Complete real estate websites from $499.00

Call 503-473-8001

HouseGopher Includes The Following for $499.00 + IDX feed:

  • Automatically feature listings on your own website
  • Interactive map search for phone,tablet & desktop
  • Daily Housing Market Reports for each listing
  • Mobile-friendly design using the latest standards
  • Showing request form with spam protection
  • Modern site design optimized for agents
  • Complete WordPress template

  • Call 503-473-8001

Local web designer serving Portland, Vancouver, Camas, Washougal.
More than just features…
HouseGopher was designed and developed by a real estate agent with a decade of experience in the Pacific Northwest. By working with a local company and using a local product, you get personalized service that you just can’t get from a national company. The founder of A Better IDX, LLC (the maker of HouseGopher Software) has a background in both real estate and software/website development. Being owned locally by a licensed broker makes HouseGopher unique among IDX products because we understand what it’s like to be an agent.
HouseGopher was developed in response to companies like Zillow’s and RedFin’s aggressive tactics so that local agents would be able to compete better. We’re thrilled with the value we’re able to offer you with our HouseGopher website solution. Need a new feature? Have a question? Let us know how we can make our product even better. We welcome feedback because we believe in constant improvement.

Local real estate web design

  • Portland, Oregon
  • Vancouver, Washington
  • Camas, Washington

General Info

What is IDX?
IDX is how real estate agents display property listings and info about homes for sale on their retail websites. IDX is an acronym within the real estate industry that stands for Internet Data Exchange. IDX involves processing and transferring homes for sale data (pictures, fliers, school info etc) to/from agent and company websites and apps.
What is House Gopher?
House Gopher is an App called a plugin that installs on Realtors’ websites to display homes for sale, housing market reports while enabling interested buyers to request showings.
Why did I make House Gopher?
I am a principal real estate broker who got frustrated with national companies (Zillow/Redfin etc) squeezing money out of the little guys. I want to empower agents to compete against national companies who have set up an unfair pay-wall in between agents and clients. The ultimate goal of this software is to give every agent their own home-search website and mobile apps that clients can search homes without getting poached by the national apps.
What are the system requirements to run House Gopher?
Currently, the House Gopher software is configured to run on any website powered by WordPress with modern PhP enabled. I may add support for other website management platforms in the future, but really WordPress is the most widely used for a reason. You must be an agent within RMLS to be eligible for IDX service.
Why do agents need IDX on their websites?
Displaying homes for sale on your website signals that you’re a professional and adds legitimacy for clients. Clients who search you online and can immediately see homes for sale on your website are more likely to contact you and trust you in the industry. Social media is increasingly throttling back promotional posts, making it increasingly difficult to grow your contact list that way. Company/brokerage-owned websites divide promotion among every agent in the office and you lose the platform if you switch companies or go independent. Given these facts, having your own real estate website is one of the most powerful assets you can have in the industry.
Who Am I & Why Am I Doing This?
TLDR: Zillow is evil so I made my own IDX
Richard Lockwood
Richard Lockwood

My name is Richard Lockwood, I’m a software developer who is also licensed as a Principal Real Estate Broker in Oregon. I’ve been in the real estate industry for over a decade and cut my teeth negotiating short sales during the housing crash. I got my real estate license in a year when 70% of agents were leaving the business.

During my tenure as a broker, I witnessed out-of-state corporations like Zillow and RedFin come in and grab huge portions of the local online market-share. These corporations business model was simple, take the first page of Google away from local agents and then charge those displaced agents referral fees. Since these corporations were not agents licensed in Oregon and not Realtors, they didn’t have to follow the Realtor Code of Ethics and also didn’t have to follow the more stringent laws that licensees must follow.

The result was that Zillow was free to aggregate/steal listings off of agents’ websites and continue to advertise already sold or canceled properties. Intentionally or not, Zillow misled the public into believing that these canceled listings were still available. When a buyer called about one of these unavailable listings, Zillow would redirect the buyer to a local agent to “help them find something else.”

These anti-competitive practices led me to dive deeply into the world of IDX (Internet Data Exchange), SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and the full stack of programming languages used on the internet (MySQL, PhP, JavaScript, HTML/CSS & Linux Shell). As a result of my deep learning and background in real estate, I have now released my first IDX product for Realtors: House Gopher.

The ultimate goal of House Gopher is to allow agents to level the playing field online by offering simple and effective software to increase agents’ footprint online.