Canadian Real Estate Agency -
95+ PageSpeed, 3× More Leads
A Toronto-based real estate agency was running on a slow generic WordPress theme with no proper MLS integration or lead capture. Built a fully custom WordPress platform property listings pulling from MLS feed, agent profiles, mortgage calculator, neighbourhood guides and an automated lead routing system. PageSpeed went from 52 to 96. Leads tripled in 90 days.
The Brief
A Toronto-based real estate agency had been running on a premium WordPress theme for three years. It looked fine at launch. By 2023 it was loading in 4.8 seconds on mobile, had no proper MLS property feed, and the contact form was routing all leads to a single generic inbox. Agents were spending time manually copying listing details from the MLS portal into WordPress. Nobody had visibility over which pages were generating enquiries.
The brief: rebuild the site from scratch. Custom theme, proper IDX/MLS feed integration pulling listings automatically, individual agent profile pages with their own listing subsets, a mortgage calculator, neighbourhood guide pages for local SEO, and a lead routing system that sends enquiries to the correct agent based on the property they viewed.
"Our site hasn't been touched in three years. It's slow, our agents can't manage their own listings, and we have no idea where our leads are coming from. We need something built properly."
Project Phases
Audited the existing site. 4.8s mobile load time caused by unoptimised images, 23 active plugins (8 of which were unused), render-blocking scripts and a theme loading 400kb of CSS for features not in use. MLS API reviewed and integration approach agreed. Custom post type structure designed for properties, agents and neighbourhoods. SEO audit identified 12 high-traffic local keyword clusters to target with neighbourhood guide pages.
Hand-coded PHP 8 theme no page builder, no premium theme dependency. MLS API integration via scheduled WordPress cron job, pulling new and updated listings every 15 minutes. Custom property search with filters: price range, bedrooms, bathrooms, property type, neighbourhood. Each listing page auto-populated from MLS data with structured data markup for Google rich results. Agent profile pages with their active listings pulled automatically. Mortgage calculator built as a custom plugin.
Custom lead capture forms on each property page and agent profile. Lead routing logic: enquiry goes to the listing agent if assigned, otherwise to the area agent, otherwise to the office manager. All leads logged in a simple CRM dashboard visible to the office manager. Source tracking on each lead which page, which search term, which agent. Email notifications with the full property context included.
Image optimisation pipeline all MLS images run through WebP conversion on import. Object caching with Redis. Deferred non-critical scripts. Result: PageSpeed score 96 on mobile, 99 on desktop. 12 neighbourhood guide pages written and published. Google Search Console submitted. Site launched with a two-hour training session for agents and office staff. Zero post-launch issues in the first 30 days.