eXp Black Lion
Dominate the largest military real estate market in America.
A full-stack recruiting platform for eXp Realty's Black Lion team in Hampton Roads. 43 pages covering 8 cities from Williamsburg to Virginia Beach, a complete admin panel with lead management, an interactive fit quiz, income calculator, and a custom dark-themed brand system built around the military market.
Live Screenshots
Homepage
Services
Property Search
Mortgage Calculator
Shipped in 2 days. Live on Vercel.
The Challenge
Military market. Custom identity.
Kerry Ferdinand needed a recruiting platform that matched the intensity of the Hampton Roads military market. With 100,000+ active-duty personnel rotating through Naval Station Norfolk, Langley AFB, and Newport News Shipbuilding, the opportunity is massive but the messaging had to be specific.
The existing eXp Richmond site was purpose-built for the Richmond metro. Black Lion needed its own identity: a dark, premium brand system (BLT Gerhard Display, blood red accents on flat black), 8 area-specific city pages with real market data, and an admin panel that Kerry could use to manage incoming leads without any technical knowledge.
Timeline: the client wanted to see something live before the weekend. That gave us roughly 48 hours from kickoff to production.
The Solution
43 pages. Full admin. 2 days.
Military-Focused Content
Every page speaks directly to the Hampton Roads military market. PCS relocation cycles, base-specific neighborhood guides, and market stats that military families actually care about.
8 City Pages
Newport News, Hampton, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Williamsburg, Suffolk, and Yorktown. Each with real neighborhood counts, market highlights, and team assignments.
Full Admin Panel
Dashboard with lead analytics, pipeline management, team member management with role-based permissions, notification center, and CSV export. Kerry runs his business from this.
Interactive Fit Quiz
7-question quiz that recommends Team or GRIDx path based on experience, goals, and working style. Captures leads with email on results page.
Income Calculator
Side-by-side comparison of eXp vs traditional brokerage earnings. Factors in revenue share, stock awards, and cap structure with real math.
Custom Brand System
Dark-mode-only design built around BLT Gerhard Display headlines, blood red (#A72B2A) accents, cream text on flat black. Zero stock photos. All images generated via nano-banana Pro.
How It Actually Got Built
The constraint. The wrong first move. The fix.
01 CONSTRAINT
48 hours. 43 pages. Full admin panel. Zero shortcuts.
Kerry Ferdinand needed a live recruiting platform before the weekend. That meant 48 hours from kickoff to production. The scope was not a brochure site: 8 area-specific city pages (Newport News, Hampton, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Williamsburg, Suffolk, Yorktown), a complete admin panel with lead management and role-based permissions, an interactive fit quiz, an income calculator, and a custom dark brand system built from a specific font (BLT Gerhard Display) that did not exist in any standard kit. Every piece had to ship.
02 WRONG MOVE
Tried to start with the design system. Wrong order.
The first instinct was to build the custom brand system (the BLT Gerhard Display headlines, blood-red accents, the dark-mode-only palette) before writing any routes. This is the standard order for a design-led project. But at 48-hour scope, spending the first morning on design tokens would have left the admin panel and city pages unfinished. The brand system is invisible if the platform does not exist.
03 FIX
Routes and schema first. Brand layer applied at the end.
Flipped the order: schema and routing on day one (Drizzle ORM + Neon Postgres for lead capture, Better Auth for admin isolation), all 43 pages stubbed and functional before the visual pass. The brand layer, font loading, accent colors, and dark-mode-only overrides, was applied once every route was confirmed working. This meant the admin panel was operational for Kerry to review before the visual polish was complete, and no last-minute panic about missing pages.
04 OUTCOME
Live before the weekend. Kerry runs his own pipeline.
43 pages shipped in 2 days: 8 city pages covering every major Hampton Roads military market, a full admin panel with lead analytics, pipeline management, team member roles, notification center, and CSV export. Kerry manages incoming leads without any developer involvement. The fit quiz and income calculator qualify prospects before a call. The SEO footprint across 8 Hampton Roads cities gives Black Lion searchable presence across the largest military real estate market in America.
Tech Stack
Full-stack, not just a marketing site.
Next.js 16App Router, server components, static generation for 43 pages
Tailwind v4Custom dark-mode-only design system with BLT Gerhard Display
Drizzle ORMType-safe database layer for lead capture and admin panel
Neon PostgresServerless PostgreSQL for leads, analytics, and team management
Better AuthAdmin authentication with dual consumer/admin isolation
VercelProduction hosting with edge delivery
The Result
A recruiting machine for Hampton Roads.
The site launched with 43 pages, a full admin panel, and every piece of contact info verified. Kerry had a live recruiting platform before the weekend deadline.
The admin panel means Kerry manages leads, tracks analytics, and runs his pipeline without ever asking a developer for help. Lead forms feed directly into a Neon Postgres database with email notifications and CSV export.
The 8 city pages give Black Lion an SEO footprint across every major Hampton Roads market. Each page has real neighborhood data, military base proximity info, and direct CTAs. The fit quiz and income calculator do the convincing before Kerry ever picks up the phone.
A full recruiting pipeline for military markets. Delivered in 48 hours.
If you need a full-stack platform that recruits, qualifies, and lets a non-technical client manage their own pipeline, book a 30-minute call and I'll show you what 48 hours can do.