Harlow Ireland - estate agent website design for a Dublin-led property brand

Harlow Ireland is the Irish edition of our fictional estate agency, with 12 offices across nine markets from Dublin 4 to the Wild Atlantic Way. It shares every template with the UK and US editions, but reads as a Dublin firm: euros and square metres, Eircodes and the Luas, the Equal Status Acts, and a palette taken from moss, stone and Atlantic light.

Project facts

• Client: Harlow Property Ltd, registered in Ireland (fictional)
• Sector: Residential estate agency
• Markets: Dublin plus 8 Irish markets across 13 counties
• Services: Market localisation · Copywriting · Brand adaptation · Real estate website design · Accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA) · SEO foundations
• Templates: 9 page templates shared with every Harlow edition
• Stack: Hand-built HTML, CSS and vanilla JavaScript; one strings file and one theme file per market

The brief

An Irish estate agency site that never reads as British

The biggest risk for an Irish edition is inheriting the UK one: pounds, the NHS, Ofsted. Harlow Ireland keeps British spelling but replaces every place, price, law and habit with an Irish one. Buyers search by Dublin postal district and Luas stop, rent is quoted per month, and the Equal Status Acts' housing-assistance ground appears in the legal copy.

Designing for Ireland

What actually changed between the US and this edition

• Story - US edition: 27 US markets, founded in Brooklyn · Ireland: 9 Irish markets, founded in Ranelagh
• Guide - US edition: West Village, Manhattan · Ireland: Ranelagh, Dublin 6: redbricks, Luas Green line, canal walks
• Prices - US edition: $1,895,000 · sq ft · Ireland: €985,000 · m² · €3,100 per month
• Search - US edition: City, neighborhood, address or ZIP · Ireland: Town, neighbourhood, address or Eircode
• Markets - US edition: States and regions · Ireland: Counties: Dublin, Wicklow, Cork, Kerry, Galway, Mayo …
• Legal - US edition: Fair Housing, state privacy rights · Ireland: GDPR with the Data Protection Commission; Equal Status Acts 2000–2018
• Consent - US edition: Notice banner · Ireland: Opt-in, Reject all as prominent as Accept all
• Look - US edition: Ivory, bronze, Cormorant Garamond · Ireland: Soft stone, moss green and amber; Literata + Public Sans

Brand adaptation

The same Harlow, with a local accent

Moss green carries the interface; amber italics bring warmth in light sections, and a lighter amber takes over on dark panels so every pairing passes WCAG AA. Literata gives headlines a bookish, literary tone; Public Sans keeps forms and navigation plain. The wordmark keeps the Estate Agents descriptor.

Homepage and neighbourhood guide

The hero opens on painted Georgian houses with Find the place that feels like yours. Proof points are restated for Ireland (€2.1bn in completed sales, 340 advisers, 12 offices), and the city cards cover Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Kilkenny and Wicklow. The Ranelagh guide lists median price, monthly rent, house sales, Luas time to St Stephen's Green and the nearest stop, plus favourites from Ranelagh Gardens to Chelmsford Road.

Compliance, accessibility and trust

• Privacy notice under the GDPR naming Harlow Property Ltd (registered in Ireland) as controller, with the route to the Data Protection Commission.
• Equal status statement covering all nine grounds of the Equal Status Acts, including membership of the Traveller community and receipt of housing assistance.
• Footer with an Irish company line; no UK regulators or schemes.
• Passes automated WCAG 2.2 AA checks on every page at 360, 390, 768 and 1440 px: no contrast failures, no unreachable controls, no horizontal scrolling.
• A language switcher built from hreflang sits in the header on desktop and in the footer on phones.

One system, twelve markets

Every visible string lives in one file per market, and every colour and typeface in one theme file. This edition needed no new templates or components: a strings file, a theme, regional photography and local legal content made it a different brand experience. For a property group with international plans, a new market becomes a content project rather than a rebuild.

Deliverables

• Market profile: language, formats, legal and seasonality
• Full localised copy across 9 templates, header, footer and forms
• Brand adaptation: palette, type pairing and logo descriptor
• 21 regional photographs (Pexels, credited in credits.json)
• Local legal content
• Accessibility pass (WCAG 2.2 AA, automated) and QA at four screen widths
• Portfolio media: stills, full-page captures, scroll video, OG image, brand board