The Ultimate Real Estate Plugin Compilation [No Platform Spared]

Your real estate website, provided it is powered by one of the well-known content management systems such as WordPress or Joomla, can be significantly enhanced with real estate plugins.

Maybe you do your real estate website yourself or have someone do that.

Nevertheless, you may wonder what different real estate plugins are out there and which ones are worth pursuing.

Since I noted that several of my readers have already looked for an article on my blog about this topic, I decided to make a real estate plugin compilation to help you with your decision-making.

And I also have a little spoiler for you, using too many plugins will hurt your Google rankings.

But more about that when you read to the end of my article.

In it, you will learn…

…what a real estate plugin is
…about 13 types of real estate plugins
…about four criteria for a good real estate plugin
…what are the 16 best real estate plugins for agents and agencies are
…about the ten best real estate plugins for agents and agencies
…what are the five popular real estate plugins
…about 12 Joomla real estate plugins (or rather extensions)
…and about four real estate auctions, advanced search, booking, CRM, and rental plugins for WordPress

What Is a Real Estate Plugin?

People use plugins to extend the functionality of an existing website, usually some content management system (CMS).

The term is primarily used in the context of the CMS of WordPress.

Although other platforms instead use the word “Extension,” many also search for Joomla or WooCommerce plugins because of the high popularity of WordPress.

But the correct term for Joomla would be “extension.”

Well, enough with my nitpicking.

The important thing is that a real estate plugin or extension extends the functionality of an existing real estate website or web application.

13 Types of Real Estate Plugins

Real estate plugins are used for mainly two content management systems: WordPress and Joomla.

My research led me to the provider’s two plugins or extension pages.

There are 70 real estate plugins on WordPresse’s plugin page and 12 extensions on Joomla’s extension page.

Only from the number of available real estate plugins can one tell that WordPress is larger and more often used.

By the way, I already discussed other advantages of WordPress in this article.

When searching for real estate plugins on the WordPress plugin page, you will find 380 results. 

But for some reason, not all of these results are relevant for real estate.
Some plugins appear generic but are part of the search results.

Therefore I waded through all of them and manually filtered the ones that were indeed relevant.

Real estate plugins I didn’t count in were also those that haven’t had an update for some time and weren’t designed or developed for the U.S. market.

The table below will give you an overview.

This is how I came up with the above number of 70 available real estate WordPress plugins.

From the search results, from page 10 onward, you will find more outdated plugins that weren’t updated to be compatible with the newest WordPress version.

Nevertheless, the offer of real estate plugins available for WordPress is still more extensive than the extensions from Joomla.

You can find the latter here.

Based on that, we can say the WordPress plugin offers as more representative information for the different categories.

The main plugin category on Joomla is “real estate pages and property listings,” and also part of the major five I identified below.

I analyzed and categorized all of the real estate plugins, and these are the fourteen categories ordered from most common to less common:

I included a cake diagram below to give you a better impression of how the categories distribute.

So when you look at the diagram, you will quickly see that the vast majority of plugins belong to the categories of add-ons for real estate plugins or themes, calculators (mostly for mortgages), real estate pages and property listings, and IDX integrations (read my article on this topic here).

You may wonder why there is such a high percentage of add-ons for existing real estate plugins or WordPress themes.

To explain this, you need to know that when you develop a WordPress theme, you don’t always get all the functionality right from the get-go, and the same is true when you develop WordPress plugins.

Developing an additional plugin to fix or extend the limited functionality of a theme is often an easier workaround than making the necessary changes within the theme or the already existing plugin.

The problem is that when you have a theme that needs different plugins to work to its full extent, it will cost you page speed performance.

And a decreased page speed will reduce your chances of Google liking your website and ranking you on the first page (see my article about ranking factors here).

Now you might know why offering a real estate WordPress plugin that works as a customer relationship management system may not be a good idea, as found in the overview table above.

It may also increase the chances of getting hacked because each plugin needs to be updated regularly. Adding plugins is a bit like adding a surface to a target.

4 Criteria for a Good Real Estate Plugin

In the prior section, I partially suggested what could be considered a good real estate plugin.

Firstly, it should be updated (as I’ve already suggested above).

You also want to have a certain number of users already using a real estate plugin (the number of active installations).

This shows the overall acceptance of the plugin in the market.

Why?

Because you will not be a guinea pig and use a recently developed plugin with bugs and instabilities not yet established and widely used.

And finally, you need to know how users review it by looking at the scores.

But it’s essential to find more than one review.

Because if it is only one, it could be the developer’s mother who has left a review, so her boy can finally come up from the basement to eat dinner.

But generally, the review part is unimportant because we have the more important metric of active installations.

For example, I have used many different plugins for WordPress and never left a positive or negative review.

Many users will do the same because it’s faster to deactivate and delete a plugin that sucks than to write a review.

So the active installations indirectly communicate how well accepted and established a (real estate )WordPress plugin is. It’s, thus, a better metric.

To summarize the criteria that I will use for the next section, I determined the following metrics for a good real estate plugin (in order from important to less important):

• Up to date with the latest WordPress version
• At least 500 active installations
• At least one user reviews
• Review scores of at least 4 out of 5 stars

16 Best WordPress Real Estate Plugins for Agents and Agencies

Based on the criteria I established in the prior section, I created the table below with the best WordPress real estate plugins for agents and agencies.

As you can see, many of the smaller real estate plugins that had their own category didn’t make it into the best category.

Only the “iPanorama 360 WordPress Virtual Tour Builder”, “Home Value,” and “WP Real Estate” plugins made it.

This is because most of these smaller plugins lacked the 500 active installations. Many had a single 5-star review but not enough active installations.

As the overall best in terms of most active installations (10,000 each), I could identify the “Responsive Mortgage Calculator,” the “Optima Express + MarketBoost IDX,” the “IMPress for IDX Broker,” and the “Essential Real Estate” plugin.

10 Best Free WordPress Real Estate Plugins for Agents and Agencies

You may also wonder which plugins mentioned above are free to use.

As you may notice in the above table, free plugins can be divided into genuinely free with all their functionality and free with limited functionality (the freemium model).

Should you need to extend the latter’s functionality, you need to get a paid plan.

Based on the table above, I identified the best according to priorly mentioned criteria and then filtered the free and freemium ones out for you.

The result is shown below:

• Responsive Mortgage Calculator
• Mortgage Calculator/ Loan Calculator
• Simple Mortgage Calculator
• Home Value
• PropertyHive
• WP Real Estate
• Essential Real Estate
• Easy Property Listings
• Estatik Real Estate Plugin
• iPanorama 360 WordPress Virtual Tour Builder

There are also real estate plugins you come across because of their popularity, which I will discuss a bit deeper in terms of features in the next section.

The Essential Real Estate Plugin

The “Essential Real Estate Plugin” is identified as “best” and belongs to the plugins category for real estate pages and property listings.

It is a product of the development group G5 Plus JSC, which also offers real estate WordPress themes.

But the plugin does not only works exclusively with the themes the company provides, and according to their website, it should work with all types of WordPress themes.

All Features at a Glance

• Different types of real estate pages (e.g., property listings, listing agent, search page, etc.)
• The back-end and front-end property management (e.g., adding and removing listings)
• Page customization
• Custom property fields
• Saved property searches and favorite properties
• Places nearby
• Property comparison
• Payment methods via Stripe, Paypal, and wire transfer
• Email listing alerts
• Related listings
• Featured listings
• Print option for properties
• Invoice and user profile management
• Geolocation search and map directions via Google
• Mobile friendly
• Listing expiration date
• Google Captcha
• Agent contact
• Private note
• Different listing layouts
• 360 virtual tours, video, photo gallery
• Social sharing
• Social login
• Compatibility with “WPML” and “Visual Composer plugin.”

The plugin is free; you can learn more about it here.

Estatik Real Estate Plugin

Estatik’s real estate plugin is also part of the best list I created.

The web development company also specializes in WordPress themes for real estate at a one-time price of between $0 and $49.

You can get the plugin in a limited but free version or the pro version for a one-time price between $89 and $489.

You can learn more about the different plugin pricing here.

According to the same page, the plugin should also work with other themes, but it hasn’t been tested yet.

So to be on the safe side, you may also need to use one of their themes.

All Features at a Glance

Main Features:

• Wishlists and saved property searches
• Price, date, and popularity search filters
• Custom property fields
• Types, statuses, features, amenities, and categories that can be categorized
• Social sharing
• Slideshow widget
• More than 50 shortcodes
• Front-end management of listings
• Editable property labels (e.g., open house, hot, featured)
• Contact widget (request info)
• Page builder by Elementor support
• Unlimited currencies and multilingual capacity via WPML and Loco Translate
• Photo and video gallery
• Customizable property search widget

Pro and Premium Features (more collaboration capacity):

• Private fields for admin and agents
• Subscription plans via PayPal
• Front-End management
• Support for agents
• Map view widget
• RETS and RESO Web API for MLS import
• PDF file generation
• CSV import
• Front-end management for users/agents and admins

Divi Real Estate Plugin

I already analyzed the plugin situation in my article about Divi real estate websites.

I concluded that things get tricky when integrating IDX plugins into Divi.

Why?

Because not all plugin developers code their plugins in a way they are compatible with all WordPress themes.

So I learned that the only option for a smooth experience between Divi and MLS property data integration would be with the plugins from Realtyna:

• Organic IDX: full MLS search engine friendly integration via IDX
• Organic RETS Integration: for RETS feeds
• WPL: no MLS integration via IDX, suitable if you have only a basic site with your own properties
• Organic Vow Integration: for VOW feeds

The pricing plans and structure is a bit complex, and to understand it better, you may want to head over to my article about the Divi theme.

To integrate MLS property data into Divi, Realtyna uses IDX and RETS (real estate transaction standard).

In 80% of the cases, MLSs use RETS as the standard. Therefore it is more likely that your MLS will work with Divi.

For this to work, you will need the basic real estate plugin WPL Pro for $19 and the MLS Add-On plugin for $950.

Additionally, there are extra monthly costs because of the data access paid to your particular MLS.

Impress Real Estate Plugin for IDX Broker

The Impress Real Estate Plugin for IDX broker is again a plugin listed in my table above for the best real estate plugins.

It belongs to the category of IDX plugins, and similar to the plugin I mentioned for Divi real estate websites, it can integrate IDX data from your MLS.

Once installed, the plugin can display your MLS data feed via shortcodes and widgets.

Additional Features when you are in one of IDXBroker’s plans are the following:

• Lead capture and nurture (e.g., forms)
• Done-for-you monthly e-newsletter
• Automated social media posts (e.g., posts about new listings and listing updates)
• Lead management
• Map search
• Search bar (e.g., search by city, county, postal code, address, or listing ID)
• Property listings import
• Google My Business integration
• Employee directory

To use the “Impress Real Estate” plugin, you will need to be on one of IDX Broker’s monthly plans, between $55 and $90 per month.

You can learn more about IDX Broker here.

Real Estate Manager Plugin

Later during my research, I found the “Real Estate Manager Plugin” called “Real Estate Manager Pro” because it was not listed on the official WordPress plugin page.

Only a plugin with a similar name (“Lava Real Estate Manager”) with only 200 active installations was listed there.

I will analyze the Real Estate Manager Pro further since it has more than 2,000 customers and likely installations, according to the plugin’s website.

Not all plugins can be listed because they have to follow particular guidelines.

I can only speculate about why it is not listed there.

Since it seems to be a pretty large plugin and could almost be a WordPress theme, it may violate one of WordPress’s developer guidelines.

It is sold on Codecanyon and has a one-time price of $39, and provides the following features:

• Full-feature real estate website and portal creation capacity
• Property templates
• Property type integration
• Property video and gallery slider
• Google Maps with property location markers
• Radius search map
• Advanced AJAX search
• Properties Carousel
• Front-end property submission capacity
• Grid listing
• Search widget
• Mortgage calculator
• Front-end profile editing
• Responsive templates
• Customizable listing cards
• Unlimited custom fields
• Multi-language (30+ languages)
• Third-party integrations with Divi, WPML, Polylang Multilingual, Loco Translate, Elementor, Google Maps, Open Street Maps, WP All Import, Yoast SEO, WordPress Editor, WooCommerce, WPBakery Builder

12 Joomla Real Estate Plugins – Extensions

And what about Joomla real estate plugins that are actually called extensions?

For the sake of a complete article, I will list the 12 Joomla plugins/extensions for you below. But again, there is not much variety, and most, if not all, fit into the “real estate pages and property listings” category.

4 Real Estate Auction, Advanced Search, Booking, CRM, and Rental Plugins for WordPress

Finalizing this article, I would like to leave you with a short collection of additional plugins that I researched.

I searched for a real estate auction, advanced search, booking, CRM, investment, and rental plugins.

Regarding real estate auctions, I couldn’t find any official WordPress plugins.

Only one plugin again on Codecanyon provides real estate auction solutions.

The “Availability Image Map” features real estate auction functionality.

I couldn’t identify Stand-alone advanced real estate search plugins since many of the already mentioned include this functionality in their plugin.

It’s again a very limited feature I wouldn’t bother to get a separate plugin for.

When it comes to real estate booking plugins, the situation is similar. You rather find generic appointment booking plugins, but not exclusively for real estate.

No plugin qualified to be listed on the WordPress plugins page, but I found one on CodeCanyon called “Property Listing and Hotel Booking Portal” with a one-time price of $38.

The real estate CRM plugin that made it into my general real estate plugin list is called EstateBud and starts at $39 per month (source).

Again, in general, I wouldn’t look for and use too many separate plugins that cover a particular function to not overload your WordPress website.

It is usually a better approach to finding a good theme or a better plugin that already includes several of these features.

And I would also advise against using a CRM plugin for the same reasons.

It is better to have your CRM (also read my article on this topic here) separate from your website and have the CRM integrate the real estate leads generated from the website via their API or other third-party solutions.

Your page speed metrics will probably thank you for that, and Google will also.

This article has been reviewed by our editorial team. It has been approved for publication in accordance with our editorial policy.

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Tobias Schnellbacher

Tobias is an internet entrepreneur passionate about (copy)writing, digital marketing, web development, real estate...but also about cats, and fitness. For seven years, he ran an international referral real estate agency serving U.S., Canadian, and German seller and buyer clients.Learn more

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