Squarespace is a fabulous website builder for real estate agents - its easy to use and creates gorgeous websites.
No wonder it's increasingly popular with Realtors.
But of course, to make your website authoritative and give yourself legitimacy, you should be adding the MLS, i.e. adding IDX to your Squarespace website.

I have spoken to many agents recently as they consider options to add IDX to their Squarespace site.

Of course there are IFRAME solutions, often from your own MLS. These are typically "free IDX" - which sounds good - until you realize its just an inflexible "MLS search in a box". Additionally, using an IFRAME to add IDX will  limit your ability to use MLS listings for your marketing, which will not help establish your credibility.

Apart from this, what other options does an agent have?

Well - there are a few other vendors that claim to have an IDX solution for Squarespace - but beware! On closer inspection you will find these are either another IFRAME variant - or they will offer IDX components on a subdomain of your website. The "sub domain" approach will create potential issues:

Traffic will be lost to the subdomain.

As soon as someone searches for properties, or starts looking at listings they will suddenly find themselves redirected to the subdomain. So now this traffic is on a different URL. Even though this is a subdomain of your main website, the IDX traffic has been moved off your main domain.

Inflexible page layouts and content.

As these IDX pages are on a subdomain it wont be possible to manage them in your Squarespace account. Your Squarespace editor cannot be used to make changes or add more IDX content. IDX pages will get managed elsewhere. In addition, we typically see that these pages pages only have a single function - a property search form for example. 
This means that the opportunity to create content-rich landing pages that include a variety of content as well as IDX, is limited, if not impossible.

Get an Embeddable IDX Plugin for Squarespace

Agents should seek out and use a Squarespace IDX plugin that embeds MLS content directly into your own Squarespace pages. Such an approach brings the greatest marketing benefit as you will have maximum flexibility for page content and layout. 

How are using Squarespace for real estate? Do you have any additional insights? Comment and share below.