Updated October 2026 · Written and maintained by the Progression Agency strategy team
Commercial real estate website design is the planning, design and build of the sites a commercial property business runs: the firm’s own website with its listing search, market pages and broker profiles; single-property websites for buildings being leased or sold; and the gated pages where a buyer accepts a confidentiality agreement before downloading an offering memorandum. Progression Agency designs and builds these for brokerages, owners and landlords, developers, investment sales and leasing teams and CRE service firms, and judges them on inquiries, memorandum requests and tours. Progression Agency is based in New York City and works with clients across the United States and worldwide.
On this page · 27 sections
- What is commercial real estate website design?
- Websites for commercial real estate: a listing marketplace, the firm’s own site or a property website?
- Who needs which site?
- What pages does a commercial brokerage website need?
- The listing page: everything a tenant or buyer needs on one screen
- Designing for each property type
- When does a building need its own website?
- The commercial real estate landing page: one property, one campaign, one action
- Offering memorandum access: how should the confidentiality agreement gate work?
- Listing data: one record, many destinations
- Listing search: filters, maps and saved searches
- Broker profiles and team pages
- Research and market reports on the site
- Tenant portals, investor pages and logins
- Photography, aerials, plans and tours
- Is a commercial real estate website covered by the ADA, and what does WCAG ask for?
- Fair housing and state license disclosures
- WordPress, Webflow, Next.js or a CRE marketing platform: which should run the site?
- Built for search and AI answers from day one
- Integrations: CRM, email, analytics and maps
- What does a commercial real estate website cost?
- How long does a build take, and what happens in each stage?
- How to choose a commercial real estate web design agency
- Mistakes to avoid on a commercial real estate website
- Measuring the site after launch
- Where the website sits beside SEO, marketing and lead generation
- Related services for commercial real estate firms
The short answerA commercial firm usually needs three things from the web: a firm website it controls, a way to publish individual properties well, and a controlled route to confidential documents. Listing marketplaces such as LoopNet and Crexi supply an audience; they do not replace any of the three. We build on WordPress, Webflow or Next.js, keep one listing record feeding every destination, and test against WCAG 2.2 AA before launch. As published planning ranges, a commercial real estate site with internal listings and memorandum requests costs $20,000 to $60,000 and takes 10 to 14 weeks, a property website $3,000 to $25,000 and a single landing page $1,400. Results are measured in listing inquiries, agreements accepted, tour requests and calls, by page. Every quote follows a written scope.
Search volumes, difficulty scores and costs per click are Ubersuggest data for the United States, September 2026. Platform descriptions, accessibility guidance and state rules are given as published on 4 October 2026 and can change. Prices are the planning ranges published in our pricing guides. Nothing on this page is legal advice.
What is commercial real estate website design?
It is the design of websites whose job is to lease space, sell property and win mandates. The work covers what the site says, how listings are stored and shown, how a visitor asks about a space and how confidential documents are released. Appearance matters, and it comes after those four.
A commercial site has more kinds of visitor than most business sites, and they want different things within the first few seconds. The table sets out who arrives, what each came for and what counts as success.
| Visitor | What they came for | Where the site should take them | What counts as a result |
|---|---|---|---|
| A tenant or occupier | Space of a certain type and size in a certain area | Listing search, then a listing page | An inquiry or a tour request |
| A buyer or investor | Property for sale, and the numbers behind it | The offering page and its memorandum gate | A confidentiality agreement accepted |
| An owner or landlord | Evidence that the firm can lease or sell their property | Services, transactions and broker profiles | A request for a proposal |
| Another broker | Details and documents for a client | The listing page and its downloads | A call to the listing broker |
| A current tenant | A way to report a problem or find a document | The portal page for their building | A sign-in, without a phone call |
| A recruit or a reporter | What the firm is like, or a figure to quote | Careers, or the research section | An application, or a citation |
The firm website
This is the permanent site: the firm’s listings, the markets it works, its people, its research and its services. It has to serve a tenant in a hurry and an owner doing careful diligence from the same navigation, which is why its structure is settled before any page is drawn.
Property websites
A property website presents one building or project on its own, with its own name, look and address. It is marketing for an asset where the firm website is marketing for a business. Lease-ups, repositioned buildings and investment sales are the usual occasions.
Landing pages
A landing page is a single page with a single purpose, built for one campaign: a listing being promoted by email or advertising, an owner being invited to request a proposal, a report being offered. It has no menu to wander into and one action to take.
How it differs from a residential site
A residential site is built around a listing feed from the MLS and a home-valuation offer. A commercial site is built around the firm’s own listing records, specifications that vary by property type, documents under confidentiality and a buyer who may be a committee. Our real estate website design page covers agents, teams and residential brokerages.
Websites for commercial real estate: a listing marketplace, the firm’s own site or a property website?
Most people who search for websites for commercial real estate want somewhere to look at listings, and the honest answer for them is a listing marketplace. A firm deciding where to put its effort needs a different answer: the marketplace, its own website and a property website do three separate jobs, and a firm can use all three.
In Ubersuggest data for September 2026, websites for commercial real estate draws about 2,400 US searches a month, against about 110 each for commercial real estate website design, commercial real estate web design and commercial property website design. The large number is people looking for listings; the three smaller ones are firms looking for a builder.
| Listing marketplace | The firm’s own website | A property website | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Reach people who are searching many firms’ listings at once | Present the firm, all of its listings and its knowledge | Present one building or project in depth |
| Who controls the page | The platform | The firm | The firm or the owner |
| What surrounds your listing | Other firms’ listings | Your other listings, brokers and markets | Nothing but the property |
| Where inquiry data goes | Through the platform’s tools | Into your CRM and analytics | Into your CRM and analytics |
| How long it lasts | As long as the platform shows it | Permanently | For the campaign, then it is redirected |
| Best at | Audience | Authority, search visibility and repeat visits | Persuasion, and a clean address for advertising |
If you came here to search listings
Start with the marketplaces. LoopNet is an online marketplace where owners, landlords and brokers advertise property for sale or for lease. Crexi describes itself as a place to search commercial listings for sale and for lease across the United States at no charge. CoStar, from the same parent company as LoopNet, is a subscription information platform used by professionals. The National Association of Realtors publishes a directory of commercial listing platforms and tools.
Is there a Zillow for commercial property?
People ask autocomplete exactly that, and there is no single answer under one household name. The closest equivalents are the commercial marketplaces above, joined by specialist sites: the same company that owns LoopNet runs Ten-X for commercial auctions, Land.com for rural land and BizBuySell for businesses for sale. A firm’s own website can also carry listings it has not placed on any marketplace.
What a marketplace does for a listing
It puts the listing in front of an audience already searching, beside comparable space. The firm supplies the facts and the photographs. On LoopNet, exposure is sold in subscription ad packages named Silver, Gold, Platinum and Diamond, and its owner says the site supplements a listing with its own database of property information.
What only the firm’s own site can do
Show every listing the firm has, with no competitor beside it. Explain a submarket. Introduce the broker. Hold the research. Keep a record of each visitor’s inquiry in the firm’s own systems. Stay online, at the same address, after the listing is gone. None of that is available on a page the firm does not own.
Where a single-property website fits
When one asset deserves more room than a listing page allows: a new development with a story to tell, a tower with forty suites, a sale that needs a memorandum gate under the property’s own name. It also gives advertising and signage one short address to point at.
Using all three together
The firm website holds the full record. The property website, where there is one, draws its availabilities from that record. The marketplaces receive a shorter version and send interested visitors on. One change to the record should update all three, which is a data question we come to below.
Who needs which site?
The mix depends on what the business sells. A brokerage sells its people and its reach; an owner sells specific buildings; a developer sells something that does not exist yet. Commercial property website design starts from that difference.
Brokerages and leasing teams
A firm website with listing search, market and property-type pages, broker profiles, transactions and research. Leasing teams add property websites for their larger assignments, built from one template so a new one can go live in days. The firm site has to work as hard for the owner choosing a broker as for the tenant looking for space.
Investment sales teams
Offering pages are the center: a public summary strong enough to earn a click, a confidentiality agreement step, and a document area for buyers who are approved. The team’s transaction record and its sector pages do the selling to owners who are deciding whom to hire for a disposition.
Owners and landlords
A portfolio site with a permanent page per property and live availabilities, written for tenants and for the brokers who represent them. Broker-friendly touches matter here: downloadable plans, a clear leasing contact and commission terms where the owner chooses to publish them. Tenant portal links sit on each building’s page.
Developers
A project website for each development, and a company site that shows the record behind it. The project site carries the location, the specifications, the delivery date and the leasing or sales contact, and changes as the project moves from announcement through construction to delivery. Community and planning information often belongs there too.
CRE service firms
Appraisers, commercial property managers, project managers, lenders and inspection firms need a capability site: services by property type, the people who deliver them, the markets covered and examples of work. The design task is to make specialist services easy to compare and a proposal easy to request.
Planning a new site for a commercial firm?Tell us the property types, the markets and where your listings live today. We return a written scope, a fixed price and a page-by-page plan before any design starts.
What pages does a commercial brokerage website need?
Nine page types cover almost every visitor, and each one has a job. The table is the map we start from; the sections after it take the listing page, broker profiles and research in turn.
| Page type | Its job | What it must contain |
|---|---|---|
| Home | Say what the firm does and where, and open the routes in | A plain statement, listing search, featured markets, recent transactions |
| Market and submarket pages | Show command of an area | Boundaries, inventory, availabilities, the covering broker |
| Property-type pages | Speak to one kind of occupier or investor | Specifications, current listings of that type, the specialists |
| Listing search and results | Let a visitor narrow the inventory quickly | Filters, a map, a list, a clean address for each view |
| Listing and building pages | Give every fact needed to ask about a space | Facts as text, photographs, plans, map, documents, contact |
| Services | Explain representation and advisory work | Whom the firm acts for, the process, the property types |
| Broker profiles | Win the name search and the call | Specialty, license details, listings, deals, direct contact |
| Research | Publish the firm’s knowledge | Dated reports as pages, with tables and downloads |
| Transactions and careers | Prove the work and attract brokers | Closed deals the parties allow; what joining the firm involves |
Home page
The home page answers three questions without scrolling: what kind of firm this is, which markets and property types it handles, and where to start. For most visitors the start is the listing search, so it belongs at the top, with routes for owners and investors directly beneath it.
Market and submarket pages
One page for each area the firm knows, designed around a map, a short description, the current availabilities and the broker who covers it. The content side of these pages, including how many to publish, is set out under commercial real estate SEO.
Property-type pages
Office, industrial, retail, multifamily, land and medical office each get a page per market, because each reader filters on different specifications. The template is shared and the data blocks change: class and floor for office, clear height and doors for industrial, frontage and co-tenants for retail.
Services pages
Tenant representation, landlord representation, investment sales, valuation and management are separate pages, each stating whom the firm represents in that role and how an engagement runs. An owner comparing brokers reads these closely, so they carry the process, the reporting an owner receives and the team.
Transactions
A filterable record of closed deals is the most persuasive section on a brokerage site. Each entry shows the property type, the submarket, the size band and the brokers involved, and whatever else the parties agree to disclose. It should be fed by the same record as the listings, so a closed listing becomes a transaction without retyping.
Careers and recruiting
Brokers considering a move look at the firm’s site before they return a call. A careers section that shows the platform, the support, the markets and the people, with a discreet way to start a conversation, is part of the site’s job.
The listing page: everything a tenant or buyer needs on one screen
A listing page should let a qualified reader decide in under a minute whether to ask about the space. That means the facts first, as text, followed by the photographs, plans and map that support them, and a broker’s name and number that are never more than a glance away.
| Field | For lease | For sale |
|---|---|---|
| Headline facts | Property type, available area, asking rent with its basis, date available | Property type, building and land area, asking price or a statement that offers are invited |
| Terms | Lease type, term sought, whether the space is direct or a sublease | Occupancy, tenancy summary, what is included in the sale |
| Specifications | By property type: floor, clear height, doors, power, parking, frontage | The same, with year built and site details |
| Location | Address, submarket, access, transit, a map | Address, submarket, access, parcel details |
| Media | Photographs, floor plan, virtual tour where one exists | Photographs, site plan, aerials |
| Documents | Flyer and floor plan to download | Flyer in public; memorandum behind an agreement |
| Contact | The leasing brokers, with direct lines | The sales brokers, with direct lines |
Facts before photographs
Put a fact panel at the top of the page: type, size, rate or price, availability and the three or four specifications that matter for that property type. Photographs follow. A reader who has to open a gallery or a PDF to find the size may leave before finding it.
Photographs, plans and film
Set a standard and keep to it: the same angles, the same order, the same proportions on every listing. Floor plans appear as images on the page and as files to download. Film and 3D tours are worth their cost on larger assets and should never start playing by themselves.
Maps and what sits around the property
A map shows location; an annotated aerial shows why the location matters. Mark highways, transit, neighboring tenants and anything else a reader would ask about, and repeat the same points in a short text list beside the map, so the information survives for people and programs that cannot read the image.
Documents and downloads
Flyers, brochures and plans are downloads from the listing page. They repeat what the page says in a form that prints. They should never be the only place a fact appears, because a file is harder to search, harder to update and harder to read on a phone.
The inquiry path
Every listing shows the brokers handling it, with direct phone numbers that can be tapped and a short form that records which listing it was sent from. Three fields are usually enough. The confirmation should say who will reply and how soon, and the firm should then meet that promise.
Lease listings and sale listings need different templates
The reader of a lease listing wants rent, term and availability; the reader of a sale listing wants price, income and tenancy. Forcing both into one layout leaves empty fields on every page. Two templates, sharing a design, keep each page complete.
Suites within a building
Where a building has several spaces available, show them as a table on the building’s page: suite, floor, area, rate and date available, each row opening its own detail. On larger buildings a stacking plan, which the CREDA glossary defines as a floor-by-floor, suite-by-suite view of a building, lets a tenant see the whole picture.
Designing for each property type
The template is shared across the site; the lead visual and the data block change with the property type, because an industrial tenant and a retail tenant are looking at different things. The table gives the element that should carry each kind of page.
| Property type | Lead visual | Data block beside it |
|---|---|---|
| Office | Stacking plan or floor plan | Class, floor, rentable area, divisibility, parking, transit |
| Industrial and logistics | Site plan showing doors and truck access | Clear height, dock-high and drive-in doors, truck court, power, yard |
| Retail | Annotated aerial | Frontage, co-tenants and anchor, parking, signage, previous use |
| Multifamily investment | Exterior and a unit-mix table | Units, mix, year built; income inside the memorandum |
| Land | Parcel map over an aerial | Acreage, zoning designation, utilities, access, approvals |
| Medical office | Suite plan | Suite size, exam rooms, plumbing, parking, nearby hospitals |
Office
Office pages are about fit and image: how the floor divides, what the lobby and amenities look like, how people arrive. State the building class the market assigns, and show the plan large enough to read. Sublease space should be marked clearly, with the term remaining.
Industrial and logistics
An industrial reader checks numbers before pictures. The CREDA glossary calls clear height the most important measure of an industrial building’s interior height, and defines a truck court as the area beside the loading docks where trucks maneuver. Give both, with door counts by type, in a block at the top of the page.
Retail
Retail is read from above and from the street. An aerial marked with access points, parking and neighboring tenants, followed by a storefront photograph, tells most of the story. Name the anchor where there is one; the glossary defines it as the primary and usually the largest tenant in a center.
Multifamily investment
An apartment property for sale is presented to investors: the exterior, the location and a unit-mix table in public, and rent roll and financials inside the memorandum. If the same site also advertises units for rent, the fair housing rules covered further down govern its copy and its photographs.
Land
A land page lives or dies on its map. Draw the parcel boundary over an aerial, mark road access and utilities, and give the acreage and the zoning designation as text. Link the survey and any approvals as documents.
Medical office
Practices want to know what is already built. The glossary describes medical office buildings as typically having more robust mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems. Show the suite plan with exam rooms and plumbing marked, and give parking and the nearest hospital in the data block.
A building coming to market this quarter?Send the address, the availabilities and the launch date. We scope a property website or a landing page to match the campaign.
When does a building need its own website?
When the asset is large enough, new enough or valuable enough that a listing page cannot hold what a tenant or buyer needs to see. Three situations call for one most clearly, and each changes what the site contains.
Lease-up of a new development
The site goes live before the building does. It carries renderings, the site plan, specifications, the delivery date and the leasing contact, and it records interest. The CREDA glossary calls space leased in a building under construction preleased space, and that is the outcome this site is built to produce.
A repositioned building
After a renovation or a change of ownership, a building needs to be seen again. The site shows the new lobby, the amenities, the availabilities and the ownership behind the work, with a stacking plan so a broker can see at once what can be offered to a client.
An investment sale
A sale site is a public summary, a confidentiality agreement step and a document area, under the property’s name. Its audience is small and specific, its life is short, and every visit should be attributable to a named buyer once the agreement is accepted.
What a property website contains
A common set of sections covers most assets.
- Overview: what the property is, in two sentences and a strong image.
- Availabilities, drawn live from the listing record.
- Floor plans, a site plan and, for multi-tenant buildings, a stacking plan.
- Specifications in a table, by property type.
- Location: map, access, transit and neighbors.
- Amenities and building services.
- Photographs, film and any 3D tour.
- Documents: flyer and brochure in public, memorandum behind an agreement.
- The team, with direct contact details and required license information.
Domains, and what happens after the deal
A property site can sit on its own domain or on a section of the firm’s site. Its own domain suits signage and advertising; a section of the firm’s site keeps the visits and links with the firm. Either way, decide at the start where the address will redirect when the building is leased or sold.
One system, many property sites
A leasing team should not commission a new website for every assignment. Build one property-site system with a few layouts, fed from the listing record, and a new site becomes a matter of content and photography. As published planning ranges, a configured template site runs $3,000 to $8,000 and a custom one $8,000 to $25,000; see microsite design.
The commercial real estate landing page: one property, one campaign, one action
A commercial real estate landing page exists for a single campaign and asks for a single action. It has no site menu, it loads fast on a phone, and everything on it supports one decision: ask about this space, request this proposal or download this report.
Landing pages for a listing
When a listing is promoted by email or advertising, send the traffic to a page made for that message: the headline fact, four photographs, the specifications, the broker and a short form. The full listing page stays on the firm’s site for everyone else.
Landing pages for owners
Owner campaigns ask for something more valuable than an inquiry: a meeting. The page should state what the firm will deliver, such as a leasing proposal or an opinion of value, what it needs from the owner and who will respond. Proof from the same property type and submarket belongs directly above the form.
Landing pages for tenant representation
A company with a lease expiring is the audience. The page explains what representation involves, who pays in the firm’s arrangements and what happens in the first conversation, in the firm’s own words, and asks only for the facts needed to prepare for it: location, size and timing.
How long should the form be?
As short as the follow-up allows. Name, email or phone and one qualifying question suit most listing inquiries. A proposal request can ask for the property address. As a fixed scope, a single landing page with copy, a form and tracking is $1,400; our landing page design service covers testing.
Offering memorandum access: how should the confidentiality agreement gate work?
The gate has to do three things at once: let a serious buyer through in a minute, keep confidential material away from everyone else, and leave the seller’s broker with a record of who accepted what. An offering memorandum is the document that presents a property for sale to prospective buyers, and it normally contains more than the seller wants public.
| Level | What it releases | What the visitor does | When to use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open | Flyer, photographs, headline facts | Nothing | Every listing |
| Brochure, market report | Gives an email address | Material that is promotional but worth a contact | |
| Agreement | Offering memorandum | Registers and accepts a confidentiality agreement | Most investment sales |
| Approval | Memorandum for a sensitive offering | Registers, accepts, then waits for a broker to release access | Where the seller wants buyers screened |
| Document area | Due diligence files | Signs in; sees only the folders granted | After a buyer is qualified |
What stays public
The teaser: property type, location, size, a strong photograph and the investment highlights the seller is content to publish. This page is what search engines index and what email links to. It should say plainly that a memorandum is available and what a buyer must do to receive it.
What sits behind the gate
The memorandum itself and anything else the seller treats as confidential, typically financial statements, rent rolls and lease abstracts. Decide with the seller, document by document, which level each file belongs to before the offering goes live.
The click-through agreement
The federal ESIGN Act provides that a signature, contract or record relating to a transaction may not be denied legal effect solely because it is in electronic form. That makes an on-screen agreement workable in principle. The wording, and whether a click is enough for a given seller, are questions for the seller’s counsel; the site’s job is to present the full text and record acceptance.
Registration fields
Ask for what the broker needs to qualify the visitor: name, company, email, phone, and whether the person is a principal or a broker acting for one. Where a buyer’s broker registers a client, record that too. Every extra field costs completions, so each one should earn its place.
Approval: automatic or by a broker
Automatic release suits widely marketed offerings where speed matters. Release by a broker suits offerings where the seller wants to know who is looking before the numbers leave the building. The site should support both, per offering, and tell the visitor which applies.
Keeping gated files out of search
A confidential PDF at a guessable address is not confidential. Serve gated files only to signed-in visitors, keep them out of the sitemap, and send a noindex instruction with the file. Google’s robots documentation explains that non-HTML files such as PDFs take that instruction through the X-Robots-Tag response header.
The record you keep
For each acceptance, store the name, the time, the version of the agreement shown and the files then opened. The seller’s broker uses that record to follow up and to report to the client. Some firms run this step on a dedicated platform instead; SharpLaunch, for one, sells a document portal with online confidentiality agreements.
Listing data: one record, many destinations
Every listing should exist once, in a record the firm controls, and be published from there to the firm website, any property website, the marketplaces and email. Typing a listing separately into each place is how sizes, rates and statuses come to disagree.
The listing record
The record holds the facts, the media, the documents, the brokers and the status, with the fields each property type needs. It can live in the website’s own content system or in listing software the firm already uses. What matters is that one record is the origin and everything else reads from it.
Is there an IDX for commercial listings?
Sometimes. IDX is the arrangement under which MLS participants display each other’s listings, and the RESO Data Dictionary, the data standard MLS systems use, includes commercial sale and commercial lease property types. A firm whose listings are in an MLS may be able to take a feed. Where they are not, the firm’s own record is the only origin there is.
Sending listings to the marketplaces
Each marketplace takes listings in its own way, by entry, upload or feed, and applies its own format. CoStar’s annual report says professionals report availabilities through its online tool or to its researchers. Whatever the route, the site’s record should be the origin, and someone should own the task of checking that the marketplace matches it.
Buying a CRE marketing platform or building your own
Subscription platforms exist for this. SharpLaunch offers property website and listing search tools that sit inside a company site; Buildout presents itself as a brokerage platform for commercial real estate; RCM sells a toolkit for launching and tracking a sale listing. They are quick to adopt. A custom build costs more at the start and fits the firm’s process, design and data exactly.
Status changes
Available, under contract, leased, sold, withdrawn: each status should change the page’s label, the search results, the property website and the feed in one step. A status that has to be updated in four places will be wrong in at least one of them within a month.
What to do with a listing page when the deal closes
Decide by rule: keep the page and mark it leased or sold, redirect it to the building’s permanent page, or retire it. The same record then creates a transaction entry where disclosure is allowed. The search consequences of each choice are set out under SEO for commercial firms.
Memorandums going out by email attachment?We design the public teaser, the confidentiality agreement step and the document area, so every request is recorded and every file is controlled.
Listing search: filters, maps and saved searches
Listing search should take a visitor from the whole inventory to a short list in two or three choices. The design question is which choices, and the engineering question is how to make the results fast and give every useful view a stable address.
Filters that match how space is searched
Property type, lease or sale, a size range and an area cover most searches. Add the filters each property type needs, such as clear height for industrial, only when that type is selected. A wall of twenty filters on first load serves nobody.
Map search
A map beside a list, each updating the other, suits visitors who think in locations. Cluster pins at wide zoom, keep the list readable without the map for anyone who cannot use it, and make sure the map library does not delay the first results on a phone.
Addresses for search results
Important views, such as industrial space in one submarket, deserve a clean, permanent address with a heading and a sentence of introduction. Sort orders and map positions do not. Getting this right at build time is far cheaper than untangling thousands of duplicate addresses later.
Saved searches and alerts
A tenant who is not ready today may be ready when the right space appears. Let visitors save a set of criteria against an email address and receive new matches. It is the simplest way a listing site earns a second visit, and it gives brokers a list of active requirements.
When nothing matches
An empty results page should never be a dead end. Show the nearest alternatives, offer to save the search, and give a broker’s contact for requirements that are not on the market. An unmatched requirement is still a lead.
Broker profiles and team pages
People hire brokers, so the people pages carry more weight on a commercial site than on most. Each profile should be complete enough to settle a name search and practical enough to start a conversation.
What each profile shows
A photograph, title and office; a sentence on specialty by property type and market; license details in the form the state requires; designations held; current listings and disclosed transactions drawn from the record; and direct contact details with a downloadable contact card.
Team and office pages
Teams that work together should be shown together, with the assignments they share. Each office has a page with its address, hours, phone and people, which is also the page a local business profile should point to. Keep those details identical wherever they are published.
Credentials and where to verify them
Name designations so a reader can check them. SIOR publishes a member search, and the CCIM Institute a Find a CCIM directory. A profile that matches its directory entry, name for name, is the kind of detail a careful owner notices.
Research and market reports on the site
A research section turns the firm’s knowledge into pages that are cited, linked and returned to. Design decides whether that knowledge can be read on a phone and quoted by a reporter, or stays locked inside a file.
A page for every report
Each report gets a page with a headline finding, the key figures as text, the charts, and the designed file as a download. Reports in a series share a layout and an archive, so a reader can move from this quarter to the last without hunting.
Charts and tables people can read
Charts need labels that work at phone width, a text summary of what they show and color choices that do not depend on telling red from green. Tables should be real HTML tables that reflow, with the period and the definition of each figure stated.
To gate or not to gate
Open reports earn links and citations; gated reports earn email addresses. A workable split is to publish the summary and headline figures openly and ask for an email for the full file or the data. Decide by what the firm values more from each report, and say clearly which is which.
Tenant portals, investor pages and logins
Where a firm already has software that its tenants or investors sign in to, the website’s task is to lead people to it clearly, and only occasionally to replace it.
Link to the portal you already have
Property management software often includes a tenant portal; Yardi’s CommercialCafe tenant portal, for example, lets tenants view and share documents and make maintenance requests. Give each portal a plainly named page on your own site, with a sentence on what it is for and the sign-in link, and link that page from every building it serves.
Investor pages and securities rules
If a site offers interests in a deal or a fund, securities law decides what may be shown publicly. Under SEC Regulation D, an issuer generally may not offer securities by general solicitation or advertising; Rule 506(c) allows it only where every purchaser is an accredited investor and the issuer takes reasonable steps to verify that. Counsel sets the rules for those pages before design begins.
When a custom portal is justified
When no existing product fits how the firm reports to its tenants, owners or investors, or when the portal is itself part of the service being sold. As a published planning range, a tenant or owner portal costs $50,000 to $120,000 and takes two to four months. Our web portal and real estate software teams build them.
Sign-in that everyone can use
WCAG 2.2 added a requirement on authentication: no step may depend on a cognitive function test, such as remembering a password or solving a puzzle, unless an alternative or a supporting mechanism is offered. The W3C gives support for password managers and for copy and paste as examples of mechanisms that satisfy it, and both make sign-in easier for every user.
Photography, aerials, plans and tours
Commercial property is sold on evidence, and most of the evidence is visual. A site’s design can only be as good as the photographs, drawings and footage put into it, so these are planned and budgeted with the build.
Photography standards
Write a one-page standard: exterior from the approach, lobby, a typical floor, the loading area, the view. The same sequence on every listing makes the whole inventory look managed. Compress every image and state its dimensions in the page code so layouts do not jump as they load.
Drone footage
Aerials are close to essential for industrial, retail and land. The FAA requires a Remote Pilot Certificate to fly a drone under its Small UAS Rule, known as Part 107, which is the rule commercial operators fly under. The FAA’s page on becoming a drone pilot sets out the steps; ask any videographer for the certificate before a shoot.
Site plans, floor plans and stacking plans
Redraw plans for the screen instead of posting the architect’s sheet. Simplify line weights, label rooms and dimensions in text large enough for a phone, and color available space consistently. Provide the original as a download for brokers and space planners who need it.
3D tours and film
Matterport, now part of the same company as LoopNet, describes its product as digital twins that let users capture and share spaces in immersive 3D. A tour or a short film helps most where a tenant cannot visit easily. Load either only when a visitor asks for it, so the page stays fast. Our video team handles filming.
Is a commercial real estate website covered by the ADA, and what does WCAG ask for?
The Department of Justice’s position is that the ADA applies to what businesses open to the public offer on the web. It has set no detailed technical standard for businesses and points to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines as helpful guidance. We build to WCAG 2.2 at level AA. This section is general information, not legal advice.
| Criterion | Level | What it requires | Where it bites on a commercial site |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.1.1 Non-text Content | A | A text alternative for non-text content | Listing photographs, floor plans, site plans and maps |
| 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded) | A | Captions for prerecorded audio in video | Property films and broker interviews |
| 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) | AA | A contrast ratio of at least 4.5 to 1 for text | Headlines laid over photographs; pale gray specifications |
| 2.1.1 Keyboard | A | All functionality operable through a keyboard | Listing filters, galleries, map search and document gates |
| 2.5.8 Target Size (Minimum) | AA | Pointer targets of at least 24 by 24 CSS pixels, with exceptions | Map pins, gallery arrows and small filter controls |
| 3.3.8 Accessible Authentication (Minimum) | AA | No cognitive function test at sign-in without an alternative | Memorandum gates and portal sign-in |
What the Department of Justice says
Its web accessibility guidance says the Department has consistently taken the position that the ADA’s requirements apply to the goods, services, privileges and activities that public accommodations offer on the web. For state and local governments it has gone further and adopted WCAG 2.1 at level AA by rule. Ask counsel how this applies to your firm.
WCAG 2.2 as the working standard
WCAG 2.2 is a W3C Recommendation, and content that conforms to it also conforms to versions 2.0 and 2.1. Level AA is the level the Department’s rule for state and local governments adopted, in version 2.1. On our builds, accessibility against WCAG 2.2 AA is part of quality assurance before launch, alongside speed on a throttled mobile connection and a test of every form from a real phone.
Listing photographs, maps and PDFs
Every photograph needs alt text that says what it shows. Maps need a text equivalent. Flyers and memorandums are harder: a PDF exported from a design program can be unreadable to a screen reader unless it is tagged. The W3C publishes techniques for accessible PDFs, and the surest fix is to put the same facts on the page as text.
Forms, gates and sign-in
Label every field, announce errors in text, and make the whole agreement step workable from a keyboard. A gate that only functions with a mouse, or a sign-in that demands a puzzle with no alternative, excludes exactly the people the guidelines exist for, and loses buyers.
Testing
Automated tools catch part of the picture. WAVE, from WebAIM, checks a single page online. Follow it with a keyboard-only pass through search, a listing, the inquiry form and the memorandum gate. For existing sites, an audit runs $2,500 to $10,000 as a published planning range; see ADA compliant website design.
Planning a new site for a commercial firm?Tell us the property types, the markets and where your listings live today. We return a written scope, a fixed price and a page-by-page plan before any design starts.
Fair housing and state license disclosures
Two more sets of rules reach a commercial site: the Fair Housing Act wherever dwellings are advertised, and each state’s rules on how a brokerage identifies itself. We build inside both. The summaries below are for marketing teams and are not legal advice.
| State | Rule | What it asks a brokerage site to show |
|---|---|---|
| New York | 19 NYCRR 175.25 | That the advertiser is a broker, or the broker’s name, with a full address or telephone number; the license type of each named licensee, stated accurately |
| California | Business and Professions Code 10140.6 | Name, license identification number and responsible broker’s identity on first-point-of-contact materials, which the regulator’s guidelines say include a licensee’s websites |
| Texas | TREC rules 531.18, 531.20 and 535.155 | Homepage links to the Consumer Protection Notice and to Information About Brokerage Services, in set wording and type size; the broker’s name in each advertisement |
| Florida | Rule 61J2-10.025 | The licensed name of the brokerage firm, placed adjacent to or immediately above or below the point of contact information |
Apartments and the Fair Housing Act
The Act’s advertising rule applies to notices and advertisements for the sale or rental of a dwelling, and HUD’s regulation at 24 CFR 100.75 extends it to words, photographs, illustrations and the choice of media. A commercial firm that markets apartments is covered. Our property management SEO page goes through the regulation paragraph by paragraph.
New York
The Department of State’s advertising regulation defines advertising to include websites. Advertisements must indicate that the advertiser is a broker or give the brokerage’s name, with a full address or a telephone number, and must state license types accurately. Websites kept by associate brokers, salespersons and teams must carry the required information on every page.
California
The statute requires a licensee’s name, license identification number and responsible broker’s identity on solicitation materials intended to be the first point of contact. The Department of Real Estate’s advertising guidelines list websites owned, controlled or maintained by the licensee among those materials.
Texas
The Texas Real Estate Commission’s rules require a link labeled Texas Real Estate Commission Consumer Protection Notice and a link labeled Texas Real Estate Commission Information About Brokerage Services, each in at least 10 point type, in a readily noticeable place on the homepage of a business website. Advertisements must carry the broker’s name.
Florida
Florida’s advertising rule requires all real estate advertisements to include the licensed name of the brokerage firm. On an internet site, that name must sit adjacent to, or immediately above or below, the point of contact information, which the rule defines to include addresses, email addresses and telephone numbers.
Every other state
Rules differ from state to state and are amended from time to time. For each state where the firm holds a license, read the commission’s advertising rule, build its requirements into the footer, profile and listing templates, and confirm each broker’s details against the regulator’s public search. ARELLO’s licensee verification database searches the participating jurisdictions in one place.
WordPress, Webflow, Next.js or a CRE marketing platform: which should run the site?
Choose by who will edit the site, how large the listing inventory is and how much of the firm’s process the site has to carry. We build on WordPress, Webflow or Next.js, and for some firms a subscription platform is the better answer.
| Option | Fits when | Strength | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| WordPress, custom theme | Most brokerages and owners; an in-house team will edit | Portable and extensible; listing records as their own content type | Needs maintenance and sound hosting |
| Webflow | Design-led firm and property sites with modest inventories | Visual editing, hosting bundled | Large or complex listing data needs outside tooling |
| Next.js with a headless content system | Large inventories, application features, several sites from one source | Speed and full control of search and data | Higher build cost; developers needed for structural change |
| CRE marketing platform | A team that needs property sites and listing pages this month | Quick to launch; built for listings | Templates and data model belong to the vendor |
WordPress
Our default for most business sites, because it is portable and a marketing team can run it. Listings, buildings, brokers and reports become structured content types with their own fields and templates. See WordPress development and WordPress maintenance.
Webflow
A good fit for a firm site or a family of property sites where design freedom and easy editing matter more than a large listing database. Our Webflow team builds these, and the Webflow and WordPress comparison sets out the trade.
Next.js and headless builds
Where the inventory is large, the search is demanding or several sites must draw on one source, a headless build separates the content system from a fast front end. It costs more and repays it in speed and control. Next.js development and headless versus traditional CMS explain the approach.
CRE marketing platforms
A subscription platform is the right answer for some firms: it is fast, it understands listings and it needs no developer. The cost is that design, data structure and addresses follow the vendor’s model. Ask what can be exported, and what happens to every address if the firm leaves.
Hosting, speed and security
Google’s Core Web Vitals guidance asks for the largest element to load within 2.5 seconds, interactions to respond in under 200 milliseconds and layout shift below 0.1. PageSpeed Insights measures any address against them. Hosting and maintenance are separate from the build and optional with us; the planning range is $150 to $1,500 a month. See speed optimization and website security.
Who owns what
You own the domain, the hosting account, the content system, the content, the design files and the source code, and all of it transfers on final payment. That is our standard term, and it is the first thing to check in any proposal, because a site the firm cannot take with it is rented.
Built for search and AI answers from day one
A site’s structure decides most of what search engines and AI assistants can do with it, and structure is cheapest to get right during the build. Three things belong in the specification.
Structure that search engines can follow
Permanent pages for buildings, a page per property type per market, listing facts in the HTML, clean addresses for search views and a rule for closed listings. Commercial real estate SEO explains each, and our technical SEO team reviews templates before launch.
Structured data without false promises
Schema.org defines a RealEstateListing type, and we add it to listing templates with Organization and office markup. It helps machines read the facts. When checked on 4 October 2026, Google listed no rich result for sale or lease listings, so nobody should expect a special display from it.
AI assistants
Assistants quote pages that state facts plainly and that their crawlers are allowed to read. Text-first listing pages, dated reports and complete profiles are the raw material. The method is set out under AEO for commercial real estate.
Integrations: CRM, email, analytics and maps
A commercial site earns its cost when an inquiry reaches the right broker in minutes and can be followed to a signed deal. That is integration work, and it is scoped with the design, not after it.
CRM and lead routing
Every form and tracked call creates a record in the CRM with the listing or page it came from and is assigned to the listing broker automatically. Decide the routing rules for unassigned inquiries, such as a general tenant requirement, before launch. Our CRM consultants set this up in the system you already use.
Analytics that follow the deal
Google Analytics calls an event that measures an action particularly important to a business a key event. Inquiries, accepted agreements and tour requests are the key events on a commercial site, and the signed lease or sale can be imported from the CRM later. Our analytics team builds the reporting.
Maps
Interactive maps add weight to a page and can carry usage fees. Load the interactive map when a visitor reaches it, show a static image until then, and store coordinates in the listing record so every map, feed and data file agrees on where the property is.
Email and alerts
Saved-search alerts, new-listing announcements to brokers and report mailings should draw on the same listing record and the same contact list. Email marketing covers the sending; the site’s part is clean data and working unsubscribe links.
What does a commercial real estate website cost?
As published planning ranges: $20,000 to $60,000 for a commercial firm site with internal listings and memorandum requests, $15,000 to $50,000 for a developer’s project site, $3,000 to $25,000 for a property website and $1,400 for a single landing page. The quote follows a written scope and is a fixed price.
| Scope | Planning range | Typical time |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial real estate site with internal listings and memorandum requests | $20,000–$60,000 | 10–14 weeks |
| Developer project site with plans, availability and reservations | $15,000–$50,000 | 6–12 weeks |
| Property website on a configured template, 1–3 pages | $3,000–$8,000 | 2–4 weeks |
| Custom property website, 3–8 pages, with film and integrations | $8,000–$25,000 | 5–8 weeks |
| Interactive or scroll-driven property site | $25,000–$75,000 | 8–14 weeks |
| Single landing page: one template, copy, form, tracking | $1,400 | 1–2 weeks |
| Restyle of an existing site in place | $4,800 | 3–5 weeks |
| Tenant or owner portal | $50,000–$120,000 | 2–4 months |
| Accessibility audit with report and fix list | $2,500–$10,000 | 2–4 weeks |
| Accessibility remediation of an existing site | $5,000–$40,000 | 3–10 weeks |
| Hosting, maintenance and monthly content | $150–$1,500 a month | Ongoing |
These ranges are published on our pages for real estate websites, website design and development, microsites, accessible websites and real estate software. Our guide to website costs explains what drives them.
What moves the price
The size and complexity of the listing data, the number of templates, whether a memorandum gate with approvals is included, how many property sites the system must produce, the integrations, and how much content and photography has to be created. A firm with clean listing data and good photographs sits lower in every range.
Ongoing costs
Hosting, maintenance, security updates and content changes continue after launch, at $150 to $1,500 a month as a planning range depending on scope. Map services, any listing software and marketplace subscriptions are paid to their providers. Website maintenance and hosting costs are covered separately.
What is billed separately
Photography, drone work and film are budgeted by the shoot; as a published range, a licensed drone operator costs $600 to $1,500 a day. Marketplace advertising packages, data subscriptions and legal review of agreements are the firm’s own costs and sit outside a web scope.
A building coming to market this quarter?Send the address, the availabilities and the launch date. We scope a property website or a landing page to match the campaign.
How long does a build take, and what happens in each stage?
Ten to fourteen weeks is the planning figure for a firm site with listings and a memorandum gate. A property website on an existing system takes two to four weeks. The sequence is the same either way: decide the data and the structure first, then design, then build.
- Discovery: the property types, markets and audiences; where listings live now; the CRM; the states where the firm is licensed.
- Data plan: the listing record and its fields, the status rules, the feeds out and the closed-listing policy.
- Structure: the page types, the search, the gate levels and the address scheme, agreed as a written page plan.
- Design: listing and building templates first, then markets, profiles and research, as a design system.
- Build: templates, search, gate, integrations, structured data and redirects.
- Content: listings migrated, profiles completed, market pages written with your brokers.
- Quality assurance and launch: accessibility, speed, forms tested from a phone, license details by state, tracking.
What to gather before work starts
An export of current listings and closed transactions; photographs and plans, with the rights to use them; broker names, license details and biographies; access to the domain, hosting, analytics and CRM; the confidentiality agreement text approved by counsel; and one person who can approve decisions.
Moving from an old site
List every address the current site has, including listings, buildings, reports and profiles, and map each to its place on the new one. Redirect them at launch. Skipping this step is what puts years of search visibility at risk in a relaunch; our guide to post-redesign traffic loss explains the recovery.
Launch checks
On launch day the checks are practical: every form delivers to the CRM, every gated file refuses an anonymous request, redirects resolve, license notices appear where each state requires, and analytics records a test inquiry from a listing page.
After launch
Thirty days of support are included, because launch week is when things surface. After that the work is routine: new listings and reports, property sites as assignments arrive, and a quarterly look at which pages produce inquiries. Conversion optimization picks up from there.
How to choose a commercial real estate web design agency
Look for a commercial real estate web design partner that asks about your listing data before it shows you a mood board. The requirements below separate teams that have thought about commercial property from teams that will reskin a general business template.
| Requirement | How to check it |
|---|---|
| Starts with the listing record | Ask to see the data plan from a previous build, or how they would model your listings |
| Has a rule for closed listings | Ask what a listing address does on the day the deal closes |
| Can build a memorandum gate with a record | Ask how acceptance is stored and how a gated file is kept out of search |
| Designs each property type differently | Ask to see an industrial template beside an office template |
| Builds state license rules into templates | Ask where license details will appear for each state you work in |
| Tests accessibility | Ask which WCAG version and level they test against, and how |
| Plans the migration | Ask for the redirect map as a named deliverable |
| Leaves you owning everything | Read the ownership clause: domain, content, design files and source |
| Prices from a written scope | A fixed price against a page-by-page plan, before design starts |
Questions worth asking
Who on your team has worked with commercial listing data? What will my brokers have to do differently on the day the site launches? How does a new property website get made a year from now, and by whom? The answers show whether the agency has thought past the launch.
Specialist platform, generalist agency or in-house
A platform is quickest and least flexible. An in-house build fits firms with developers on staff. An agency suits firms that want CRE website design fitted to their own process and brand, with someone accountable for the result. The routes can be combined: an agency-built firm site, with a platform for day-to-day flyers.
Mistakes to avoid on a commercial real estate website
Most of these come from treating the site as a brochure instead of as a working tool. Each one costs inquiries, and each is cheaper to prevent in the specification than to repair after launch.
- Listings that exist only as PDF flyers, so the page itself says almost nothing.
- A listing search that shows no results until a script from another service has loaded.
- Leased and sold listings left online as available, or deleted so their addresses return errors.
- One template for lease and sale listings, with half the fields empty on every page.
- Memorandum files at public addresses that anyone with the link can open.
- Broker profiles with no license details, no specialty and a general office number.
- Photographs uploaded at full size, making listing pages slow on a phone.
- Maps and plans with no text equivalent.
- Inquiries sent to a shared inbox instead of to the listing broker and the CRM.
- A relaunch with no redirect map, so years of listing and report addresses stop working.
Measuring the site after launch
Judge the site by what it sends to brokers. Visits and time on page are diagnostic; inquiries, accepted agreements, tour requests and calls are the result, and each should be traceable to a page.
| Measure | What it tells you | Where it is recorded |
|---|---|---|
| Listing inquiries by listing and by source | Which properties and which channels produce interest | CRM and analytics |
| Confidentiality agreements accepted | How many qualified buyers each offering reached | The gate’s own record |
| Tour requests | Interest serious enough to visit | CRM |
| Tracked calls | Inquiries that never touch a form | Call tracking |
| Proposal requests from owners | Whether the site is winning mandates as well as tenants | CRM |
| Saved searches created | Active requirements the brokers can work | The site’s database |
| Core Web Vitals on listing and search pages | Whether speed is costing visits | Search Console and PageSpeed Insights |
Inquiries by source and page
Record two things with every inquiry: the page it came from and how the visitor reached the site. Together they show whether a marketplace, a search result, an email or a sign brought the lead, and which listings need better presentation.
Speed of response
The best listing page loses to a slow reply. Measure the time from inquiry to first response in the CRM, by broker and by office, and review it monthly. A site can route a lead in seconds; only the firm can answer it.
Where the website sits beside SEO, marketing and lead generation
The site is where every other channel lands. Search visibility for it is covered under commercial real estate SEO; campaigns across email, paid media and social under our commercial real estate marketing agency page; and prospecting for tenants, buyers and mandates under commercial real estate lead generation.
Related services for commercial real estate firms
The pages on this site that sit beside commercial real estate web work.
- Commercial real estate SEO: market, property-type and listing pages that rank.
- Commercial real estate marketing and lead generation: filling the pipeline.
- AEO for commercial real estate: being cited by AI assistants.
- Real estate website design for agents, teams and residential brokerages.
- Real estate marketing, real estate SEO and real estate PPC.
- Property management marketing and property management SEO.
- AEO for real estate agents: a neighboring guide.
- Real estate software development and web portal development for tenant and investor portals.
- Landing page design and microsite design for single properties and campaigns.
- B2B marketing, LinkedIn advertising and outbound lead generation.
- Email marketing for listing and research mailings.
- Local SEO services for office profiles.
- Corporate website design and B2B website design for the wider firm.
- Construction website design for the companies that build the space.
- UI and UX design for search and portal interfaces.
- Website redesign and website design and development: how we run a build.
- Brand identity and copywriting for firm and property brands.
- 3D website design and motion design for flagship properties.
Planning a commercial real estate website?
Tell us the property types, the markets, where your listings live and the states you are licensed in. We reply with a written scope, a page-by-page plan and a fixed price.
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Frequently asked questions
What does commercial real estate website design include?
Is there a Zillow for commercial property?
Which sites do people use to find commercial real estate listings?
Are LoopNet and CoStar the same thing?
Does a brokerage still need its own website if its listings are on LoopNet and Crexi?
What is a property website in commercial real estate?
Why is an offering memorandum placed behind a form?
Can a confidentiality agreement be accepted with a click on a website?
Should a commercial real estate website be built on WordPress, Webflow or a CRE platform?
Can a commercial real estate website builder or template replace a custom design?
What budget should a firm plan for commercial real estate web design?
From kickoff to launch, how many weeks does a commercial brokerage website take?
What does a commercial real estate landing page need to convert?
Is commercial property website design different for owners than for brokerages?
Does a commercial real estate website have to be ADA compliant?
Do listing flyers and memorandum PDFs have to be accessible?
What license information must a brokerage website show?
Can commercial listings be pulled into a website through IDX?
How should a website handle a listing after the space is leased or the property is sold?
Does an investor area on a sponsor’s website raise securities questions?
Who can fly a drone to photograph a commercial property?
How often should a commercial real estate firm redesign its website?
What does CRE website design involve after launch?
What should a developer’s project website include before the building exists?
Who owns the website, the listing data and the design files when the project ends?
Planning a new site for a commercial firm?Tell us the property types, the markets and where your listings live today. We return a written scope, a fixed price and a page-by-page plan before any design starts.
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