Real estate website: should I buy an off-the-shelf template or hire an agency for a custom design?

In real estate, what sells the site isn't custom code, it's photo quality and server speed. If you go custom and part ways with the agency, you're stranded; with an off-the-shelf template, you can just find another developer and pick up right where you left off.

We started out with 50 listings back in 2021 using a pre-made template. We're currently sitting at 280 active villa listings and our page load time is 1.2 seconds. Total setup cost us 18.000 TL including the license and customizations, and we haven't hit a single bottleneck to date.

edit: fixed a few typos.

Half of what agencies call custom design is just reskinning an old in-house template they already have lying around. There's zero guarantee you won't drop 140k TL just to be handed a generic backend anyway.

Pay attention to map integrations and multilingual support when picking a template. If you're catering to foreign buyers for Bodrum properties, go for lightweight themes that run clean with multilingual setups, and disable every unnecessary demo module right off the bat.

a template is more than enough for a small portfolio but don't turn it into a plugin graveyard. also upload your images in webp or the site will crawl no matter what theme you use

Are you planning on an XML integration to automatically pull listings from property portals onto your site or are you entering everything manually? Off-the-shelf templates usually don't support local portal XML feeds out of the box, get clarity on that upfront.

A friend of mine paid a big agency for custom software for a boutique villa rental business two years ago. The agency went under six months later, they couldn't find anyone who could debug the codebase, and they ended up having to switch to a ready-made template anyway.

note: I wrote this based on my own experience, it might not apply to everyone.

Instead of burying that remaining 120k TL in code put it toward drone footage and Google search ads—you'll see an ROI much faster.

Timely topic.

Don't miss this: Most time waste accumulates in tasks waiting for approval.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks a lot, I'll try it today.

Here's how it went for us. The cheapest quote is usually the least thought-out one.

The cheapest quote is usually the least thought-out one. If I were you I'd go this route.

Don't miss this: Every "we'll look at it later" in a meeting means unbilled work.

Ask who prepared the quote and who will actually do the work.

I'm in the same situation that's why I'm asking. When you try to change everything at once, nothing settles.

Three different views emerged, they all complement each other. The system lives on after delivery; maintenance is a separate line item.

Any unwritten clause becomes a point of disagreement later, as both sides remember it differently. I mean just leaving this note it might be useful.

I agree. In legacy systems, the most expensive thing is unknown dependencies.

Good luck with that.

Let's separate the concepts, they're getting mixed up. Processes without records never improve, because you don't know what to fix.

If acceptance criteria aren't written, when the work is done is open to debate. Proven by experience.

Sorry, but this doesn't apply in every case. Start with a small trial; don't commit to everything at once.

If it's your first time, start small; scaling comes later.