Fixing Core Web Vitals and INP for an estate agency network website in Dublin (2026)

The verdict in three sentences

An estate agency network where 70% of listing pages sit in the 'poor' mobile INP band loses rankings and leads, and an 18% drop in organic traffic is the most visible symptom. In Dublin the fix usually combines a performance audit and a rebuild of the listings grid and filters, for a total of 10,000 to 20,000 EUR excluding VAT, 2026 order of magnitude. Plan for 6 weeks of work and 3 months of CrUX monitoring before judging results on real-user data.

Why INP hits property listing sites first

Since Interaction to Next Paint replaced FID in Core Web Vitals, Google measures how fast a page responds to every click, tap or keystroke, not just the first one. A property portal concentrates exactly the heavy interactions: price and bedroom filters, area pickers (Ranelagh, Rathmines, Clontarf, Sandyford), interactive maps, photo carousels and 'book a viewing' buttons. Every filter that re-renders 40 listing cards in JavaScript pushes INP above 500 ms on a mid-range phone.

The causes we find in almost every agency network audit:

• a listings feed plugin (CRM to website bridge) injecting 300 to 600 KB of non-deferred JavaScript;
• a map loaded on start even though 80% of mobile visitors never open it;
• 1.5 to 3 MB JPEG photos served without resizing;
• stacked third-party scripts: chat, review widget, ad pixels, online valuation tool.

The typical project and its cost in Dublin in 2026

A serious audit goes well beyond a PageSpeed Insights screenshot. It cross-checks field data (CrUX, Search Console) with Chrome DevTools profiling on a real device, isolates long tasks over 50 ms and prices every fix. The deliverable must rank actions by expected gain and effort, otherwise the network ends up with 60 recommendations and no priorities.

The main lever is the listings rebuild: server-rendered cards, filters that update the URL without reloading the whole block, JavaScript work split with requestIdleCallback or scheduler.yield, and pagination instead of infinite scroll. For a 14-branch network with around 1,100 live listings, this is where most of the gain lies.

Mind the calendar: CrUX aggregates a rolling 28 days. A fix shipped on the 1st only shows fully in Search Console four to six weeks later. Hence the 3-month follow-up, with real-user monitoring (RUM) giving a daily reading while Google's data catches up.

If the site runs on an ageing theme with heavy technical debt, a rebuild may be the better call. We walk through that reasoning in our piece on refreshing or rebuilding an office relocation company website.

Mini case study

Aoife, marketing director of a 14-branch estate agency network across Dublin and its commuter belt (Swords, Bray, Naas), starts from 22,000 organic visits a month, down 18% year on year. The site converts 1.1% of visits into enquiries, roughly 240 a month. The network estimates one enquiry in 25 becomes an instruction, with average fees of 6,500 EUR.

Chosen budget: audit 3,500 EUR, listings and filters 9,000 EUR, images and scripts 3,000 EUR, follow-up 1,500 EUR, total 17,000 EUR excl. VAT.

Cautious post-project assumption: traffic back to 25,000 visits and conversion at 1.4% thanks to smooth filters, i.e. 350 enquiries a month. Gain: 110 enquiries a month, about 4.4 extra instructions, or 28,600 EUR in monthly fees. Even counting only a third of that effect, the project pays for itself in under two months.

FAQ

How long until INP improves in Search Console?

CrUX covers a rolling 28 days, so expect 4 to 6 weeks after release before the shift shows. A RUM tool tracks the 75th percentile day by day in the meantime.

Do we need to change our property CRM to fix performance?

Rarely. In 8 cases out of 10 the problem is the website's rendering, not the CRM: we keep the feed and rebuild only the listings display, for 6,000 to 11,000 EUR excl. VAT.

Is AVIF supported by every browser?

In 2026 over 95% of browsers in use read AVIF. A WebP or JPEG fallback through the picture element stays in place, and photo weight drops by 40 to 60%.

Is a good PageSpeed score enough?

No, the lab score simulates a single load. Google ranks on field data: a site can score 90 in the lab and still sit at 400 ms real INP if filters are slow.

Who should lead the project inside an agency network?

The marketing director, with a technical lead on the supplier side and a checkpoint every two weeks. Budget 4 to 6 hours of internal time per week over the 6 weeks.

Let's scope your project. We audit your listings site, price every INP and LCP fix and set a 6-week release plan. Detailed quote within 48 h. WhatsApp +221 77 596 93 33.