A brokerage website is a reasonable place to start. It puts your name in the office directory, and it may include a profile, a few listings, and a form. The limitation shows up later: the address belongs to the company, the template looks like everyone else's, and you may not be able to change it quickly, or take it with you if you change offices.
Moving off that template onto a domain you control is less about rejecting your brokerage and more about owning the place people land when they look you up. You can still follow office advertising rules, still display the brokerage name, and still be clearly affiliated. You just stop depending on a page you do not fully control. This walk-through covers what to migrate, how to handle the domain, and how to avoid a messy cutover.
If you want a reminder of what the new site should include, use the page-by-page checklist for agent websites. Plan from the start to keep the site current, or you will recreate the same stale-profile problem on a prettier URL.
Why your own domain matters
Your domain is the part of the site you can keep. janechenhomes.com or chen-realestate.com can follow you if you move firms, as long as your new office's advertising policy allows the site (often permitted, with the right disclosures). A profile at brokerage.com/agents/jane-chen, or on a vendor subdomain the office provides, usually stays with the office.
There is a trust reason, too. A personal domain looks like a business, not a directory listing. Combined with a current photo, a clear market, and real listings, it gives referred clients a cleaner first impression. NAR's 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers found that 88 percent of buyers purchased through an agent or broker. In an April 2025 press release on its 2025 Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends report, NAR also said referrals remain the primary way most buyers find their agent. When those referred clients search your name, you want them to land on a site that is obviously yours.
Own the domain, keep the brokerage relationship visible, and make sure you can update the site without waiting on the office webmaster.
Check with your brokerage first
Before you publish anything on a new domain, read your office's advertising and branding policy, or ask your managing broker. Many firms require the brokerage name, a logo, an office address, or a license number on every site. Some want to review the site before it goes live. That is normal. A personal site is not a secret second brand; it should make the affiliation obvious.
Also ask what happens to your brokerage profile after you launch. In many offices it will stay up, and that is fine. Your personal site becomes the place you share in your email signature, listing presentations, and social profiles. You do not need to pick a fight with the office directory. You need a home base you control.
Choose and register a domain you control
Pick a name that will still make sense in five years. Your name plus a market, or your name plus "homes" or "real estate," is easier to stand behind than a trend phrase. Avoid a name that locks you to a single street or a slogan you may outgrow, unless that is truly your long-term brand.
Register it in an account you own. Use an email address you control, turn on auto-renew, and keep the registrar login somewhere you can find. Do not let a vendor, a former assistant, or an old office hold the registration unless you have a written way to recover it. If someone else already registered a close variant, it is usually better to choose a clear alternative than to start a fight over a name.
When the new site is ready, you will point the domain at it (your platform or registrar will give you DNS records or nameservers). You can do this after the site looks right in preview. There is no need to flip the domain on a half-finished page.
What to bring with you
You are not starting from zero, even if the old page was thin. Gather the useful pieces before you switch.
Asset | What to do |
|---|---|
Headshot and other photos you own or have rights to use | Download the highest-quality files you have, not a screenshot |
Bio | Paste it into a document, then edit it so it is current |
Current listings and recent sales | Collect addresses, statuses, and photos; do not copy text you do not have the right to reuse without a check |
Testimonials | Bring over only what you have permission to publish |
Neighborhood or blog copy you wrote | Export or copy it; leave behind generic office boilerplate |
Logo, colors, and fonts, if you have them | Keep a simple, consistent look; a template can supply the rest |
Contact details and required disclosures | Phone, email, brokerage name, and any license or office lines your firm requires |
If your new platform can import from your current site, use that. It is faster than rebuilding every page by hand and reduces the chance that a photo or a bio paragraph gets left behind. Launch and List is set up so you can paste your current site, bring over your headshot, bio, and listings, then choose a template made for agents.
If you already have a personal website, use redirects
If you already own a domain and are changing platforms, treat it as a site move, not a brand-new site. Map old URLs to the closest new ones (homepage to homepage, about to about, a blog post to the same post). Then put permanent server-side redirects in place, typically 301 or 308, from each old URL to the new one.
Google's current guidance on site moves with URL changes is to use those server-side permanent redirects when you can, avoid long redirect chains, and keep the redirects in place for as long as possible, generally at least a year. If you are changing domains, Google also tells you to use the Change of Address tool in Search Console after the redirects are working, and to verify both the old and new properties.
Do not turn the old site off and hope search engines will guess. Do not leave both versions live without redirects, or you will split your traffic and confuse people who have the old link saved. If a vendor is hosting the old site, ask them, in writing, to add the redirects or to keep the old domain pointed until you can.
If you only lived on the brokerage site
This is the more common case, and the redirect advice is more limited. You often cannot add 301s from a brokerage domain you do not control. Do not promise yourself a clean Search Console migration that the office cannot approve.
Instead, make the new site the official destination everywhere you do control:
Email signature, listing presentation, and business cards
Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and any other profile that allows a website field
Your Google Business Profile, if you have one, and other directories you maintain
Your signature on listing and buyer materials, subject to office rules
Ask whether the office can add a link from your brokerage profile to your personal site. Many will. That is often the most you can get from a page you do not own, and it is enough to start.
A cleaner way to launch
You do not need a six-week design project to get off a template. A practical sequence looks like this:
Confirm branding and disclosure rules with your broker.
Register (or take inventory of) a domain in an account you control.
Import or paste your current profile so you are not staring at a blank site.
Pick a template that fits your market. A quieter luxury look (Estate or Riviera) and a brighter, more modern look (Modern or Bright) are different first impressions; choose on purpose.
Edit the pages that matter: homepage, bio, listings, contact. Type the changes you want instead of rebuilding the layout.
Preview on a phone. Check photos, statuses, and required brokerage lines.
Publish to your domain when it is right, then update your links and profiles.
Launch and List follows that path, and during early access it is free, with no credit card. If you are ready to leave a template behind, sign up and import your current site.
After you publish
Tell people once, then keep the site honest. Add new listings as they come in. Mark homes sold. If you change offices later, you update the brokerage name and disclosures, not your entire web presence. That is the point of doing this work now.
The new site will only stay useful if it does not go stale. Build a simple update habit from week one, using the same core pages you already planned in the realtor website checklist.
FAQs
Can I keep my website if I switch brokerages?
If the site is on a domain you registered and a platform you control, you can usually keep it and update the brokerage name, logo, and any required disclosures. If the site exists only on the old firm's domain or vendor account, you will likely need to launch a new one and take your content with you. Confirm the details with both offices.
Do I need permission from my broker to have my own site?
You should check before you publish. Most offices allow a personal site if it follows advertising rules and clearly shows the brokerage. Some require a review. Getting that straight first is faster than rewriting the site after it is live.
What if I cannot put redirects on my old brokerage profile?
Then you cannot run a full domain migration from that URL, and that is all right. Launch the new site, point your own channels to it, and ask the office to link out if they can. Spend your energy on a complete, current site, not on a redirect you do not have access to set.
Will I lose Google visibility if I change platforms on a domain I already own?
You can limit the disruption by mapping old URLs to new ones, using permanent server-side redirects, and following Google's site-move guidance, including Search Console where it applies. Temporary dips can still happen while Google recrawls the site. Turning the old pages off with no redirects is the outcome to avoid.