Product Review: AgentPress Premium WordPress Theme from StudioPress
15 Dec
Many professionals today are using the web in new and interesting ways to promote themselves, their businesses and build a “network” for their businesses. I ran across AgentPress which is a premium WordPress theme designed with the Real Estate professional in mind.
AgentPress was developed by the team at StudioPress whom I’ve had a chance to review in the past with some of their other Premium WordPress Themes. AgentPress is not only a Premium WordPress Theme but also offers people who purchase the theme the chance to have it professionally installed and optimized for SEO with the latest and greatest WordPress plug-ins including the “All-in-one SEO Pack”. I had a chance to look at the “inner-workings” of this website theme in action and review the pros and cons of the AgentPress WordPress theme.
What I love about the AgentPress Theme
Someone did their homework – It seems like someone did their homework about the Real Estate profession in general and applied it to this theme. That’s the truly great thing about the AgentPress WordPress Theme. From the page layout for multiple agent real estate firms to the “Featured Properties” content areas that are available on the main page.
Professional Image – Being professional calls for a website that can deliver a professional image and this WordPress Theme definitely does that from the header of the website down to the footer. I like the fact that you can add your personal biography of people working at your organization with this theme.
The “Property Search” Widget – Now this is a cool feature that this theme offers. When visitors come to your website after you’ve installed and are using AgentPress your visitors will be able to “Search by Price”, “Search by Type”, “Search by Location” and “Search by Bedrooms”. From there you can set up listings for properties for sale that are in a certain price range, real estate based on its location which the search pulls by going through your website. It’s some very useful functionality that could be applied to other sales professionals from automotive sales, specialty equipment or machinery just to name a few examples.
Not your “average” contact form – The contact form is also customized to grab specific information that someone looking for a real estate agent would give such as “Budget for purchasing a home”, “Reason for contacting” as well as the standard contact information.
Things that I don’t like about the AgentPress Theme
When I was reviewing this WordPress theme I had trouble finding flaws with it. It’s a solid, standup theme and the only thing I can say is that it’s specifically gearing towards real estate agents so it may not fit your specific needs without some serious customization for your own business’ needs. Naturally if you are going to buy a website theme like this some you are going to end up customizing it for your needs but if you are looking at this theme as the “be all” and “end all” for you this is something that could affect you putting together a great website.
3 Reasons why you should run out and buy the AgentPress Theme
Here is a short list of 3 reasons that you should buy this theme…
- The “property search” widget is awesome and very useful
- The functionality is very well aligned with the goals of the website theme
- The ability to customize the theme for your needs
How much does it cost?
There are 3 pricing points that depending on what you are looking for offer 3 different options for the AgentPress Theme cover a wide range of solutions to fit your needs. I’ve broken them down for you to understand what you are actually paying for depending on the option that you choose.
The AgentPress Theme costs $99.95 will get you the WordPress Theme, access to the support forums should you need any help with customizing your theme or any problems you are running into and the ability to enhance your website’s layout fast and intuitively.
The AgentPress Basic Package costs $199.95 and gives you some more options including WordPress installation (they will install it for you!), basic WordPress plug-ins (Akismet, Feedburner feedsmith and WP Database manager) as well as theme demo account.
The AgentPress Premium Package costs $299.95 and is the best option for your money if you are not up for installing WordPress and the theme yourself. It also includes premium WordPress plug-ins including the ones from the basic package and the All-in-one SEO Pack (which I recently reviewed here) and Google XML Sitemap Generator. If you aren’t a “techie” than this is the package for you!
You’re right. This is a great theme. I am using it right now for a demo for a client and they love it! The only thing I don’t like is I have to login to studiopress everytime I have a question as there is no documentation provided with the theme to download. SO I must use their forums.
Hey Chris,
Glad to hear that your client is loving this theme. If you are working off of this theme to develop you might want to have a look at the Real Estate Icons that StudioPress just released here….
http://www.studiopress.com/graphics/real-estate-icons.htm
As for the docs, yes that is a bit of a pain in the behind but StudioPress and there Genesis framework are great products so I think its worth it. Talk soon
Luc
I’m less than impressed personally. I’ve created several sites in WordPress for real estate clients. In the past I’ve given the client a choice between IDX Broker (that pulls directly from the MLS) and a custom theme or adding all their listings by hand with a pre-packaged theme like AgentPress. IDX has a yearly fee but it’s worth it in my opinion.
Every time but this last one I’ve gotten the client to see that pulling the data they are already entering on the MLS reduces errors and saves them from needing to learn how to use yet another system. Plus it prevents them from doing double work – if you’re already entering it once on the MLS why would you want to enter the same data again on your own site when you could have it populate the site automatically?
My last client only wanted their own listing on their site despite them being in a competitive market where all the other agents pull from the MLS showing their listings and everyone else’s listings.
They have a huge volume of properties and wanted them sorted by price highest to lowest, to not allow people to search by # of bedrooms or baths (they said their customers don’t care about that), and they wanted a search by MLS#. Now they are asking that the MLS# list be ordered.
In order to sort by price I had to create a numeric custom field that they need to fill out in addition to adding the price to the agentpress property details. I guess I will do the same for the MLS#s (or MLS codes really – since they are alpha-numeric).
This means again they will be doubling up on data entry. That drives me nuts as I know it’s their administrative assistant that is entering all of these and updating them along with updating them MLS and doing double work is practically stroke inducing (to me). I used to work on a system that required double entry and was just poorly coded. I don’t want to be the kind of guy who provides such a system. I hated that system and I wanted to kick the idiots that wrote it that way because they were too lazy to fix it.
AgentPress could be so much better if they just did a few simple things that most real estate sites need like including a sort function in the search widget and allowing the user to type into the search widget rather than just having drop downs. I know it’s extra coding but there are a lot of free templates out there and if you’re going to make a “premium template” then it should include basic functions that other sites in that industry include.
I’m not giving people a choice from now on. I’m telling them that if they have a real estate business they need to use a system that pulls the MLS data – why the hell would someone pay to add stuff to the MLS if they’re not going to display that data in a way that their customers can see it without them coming into the office??? It’s 2011 and all of their competitors are showing their listings and getting a commission as a buyers agent – how long do they think they can remain in business if they don’t show all the listings?
Agentpress might be the ticket if your the only game in town and there is not an MLS but all you need is one century 21 or remax office within 50 miles and you’re done for because they will show your listings and their own and while you might get a sales boost you’re going to be splitting the commission with the buyers agent. Eventually people will look at their site vs. your site and realize that you’re small time and that the big agency can probably sell their home much faster all the while you’re busy doing double entry.
Forget AgentPress. I’m so done with it.
Thanks for this review (and thanks Don for the additional feedback). I’ve been looking at this theme recently, and have read other complaints about having to enter the same information twice on the WP backend. A lot of people seem to be happy with AgentPress as well.