Responsive real estate websites
Responsive real estate websites are all the rage, and some are hearing the phrase and wondering what all of the fuss is about. You’ve heard the phrase, but first must understand that “responsive” does not mean you have a chat function on your blog making you responsive, rather it implies that a website is written with a particular coding language that (in layman’s terms) allows for a site to adapt to the device on which the site is being viewed, resizing automatically and altering navigation to suit the device rather than develop a third party app that users have to waste time downloading and forgetting to use.
The coding language lives by the theory that mobile devices come first and since mobile browsers are so limited in what they can do, design should center around that idea first, given the rise of mobile devices. When sites are not developed with W3C CSS3, mobile browsers degrade the experience, can be slow to load, and users have to pinch the screen and pan around to zoom in and out to use the site which is not ideal, so RWD reshuffles the site automatically, knowing the size of that browser screen and making for a better browsing experience and not requiring users to download an app.
Responsinator.com allows you to put in any URL and see what the website looks like in various devices, all from the web, which will give you a quick idea of how responsive real estate websites really are (or aren’t).
Why responsive real estate websites matter
Responsive real estate websites are important in the era of mobile devices, because while almost all consumers shop online for a home, an increasing majority now search exclusively or primarily through mobile devices like their smartphone or tablet, making responsive design critical – nothing turns off a consumer more than a bad website that doesn’t work.
Placester.com has created an overview of what they believe to be the 11 must haves for all responsive real estate websites, including some pro tips:
