To have or not to have a web site for your real estate investing business?

Like it or not, we now live in the internet age; every person in America has access to the internet, and most people expect any business have a web site - including yours. Most people start searching for stuff online, including buying and selling houses. You must make it possible for them to find you - by having a web site. But there is a catch: Your web site must work for you, making your business more productive, efficient, fun and easy to run. Here are a few things to consider when you are looking for a web site for real estate investing: 1) It must be database driven. It must be run from a simple virtual "back office" / admin panel. Preferably, the front end needs to be maintenance free. You do not need to be a web expert first to operate your own web site 2) Real estate investing is a very specialized niche. The web site should be built specifically for real estate investing business. Commercial templates or site builders are unlikely to be of any help in this regard. 3) And it must serve the basic real estate investing needs such as * Address the needs of motivated sellers * Pre-screen and pre-negotiate with motivated sellers. Sellers should submit their house information from a simple, friendly form * Allow you to list houses you have for sale including uploading pictures whether you rent them, sell them at retail or terms, or wholesale to other investors * It must build your Buyers List hands-off (you must have this is you sell houses!) 4) It should make communication to sellers, buyers or private money investors easy. Preferably this can be done from the back office via email 5) It must allow you to have flexibility both in choosing designs, or managing content 6) It must be adaptable to suit your business model whether you sell houses, buy houses, wholesale to other investors, or attract private money from cash investors or a combination of all these models. Preferably, it should allow you to select the business model that works for you 7) Most importantly, it must be easy to run and make your real estate investing easier and more productive. It needs to work for your business, not you to work to maintain it. Simon Macharia