The first call is thirty minutes, by video. If you have a current site, we look at it together. If you're starting from just a brokerage profile page, we look at that. We learn how you talk about your work and make sure we're a fit on both sides. There's no pitch. If we're the right studio for you, we walk through the agreement and timeline at the end of that call.
The timeline.
Once the agreement is signed and the deposit clears, the clock starts. A typical build runs on this shape:
Day 1
Discovery call and agreement.
We meet for thirty minutes. If we move forward, you receive a one-page agreement and an invoice for the deposit. The build begins when the deposit clears.
Day 2
Intake.
A structured call (also thirty minutes) to gather your voice, your story, your listings, and your compliance details. You receive an intake checklist ahead of time so the call is efficient.
Day 3
First preview.
Your site goes live on a private staging link within forty-eight hours of the intake. You walk through it with us on a short call or review it on your own time and email us a consolidated list of revisions.
Day 4
Revisions and polish.
We apply your edits and run a full quality pass across desktop, tablet, and mobile. Any brokerage compliance review happens in parallel.
Day 5
Launch.
We help you register a domain if you don't already have one, point it at the finished site, verify everything in production, and run a short post-launch walkthrough so you know how to request future updates.
What we need from you.
The build moves at the speed of your inputs. The faster you send these, the faster we launch.
At discovery.
- Your current site URL, or a link to your brokerage profile page if that's all you have today
- Your sponsoring brokerage
- A handful of reference sites you admire (taste calibration)
After signing (at intake).
- A portrait photograph. Ideally taken by a photographer in a real setting, 1600px minimum, natural light, not a cropped LinkedIn headshot. This is the one input we cannot skip or fake. If you do not have one, tell us at discovery and we will help arrange a local shoot before the build begins.
- Your bio. Two or three paragraphs in your voice, not corporate copy. We will edit. A rough draft is better than a polished bio written by someone else.
- Your current listings. A CSV or a shared spreadsheet with address, price, beds, baths, square footage, and a short description for each. A few photos per listing if you have them.
- Your sold listings. Last twelve months of closings, same format as above. The sold gallery is the strongest credibility signal on the site.
- Neighborhoods you serve. A list of the zip codes, neighborhoods, or metros where you do most of your work. We will build a dedicated landing page for each.
- Your license information. Your legal licensed name, license number, license type, and the states in which you are licensed.
- Brokerage details. Your sponsoring brokerage's legal name, office address, phone, and (if applicable) the compliance officer we should coordinate with.
- Testimonials. If you have written testimonials from past clients with their consent, send them. If not, no problem, we do not invent them.
- Your domain. Register one in your name at a registrar you control. Cloudflare Registrar is our recommendation (it's at-cost and easy). Add us as an admin so we can handle DNS. If you do not have a domain yet, tell us at discovery and we will help you choose one.
- Email address and phone number for the contact form and display.
- Social media handles you want linked from the site.
What we handle.
- Design and build from the ground up
- Copywriting, edited in your voice
- Photography direction (and shoot coordination if needed)
- SEO foundation: schema markup, neighborhood landing pages, buyer and seller guides
- All required compliance disclosures and state-specific advertising rules (see compliance)
- Hosting, SSL, and security (no separate hosting bill)
- Domain connection and DNS configuration
- Email forwarding setup if you want a branded email address
- Ongoing care after launch (listing updates, sold home additions, guide refreshes, copy tweaks)
How revisions work.
You get one round of major revisions (changes to hero, structure, copy, or photography choices) followed by polish passes until we both agree the site is ready. Major revisions are anything that changes the shape of a section. Polish is typography, spacing, word choices, image swaps. We do not cap the number of polish rounds; we do cap the number of times we redesign the hero.
How updates work after launch.
Send requests to updates@realtydesign.co. We acknowledge within four business hours and ship most updates within twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Listing adds and removes, sold home additions, small copy tweaks, guide refreshes — all included in monthly care. No ticket system. Just email.
What we do not do.
- Lead generation services (Facebook ads, Google ads, CRM setup) — if you need these, we can refer you to specialists
- Listing syndication to the MLS — you handle IDX through your brokerage
- Transaction documents, contracts, or broker-level compliance
Payment.
A one-page service agreement, a fifty-percent deposit up front, the remaining fifty-percent due at launch. Monthly care begins on the day of launch and is billed on the first of each month. We accept card and ACH through Stripe.
A few things to know before the first call.
- We build a small number of sites each year, by invitation. If we are not a fit, we will tell you on the first call and point you to someone who is.
- We do not build for teams or brokerages as a whole. The site we build is for one person, because the person is the product.
- We do not use stock headshots, stock handshake photography, or stock neighborhood images. If the photography does not exist, we will help you source it.
- The site you own, entirely. If you ever want to leave, you keep the design, the copy, the domain, and the content. We will hand off the code and your domain within seven business days of a cancellation request.