Shopping for a property website? You can use a general purpose builder and assemble listing pages yourself, or pick a real estate platform built around IDX and CRM. This post compares five of each against Midtide. We're biased, but we'll say when something else is the better fit.
What you get with Midtide
Midtide is a hosted builder for independent agents and small agencies. Plans start at $16 a month. Pick a template, add your listings, point your domain, go live. Then customise it properly: edit any section, change its colour or layout, drop in new blocks, or add entire new pages. You're not locked into a rigid template.
- Design that looks the part. The templates are built for property, not retrofitted from a coffee shop theme. Big photography, clean layout, sites that look sleek out of the box.
- A property CMS that's actually good. Manage listings, photos, agents and locations from one dashboard. Bulk import from a spreadsheet. Handles a full portfolio, simple enough to use between viewings.
- Agent tooling built in. Property search, filters, interactive maps, mortgage and ROI calculators, photo galleries, lead capture, a unified enquiry inbox, Calendly integration and blog pages.
- CRM connections, not MLS sync. We can integrate with CRM systems via XML feeds. We don't sync with IDX or MLS boards. If your listings live in your CRM, we can usually wire that up. If you need live MLS search across your whole board, look elsewhere.
- Multilingual when you need it. English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Russian, Malay, Bahasa Indonesia and more. Useful if you sell cross border. Not required. Most of our customers run English only sites and get the full product either way.
Five generic website builders
These platforms can build anything, which is exactly the problem. None of them were designed with a property listing in mind. You can get there, but you're paying in time, plugins and workarounds.
Wix
Wix is the biggest DIY builder going. Drag and drop editor, hundreds of templates, an app store for almost everything. For a restaurant or a portfolio site it works well. For property it means bolting on a real estate app, entering each listing by hand, and often paying extra for IDX if you're in the US. The site can look good, but nothing talks to anything else natively. Filters, maps, calculators and enquiry routing all come from separate apps that may or may not match your design.
Squarespace
Squarespace wins on aesthetics. Clean typography, strong templates, good for brand pages and agent bios. But property isn't a content type on Squarespace. There's no listing CMS, no filtered search, no mortgage calculator, no schema.org markup per property. Most agents end up with a beautiful homepage that links out to Rightmove, Zillow or Idealista. Fine if your strategy is portal first. Less fine if your website is supposed to be where the inventory lives.
WordPress
WordPress can do literally anything, which is why so many agencies still use it. Real estate themes like Houzez or WP Residence exist, IDX plugins can pull MLS data, and a good developer can build you something custom. You're also signing up for hosting, plugin updates, theme conflicts, security patches and the occasional white screen of death. A proper WordPress property site costs time every month even after launch, whether that's yours or a developer's retainer.
GoDaddy
GoDaddy is cheap, fast and hard to break. Pick a template, fill in some text, connect a domain, done in an afternoon. That simplicity comes at a cost. Templates are basic, customisation is limited, and there's no concept of a property listing beyond a generic page. It works as a placeholder while you get started, or a single page with your phone number on it. It doesn't work if you have 40 active listings with photo galleries, filters and enquiry forms on every one.
Webflow
Webflow is the designer's choice. Pixel level control, clean code, a CMS for structured content. With a good designer you can build a stunning property site. Without one the learning curve is steep. You still need to model properties as CMS items, design the listing detail page, wire up filters and build search yourself. It's a design project first and a property platform second. Budget for the designer, not just the subscription.
The pattern is the same across all five: you can build a property site, but you're assembling it. Midtide ships the whole thing.
Five real estate website builders
- Luxury Presence. Premium US luxury segment. Custom design, marketing bundled in. From about $500 a month.
- Real Geeks. Established US all in one: IDX, lead capture, basic CRM. From about $400 a month plus setup.
- Placester. Mid tier US option with optional IDX and CRM. From about $60 a month.
- AgentFire. Brand forward agent sites with IDX. From about $150 a month plus setup.
- Sierra Interactive. Built for teams and brokerages: IDX, CRM, drip campaigns. From about $500 a month.
These know what an agent is. They're also US centric, priced for MLS dependent workflows, and often bundle CRM you may already have elsewhere.
At a glance
- Price. Generic builders from about $17 a month. US real estate platforms from about $60 to $500+. Midtide from $16 a month.
- Listings. Generic: manual or apps. US platforms: MLS/IDX sync. Midtide: your CMS, spreadsheet import, or XML feed from your CRM.
- Design. Midtide and Luxury Presence look premium out of the box. Generic builders need work. US IDX templates often look samey.
- Agent features. Search, filters, maps, calculators, Calendly and blogs ship with Midtide. On generic builders you build or buy each piece.
The bottom line
Generic builders are flexible but you'll spend time assembling property features that Midtide ships on day one. US real estate platforms are complete but expensive and built around MLS data. Midtide sits in the middle: sleek design, a CMS you'll actually use, agent tooling included, and a price that doesn't need a sales call to understand.
Want to see it on your own listings? Pick a plan or talk to us about CRM integration or your market.
