Case Study · Commercial Real Estate

How I Built a Full CRE Platform for a Denver Broker — and She Shared It to Her Entire Network the Day It Launched

A single HTML file. No WordPress. No monthly fees. Just a platform that made Amanda Weaver look exactly as credible as she is.

Gabriel Higareda · 8 min read · Case Study

The Brief

Amanda Weaver is a commercial real estate broker in Denver. She works with investors, developers, and property owners — a crowd that has seen every flavor of generic broker website in existence. She didn't want that. She wanted something that felt like her: sharp, professional, and worth sharing.

She came to me knowing roughly what she needed. A site that positioned her credibly, surfaced her listings and market knowledge, and didn't embarrass her when she sent it to a major investor. That's the brief. Simple to say, harder to execute.

The Problem with Most Broker Sites

Most real estate broker websites are built on templates — IDX plugins duct-taped to a WordPress theme that was last updated in 2021. They load slowly. They look like every other broker in the metro. And they're maintained by a web company that charges $200/month to keep the lights on.

That means the broker is always dependent. The site is always a liability, not an asset. That's the problem I wanted to solve: build Amanda something she owns outright, that loads fast, that looks credible, and that she never has to think about again.

What We Built

A fully custom commercial real estate platform — delivered as a single, clean HTML file hosted on Vercel. No database. No CMS. No WordPress. No plugins. Just well-structured HTML, CSS, and a small amount of JavaScript where it actually added value.

1 file
Entire site. One HTML file.
< 2s
Load time, no optimization needed
$0/mo
Hosting cost on Vercel
Day 1
Shared to her full LinkedIn network

The stack

HTML5 CSS3 Vanilla JS Vercel Cursor GitHub

What's in the platform

The site includes a hero section that leads with Amanda's positioning in the Denver CRE market, a listings module for her active properties, a market insight section to establish authority, an investor-facing CTA that speaks directly to her highest-value relationships, and a clean contact flow. Every section was written with the investor and developer audience in mind — not just "look at my listings."

How I Built It

I built the site using Cursor — an AI-native code editor — working directly in clean HTML and CSS. No generator, no boilerplate theme to fight against. Every design decision was intentional. The typography, the color system, the spacing — all designed around what would read as credible to the Denver CRE market specifically.

The whole thing went from brief to deployed in under a week. That's not a flex for flex's sake — it's the argument against WordPress. When you're not wrestling with plugin conflicts or theme overrides, you can move fast and produce something better.

"Gabriel built exactly what I needed — a professional CRE platform that I'm proud to share with every investor and developer in my network. It looks like a $30,000 site."

— Amanda Weaver, Commercial Real Estate Broker, Denver CO

The Launch

Amanda posted the site to her LinkedIn network the day it went live. Her network is made up of the exact people she's trying to reach — investors, developers, and property owners in the Denver market. That's the intended outcome: something so polished you want to show it off immediately.

That's the test I use for every site I build. Not "does it work?" but "would you share it the day it launched?" If the answer is yes, we did our job.

What This Means for You

If you're a broker, consultant, advisor, or service professional and your website is something you apologize for when you send the link — that's a fixable problem. You don't need WordPress. You don't need a $15,000 agency retainer. You need someone who knows what they're doing and gives you clean code you actually own.

That's what I do. Hire me on Upwork and I'll tell you within 24 hours if I'm the right fit.

Ready to Build Something Worth Sharing?

Fast, hand-coded, and deployed on Vercel. No WordPress. No monthly fees. You own the code.

Hire me on Upwork