
Another great agent website on Sotheby’s proprietary website platform, The Hampton’s Harald Grant’s website has a great layout and uses drop-dead gorgeous imagery of the local beaches to lure in prospects.
Our Ranking of Harald Grant’s Website:
Sotheby’s (The Hamptons)
Website: http://www.haraldgrantrealestate.com/
Type: Personal Website
CMS: Custom (Sotheby’s Proprietary)
Mobile Page Speed: No Data
Mobile Optimization: Medium
Desktop Page Speed: No Data
Desktop Optimization: Low
Domain Authority: 8
Close Score: 4.5
24. Susan Breitenbach
Layout & Design: Excellent
In a world of cookie-cutter real estate agent websites, we have to give Susan Breitenbach points for stepping outside the box and building something unique. While it might not have a bleeding-edge layout (nor should it), it manages to look attractive while still maintaining some charm and personality.
Our Ranking of Susan Breitenbach’s Website:
Corcoran (The Hamptons)
Website: http://www.susanbreitenbach.com/
CMS: Custom (HTML 5)
Mobile Page Speed: No Data
Mobile Optimization: Good
Desktop Page Speed: No Data
Desktop Optimization: Medium
Domain Authority: 25
Type: Personal Website
Close Score: 4.4
25. Deborah Brener Zolan
Not applicable
Key Takeaways for Our Real Estate Agent Websites Ranking 2019
Here are our key takeaways for Realtors and web designers after running the numbers on the agent websites for the Real Trends Top 25 Agents.
A Surprising Six Out of 25 Agents on The List Didn’t Have a Personal Website
Even more interesting, almost all of them were working in our home turf of New York City. While we don’t have a conclusive reason why so many top New York City agents don’t have websites, we think it might have something to do with exclusivity.
Very Few Sites Were Optimized Well for Mobile
This was pretty surprising considering that buyers are increasingly searching for properties and engaging with Realtors on mobile devices. While we didn’t find any issues with their mobile sites on our test device (A Google Pixel XL), that doesn’t mean others won’t have issues on different devices.
However, there is always a tradeoff in web design between how quickly and easily a page renders for the typical user, and how good it looks. Since almost all of the Realtors on our list sold luxury listings, choosing lush, high-resolution imagery over speed was more than likely a strategic decision.
There Was a Large Variety of CMS Used
We were also a little bit surprised to see a variety of content management systems (CMS) used to build these sites. Since WordPress is so ubiquitous and easy to use, seeing Drupal and many straight HTML sites on the list was an interesting discovery. Proprietary CMS like Sotheby’s were the most common.
Our Methodology: How We Ranked The Sites
In case you were wondering, here is a quick rundown of each measure we used to rate the sites and why they’re important.
1. Type of Website
There is a big difference between personal websites, team websites, and brokerage websites.
2. CMS
CMS is a backend system that website owners can use to add or edit the content on their sites quickly and easily. While WordPress is the most popular CMS online, many sites we looked at used custom builds.
3. Mobile Page Speed
This is a measure used by Google Page Speed Insights that measures how quickly a site loads compared to all other sites measured by Google’s tool. Only one site we tested measured as “Fast,” which put them in the upper third for load speed of all sites tested by Google.
4. Mobile Optimization Score
Google’s mobile optimization score measures how the site stacks up for standard performance best practices. This is a measure of how likely (or unlikely) a site is to load quickly and display properly on all devices.
5. Desktop Page Speed
Desktop page speed is identical to Google’s Mobile page speed metric but measures speed for the desktop instead of mobile.
6. Desktop Optimization
Desktop optimization is identical to Google’s mobile optimization metric but measures optimization for the desktop instead of mobile.
7. Domain Authority
Domain authority is a proprietary metric devised by search engine optimization (SEO) company Moz to measure how well a website can rank on Google and Bing. It takes into account age, site structure, article structure, spam score, and how many other pages link to the site.
Real Estate Agent Website Resources & Tools
Are you inspired yet? Ready to build your own real estate agent website? Well, you’ve come to the right place. We put together this handy list of real estate agent website resources to make your life easier.
- Website builder: Website builders save you the trouble of building your site from scratch or even from WordPress templates. Here are our favorite real estate website builders:
Next, you’re going to need high-quality stock images and lots of them. We recommend Unsplash with is 100% free and has beautiful high-quality images to download.
If you’re looking for a good do-it-yourself tutorial on building your own real estate agent website with WordPress, check out our in-depth, step-by-step guide below.
Over to You
What do you think of our ranking of the top 25 Real Trends real estate agents’ websites? Let us know in the comments.
WordPress is not for really serious projects. Heavy, unfriendly(compared to other good platforms) and hard scale beginners platform. And I know that U use WordPress. If U need the fast and best looking website, the answer is the one – turn key custom project without any wordpress/drupal and so on, except Jekyll.
I’d have to disagree. I know several websites that get 2 million+ vistors per year that run on WordPress.
Aesthetics are not subjective. Aristotle went through great lengths to prove this when he first popularized the concept.
Next you say taste is subjective…. Please use a somm when you go out.
Hmmm, going to have to respectfully disagree as I’m using the word as a stand in for something akin to taste and not in the truly Aristotelian sense. In other words, yes we view the world filtered through our values and instincts. For example, babies are afraid of snakes even though they have never been bitten by a snake. What is it about a snake that says “danger” in a way that a baby can read? However, while human beings interpret the world filtered through our values and instincts, we also quite literally see objects as potential actions, not as they truly are. For example a chair might look a certain way, but our brain maps it instantly as a place to sit. However, when we look at say, an apple crate or a flat rock by the ocean our brain also sees these as “sitting places” just like the chair. Likewise a well designed website connotes competence and trustworthiness of the people who made it if not the people who paid for it. Like the chair, a website is also seen as potential action. Something like, “a person I can trust” or “a person I can’t afford” etc. So in this sense, the aesthetics of a website are indeed highly subjective unless they include pictures of snakes.
Great article!
Has anyone tested http://www.liveio.com?
Incredibly user-friendly and stylish design. Seems like this will be Europe’s next portal.
Nope. Haven’t heard of it. Maybe someone else has.
Good Afternoon,
We are boutique real estate office in Nosara Costa Rica.
When searching for inspiration before completing our new website last year we viewed your articles about the top real estate websites for some inspiration.
Now that our website has been in operation for a while, we would love for you to consider us in the future if you decide to do a similar article. You can view our site here: https://www.wanderlustrealty.com
We feel that it is a tough contender and could be a great addition to your 2019/2020 version. Thanks for your consideration!
Hey Nathaniel, love the site and will see if we can work it into a future article. Did you design in-house?
Hello! It was exciting to see a site we built (Nancy Taylor Bubes) listed in your review. Thank you for pointing out many had slower page speed and that it could be related to luxury real estate sites. We actually make sure to work with the smallest image files possible without giving up quality. In the case of Nancy’s website, the load speed is actually related to the large number of listings she has. We manually update her site weekly so that the slider has one image of each active listing and Nancy averages over 20 listings at a time (that’s just the ones in MLS–not counting private exclusives!). This is what creates the load speed problem with her site, but we do regularly test it and remove images from the site that are not actively in use–anything to continue to be mindful of speed. Kelly Dillon, NGMediaTeam.com
Hey Kelly,
Thanks for stopping by! There are a ton of issues that can affect page load speed and generally speaking the more code, the slower your page will load. (hey that rhymed!) IDX is pretty notorious for this as you’re relying on data from a third party.