Letting Agency Website Design: What the Site Must Do, and Three Ways to Get One

What letting agency website design is really for

Letting agency website design is not a question of colours and typefaces first. A lettings site has three jobs: show what is available to let, turn a good applicant into an enquiry you can act on, and persuade a landlord to ask you for a valuation. Everything on the page should help one of those three, and a small agency can get all of it without a large budget.

This guide covers what the site must do, the notices the law expects on it in England, the design rules that matter, the three ways agencies usually get a site, and the questions to ask before you sign anything. It is general information, not legal advice.

What the site must do

Property search and filters

Applicants arrive wanting to know what you have and what it costs. Put available properties on the first screen, with rent, bedrooms, property type and area on every card. Filters should cover the same four things. The useful extra is filters that live in the web address, so "two beds under £1,200 in Headingley" is a link you can send to the person who rang asking for exactly that.

A page per property, with its material information

Every property needs its own page with its own address: photos, a description written by a person, the rent and how often it is payable, the deposit, the council tax band, the EPC rating, the date it is available, and whether it is furnished. National Trading Standards' material information guidance was withdrawn in 2025 when the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 took over, but the duty not to leave out information a consumer needs remains, and the industry still works to the old structure. Our material information checklist lists it field by field.

In England, the Renters' Rights Act also changed what a rental advert must say about rent. We cover that in the Renters' Rights Act and rental adverts.

Enquiry and application forms

"Contact us" at the bottom of the site is not a next step. Each property page needs a form that asks for what you actually need at this stage: name, email, phone, when they want to move, who would live there, and a free-text box. Keep it short on a phone. Ask for documents later, when you are deciding, not before someone has seen the property.

Viewing booking

If an applicant has to email to ask when they can see a flat, some will not bother. Let them pick a time from the listing page, with a limit on how many people can book each slot, a confirmation straight away and a reminder the day before. A way to cancel themselves frees the slot for someone else.

Valuation requests

A lettings site is also your best landlord-acquisition tool. A valuation form on every page, asking for the address, the property type, the landlord's contact details and when they want to let it, turns a browsing landlord into a lead.

A landlord page

Landlords who find you want to know three things: what each service level includes, what it costs, and who they will deal with. Say which services you offer (for example tenant-find, rent collection, fully managed), what each one includes, and how to get a valuation. A page that answers those questions saves a phone call for both of you.

Trust signals the law expects (England)

Some of what builds trust on a lettings site is a legal requirement. As of September 2026:

• Your fees. Section 83 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 requires a letting agent with a website to publish a list of its fees on it, with a description of each fee, whether it applies per property or per tenant, and the amount including any tax, or how it is calculated where it cannot be known in advance (legislation.gov.uk, checked September 2026).
• Your redress scheme. Letting agents in England must belong to a government-approved redress scheme (the Redress Schemes for Lettings Agency Work and Property Management Work Order 2014, legislation.gov.uk), and section 83 requires the agent to publicise which scheme it belongs to (checked September 2026).
• Client money protection, where it applies. If you hold clients' money, you must belong to a client money protection scheme and display your membership certificate in any office where you deal with the public and on your website. GOV.UK says the penalty is up to £30,000 for not joining and up to £5,000 for not displaying or providing the certificate (GOV.UK, protecting clients' money if you're a property agent, checked September 2026).

Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own rules. Check with your redress scheme or professional body if you are unsure which apply to you.

Beyond the legal minimum: your office address, a named person, and an honest "about" page do more than badges.

Design rules that matter more than the look

• Phone first. Many of your links will be opened from a message. The first photo should load quickly, filters should work with a thumb, and the form should fit the screen.
• Listings before the mission statement. A hero photo is fine. A paragraph about your values before the first property is a scroll some visitors will not make.
• Lead with the outside of the property, then the main living space, then the kitchen. A floor plan early helps.
• Your brand, nobody else's. On a portal your property sits beside a competitor's. Your own site is the one place it does not, so use your logo and colour and keep it consistent.
• Readable text. Contrast between the text and background matters more than the palette. Grey on grey loses people.
• Every page has a next step: apply, book a viewing, or request a valuation.

Three ways to get a letting agency website

Pricing below is described by model. Where a figure is given, it was on the vendor's own page on 23 September 2026; check the vendor's page before you rely on it.

1. A bespoke build from a web agency

A design agency builds a site for you, often fed by your CRM so properties appear automatically. UK property specialists such as Starberry and Homeflow work this way, and both are quote-based rather than published prices.

• Good for: a distinctive brand, your own domain, SEO and marketing support, and a site that updates from the CRM you already pay for.
• Watch for: setup fees, the length of the contract, whether you can edit pages yourself or raise a ticket, and who owns the design if you leave.

2. A site from your CRM or a plugin

Some lettings CRMs offer a website that reads properties from the CRM, and on WordPress the Property Hive plugin is free, with paid add-ons for property imports (£199 a year) and portal exports (£299 a year) on its pricing page.

• Good for: agencies already on a CRM who want one source of truth, or anyone with a developer who wants portal feeds cheaply.
• Watch for: templates that look like every other agency on the same CRM, and on WordPress, the hosting, updates and security that someone has to keep doing.

3. A self-serve platform

You sign up, pick a look, add your properties and publish yourself. General website builders fall here, as do rental-specific platforms like Loftfolio.

• Good for: a small agency that wants something live this week, a price on the page, and the ability to change it tonight.
• Watch for: whether listings, forms and viewings are built in or bolted on, whether you get your own domain, and whether it sends properties to the portals (ask, because not all do).

Questions to ask any vendor

1. What does it cost in the first year, including setup, and what does it cost after that?
2. How long is the contract, and what is the notice period?
3. Can I edit pages, properties and prices myself, today, without a ticket?
4. Does it send properties to Rightmove, Zoopla or OnTheMarket, or do I do that separately?
5. Where do enquiries go: an email inbox, the CRM, or a board the team shares?
6. Can applicants book viewings themselves? How are they reminded?
7. Where do my fees list, redress scheme and CMP certificate go?
8. Can I use my own domain?
9. If I leave, can I export my properties, applicants and messages?
10. Who owns the design and the content?

Write the answers down. The cheapest option with the wrong answer to question 4 or 5 is not the cheapest.

Where Loftfolio fits

Loftfolio is the self-serve route. You get a lettings website at yourname.loftfolio.com, live the same afternoon, with a page per property, filters in the web address, and material-information fields on UK listings (price, tenure, council tax band and deposit). Enquiries made through your own site arrive as applications with a status, notes and a message thread. Enquiries from portals, email or the phone do not; reply with the property's link and they apply there. Applicants book their own viewings, with email confirmations and a day-before email reminder, and the valuation form feeds a board from first enquiry to instructed.

For question 7, there is an optional fees and client money protection page: a fee table, your redress and CMP schemes and a link to your certificate, with the scheme names in the footer of every page and a link beside every listing's price. It is off until you switch it on, and what goes on it is yours to check against section 83. Complaints-procedure and accessibility pages work the same way.

What it does not do: custom domains are not available on any plan today, and it does not send properties to the portals. It is US$39, US$99 or US$249 a month, charged in US dollars, excluding VAT, with no contract and no setup fee. See the plans or look round a demo agency first.