How many different ways to make money from your real estate website can you think of?
Well, we came up with 12.
12 completely different ways to make money from your website. And we’re super excited to share them with you!
By the way, if you don’t already have your own site, check out How to Build a Real Estate Website for completely free step-by-step instructions on building your own website. It’s easier than you might expect, and DYI-ing your site will save you thousands of dollars.
Quick note: this post was originally published in 2019. This is the new, improved version.
12 Ways to Make Money from Your Real Estate Website
Here are 12 brilliant ways to make money from your real estate website:
1. Increase your leads to increase your closings (and your income!)
The primary function of your real estate website should be to increase your leads. As a real estate agent, real estate transactions are your bread and butter, after all. You don’t want any of your other income streams to interfere with generating new client leads.
But how exactly does your website increase leads? Your real estate website helps in lots of ways. Here are some of the most ways your real estate website is most useful in generating new leads.
Getting you found in online searches
What happens when someone searches online for a Realtor® in your city? Can they find you?
Having your own website gives the search engines content to index so they can rank you as a search result. Word to the wise: if you want to move up the rankings, and get on the front page of those search results, you need to consistently give the search engines more content to index. That’s one of the reasons every agent needs a real estate blog.
Legitimizing your business
Today’s buyers and sellers expect professionals to have a professional website. Your website increases your leads by building your brand, demonstrating your authority, and building trust with your prospective clients.
Even if prospects hear about you from an offline source, they’re probably going to look for your website before contacting you. Just like people Google a potential employer or a blind date before meeting!
Building your mailing list
Lead magnets are a great way to get prospective clients to subscribe to your mailing list so you can reach them regularly and stay top-of-mind. Lead magnets are simply freebies that your visitors can receive via email by entering their contact info on your website.
For example, one of the lead magnets available through this site is a real estate website checklist. To get your own copy of the real estate website checklist, just enter your contact info below, and a link will be delivered to your inbox right away. You get the benefit of the checklist and email updates about our latest posts, and I get the benefit of growing my email list. Win-win!
2. Promote your other real estate-related services through your site
In our popular post 55 Ways to Make Money in Real Estate, we list 14 different services you can add to your real estate practice to better serve your clients, generate new leads, and grow your income. The best way to start any of these 14 is to promote them on your real estate website.
We won’t cover all 14 now, but here are a few of the most popular services you can add to your real estate business:
Property Tax Appeals
Property Tax Appeals is a completely untapped agent revenue stream! And it’s way easier than you’d think.
Here’s how it works:
- Property taxes are usually based on the County Assessor’s estimation of the value of the property. But Assessors are often wrong because they apply a general formula to entire submarkets to determine the annual increases (they can’t possibly value each property individually every year).
- If the homeowner (or their representative – that could be you!) can show the County that the actual value of the property is less than the estimated value used to calculate their taxes, the homeowner will be granted a tax reduction.
- Then you earn a commission on the amount of the tax savings.
So this really involves a simple property valuation (most states don’t even require an appraisal), which you could complete as a real estate professional and presentation of your valuation findings to the county taxing authority. Quite often the value presentation can even be presented via email or phone call!
The best part? Property tax appeals work best when values are declining (that’s when counties over-assess almost every property). And since sales are generally slower in a down market, you’ll have the time available to invest in property tax appeals, which will effectively recession-proof your real estate business. While also providing an enormously helpful service to your clients and possibly generating new seller leads!
Learn more about this easy money in How to Make Money with Property Tax Appeals.
New Home Photo Shoots
We have engagement photos, pregnancy photos, and new baby photos. What’s missing? New home photos!
In the age of Instagram, new homeowners want to mark the milestone with a professional photo shoot of themselves in the home.
Help them do it! And get free exposure for your real estate business when your photo shoot clients tag you in all their social media posts about their new home!
Even if you’re not a stellar photographer or don’t have time for these shoots, you can still use this service to make money. Just partner with a professional photographer and take a specified cut of the profits in exchange for referring the business to the photographer!
Learn more by reading How to Make Money with New Home Photo Shoots.
Credit Repair
Credit repair goes hand-in-hand with getting buyers qualified for a mortgage.
If your buyers can’t qualify for financing without improving their credit scores, you can either send them packing or you can charge a fee to help with the credit plus make a commission on the eventual purchase!
Credit repair services are a no-brainer if you work with buyers. Just add a page to your real estate website promoting your credit repair services and promote that page regularly in your blog posts and on your social media accounts.
3. Affiliate links
Affiliate links are simply links on your website (or podcast or social media channels) that help your audience access a useful product or service. Think of them as automated referrals.
Here are the basics of affiliate links work:
- You apply to be an approved affiliate marketer with multiple affiliate programs (like Amazon.com affiliates for example).
- Once approved, you can generate custom links to your affiliates’ products and services.
- You insert these links on your website where appropriate. Blog posts are the ideal place for affiliate links. If you’re writing a post on home staging for example, you can link to a bunch of Amazon home decor products that would help with staging.
- When a reader clicks on your affiliate link and buys a product, you receive a small commission.
I love affiliate links for real estate blogs because they are so flexible. Amazon is one of the easiest affiliate programs to join, and they have almost everything your audience could need or want.
These links are a win, win, win. Your audience gets easy access to a useful product, you earn a commission, and the vendor makes a sale. Wins all around! This assumes, of course, that you only promote products and services you personally use and recommend. Don’t let your affiliate links get in the way of building trust with your readers.
Check out The Top 5 Affiliate Networks for Real Estate Agents for more info on affiliate links.
4. Accept sponsored posts
Sponsored posts are blog posts you are paid to publish on your website.
You see this a lot on food blogs. In the recipe, the blogger will recommend a specific brand of BBQ sauce, orange juice, refrigerated dough, or whatever. They’ll explain why that brand works better in the recipe than other brands, and they’ll tell you where to buy that brand. Most likely, that brand is paying for that post.
If you’re creating a blog post on your website for homeowners about how to change a light fixture, maybe your favorite electrician would like to sponsor the post. They would pay for you to say something about how “So-and-So Electrical is just a phone call away if you have any trouble.”
Prices for sponsored posts largely depend on how many viewers your posts typically get. If you’re fairly new, $20 is a good starting point. Once you have a large following, you can easily command hundreds for a sponsored post. And all for a post you were going to publish anyway with the goal of being helpful to your readers and growing your online presence!
Warning: only accept sponsored posts from companies you truly believe in. Since your real estate website is largely about building trust, taking money to refer your visitors to a crap company will bite you.
5. Sell your own eBook
You’ve probably acquired some serious real estate knowledge and insight in your time as a real estate professional. Why not package that knowledge as a useful eBook and sell it through your real estate website?
You could write about:
- Real estate investment strategies
- Real estate negotiation tactics
- Tax deeds or tax liens
- Property management
- Value-enhancing renovations
The key is to keep your eBook real estate related. Promoting an eBook about anything else on your website would make you look unfocused and could confuse your audience. But writing a real estate eBook further increases your perceived value as a real estate expert.
We have a whole post dedicated to helping you learn all about Making Money with eBooks.
6. Sell your own courses
Similarly, courses are another way to package and present your knowledge. You can charge more for a course than an eBook because they are more involved. And they allow you to support your students through the steps required to learn the material you’re teaching.
You can create online courses or you can teach courses in-person if your subject is specific to your local market.
Promoting and selling your courses is one of the best ways to make money from your real estate website because it can provide substantial income while simultaneously generating new leads and establishing yourself as the local authority in real estate.
Learn more by reading our post on How to Create Online Real Estate Courses.
7. Sell other digital products
eBooks and online courses aren’t the only digital products you could sell through your real estate website.
You could create templates, design elements, printable wall art, calendars, mailers…use your imagination!
Etsy is a great place to get ideas for digital products that are selling. Here are just a few genius ideas from Etsy that would be a great fit for real estate agents:
- Landlord helpers (lease agreement templates, renewals, move-in/move-out inspection sheets, etc)
- Change of address printable postcards
- Kids game printables (after all, you’re an expert in keeping kids busy so parents can focus on the home, right?)
Create your digital products then sell them on your website. Or, if you don’t want to set up a full eCommerce page on your website, you can always sell your products on Etsy and use your website to promote those products by linking to your Etsy store.
8. Sell physical products
You don’t have to limit yourself to only selling digital products on your real estate website. You can also sell good ol’ physical products.
This is a great option for real estate agents who enjoy making things as a hobby.
For example, if you love to paint in your spare time, consider offering paintings on your website. One of our regular readers offers custom watercolor paintings of homes as housewarming gifts. She enjoys the process, it ties in perfectly with real estate, and she makes good money on each painting.
You could do the same with custom wooden signs, framed maps, and personalized dishes, all of which are hugely popular as housewarming gifts right now.
Again, you can offer these items for sale directly through your real estate website or offer them on a platform like Etsy and just use your website to promote them.
9. Curate a business directory
As a real estate agent, you have tons of contacts. This creates the opportunity for you to curate a business directory on your real estate website.
For a reasonable processing fee, local professionals and vendors (electricians, plumbers, insurance agents, lenders, lawn care specialists, etc) can apply for a slot in your online business directory. Upon receiving their application, you can vet them to make sure only the best service providers end up listed in your directory.
Then, whenever a client needs a referral to a top-quality vendor, you can refer them to your curated directory. This is possibly one of the easiest ways to make money from your real estate website (even if it’s only enough money for a few lattes each month!).
10. Offer membership content
Membership content is more involved than most other ways to make money from your real estate website, but it can be an impressive source of recurring income when done right.
With the membership content model, your members pay a monthly, quarterly, or annual subscription fee to receive access to a library of information. This model is really popular in the health and fitness sector where readers will pay a monthly fee for fresh meal plans and workouts. It’s a perfect fit for that industry.
DRIP by Key Real Estate Resources, is an example of membership content. With DRIP, you get access to fresh social media posts and newsletters, ready to share with your social media followers and client base. It’s an easy, affordable way to stay top-of-mind with your sphere, generate new leads, and convert those leads to clients!
11. Promote yourself as a guest speaker
Again, you’re the real estate expert. You have knowledge and expertise that the general public doesn’t. You can make money by promoting yourself as a guest speaker on your real estate website.
Depending on your niche, you might be the perfect fit for a real estate investor’s conference, a property manager’s summit, or a DIY home staging workshop.
You probably won’t get too many speaking gigs, but the hourly rates for guest speakers are usually exceptionally high. Plus you get the added exposure and the boost in perceived value.
Simply add a page to your real estate website to promote yourself as a speaker. You can even add a plug-in so event coordinators can reserve their dates and pay a deposit online!
12. Allow ads on your site
Ads are another option for monetizing your real estate website.
We use ads on this site because we provide 99% of our content completely free, and the ads generate enough money to allow us to continue providing free content.
But be careful using ads on your real estate website. If the primary goal of a specific page or post is to drive new leads, let your audience focus on that, and don’t distract them with ads. But if you’re publishing a post on your website purely to be helpful (useful homeowner tips or information about local events, for example), an ad might be appropriate.
You could use Google Ads (the quickest and easiest way I’ve found to add ads to your site), and get paid every time someone clicks on your ads.
Or you can sell ad space to local businesses for a flat fee. This takes more time and effort to set up, but it also ensures a more cohesive online experience for the visitors to your website.
For more info, read How Do I Publish Ads on My Website?
Don’t Have a Real Estate Website?
If you don’t already have your own real estate website, it’s time you got one.
And we want to help. Check out How to Build a Real Estate Website for completely free step-by-step instructions on building your own website. It’s easier than you might expect, and DYI-ing your site will save you thousands of dollars!
Then you can get started with any of these 12 ways to make money from your real estate website and watch your new income stream grow!
