Over the course of developing Estately, Doug and I have looked at a lot of listings. We’ve seen humorous irregularities, things like the neighborhood called “Seattle” that has been carved out of adjacent cities or the neighborhoods of large cities that are promoted to city status by agents who apparently want no one to ever find their property on traditional, select-your-city-from-a-list real estate search sites.
After the awful photos, which are well documented by Athol, the most painful part of viewing listing after listing for me is the “descriptive text.” Of the dozens of boxes agents fill for every property, this is the one where a listing agent can sing the praises of the listings benefits and go beyond the laundry list of features.
Or at least it should be the box that is about benefits.
But all too often it is either meaningless filler or a relisting of selected features. It’s like real estate agents, people who are steeped in personal marketing strategies, who bandy about marketing words like conversions and leads, had never heard of benefits.
The following are a few of the regulars; the features buffed with flowery adjectives and sent off to the ether, and my amateurish reworking of them. I don’t market for a living, so I’m sure (positive!) we’ll see better reworkings in the comments.
Feature: Beautiful view, huge picture window
Benefit: Watch the sunrise through the picture window from anywhere in the living room
Feature: only 15 minutes from downtown, hot tub
Benefit: relax in the hot tub after a short (less than 10 minute) commute from downtown
Feature (barely): You’ll love this floor plan!
Benefit: hallway-free floor plan maximizes living space OR open floor plan maximizes feng-shui
Things I wouldn’t put in a public description because they aren’t features or benefits:
- all appliances stay+washer/dryer (that’s in the amenities)
- close to all schools (really? every single school?)
- Move in Now! (no!)
- 2 cats and a lrg dog that live here (transparency is good, but that makes me think “pet odor!”)
David says:
Great Point! Couldn’t agree more.
January 21, 2008 — 11:46 am
Rod Rebello says:
More detailed and informative descriptions would be great, but some MLS’s restrictions on text (ours is 3 lines) puts a crimp in how much you can expound.
January 21, 2008 — 12:26 pm
Galen says:
Rod, I hear ya, but I’d go with 2-3 strong lines over 10 mediocre ones.
January 21, 2008 — 12:33 pm
Gary Elwood says:
Your on track, Rod. Benefits strike emotional chords, paint pics, where features, well, eh…are about the stats and put people to sleep. And it’s really not that hard to write benefits. It just takes time. And patience.
January 21, 2008 — 1:20 pm
David Sherfey says:
“some MLS’s restrictions on text (ours is 3 lines) puts a crimp in how much you can expound.”
Rob, don’t let that stop you. Software exists today that will very easily allow you to create websites for each of your listings where you can have all the photos and text you want. Create something cool and link to it instead of a virtual tour.
January 21, 2008 — 1:25 pm
Athol Kay says:
Thanks for the link love, I appreicate it.
I agree that the majority of the remarks are mindless that I read, though some MLS do limit the remarks to all of 200 characters. It’s the ALL CAPS IDIOTS SAYING PLEASE BRING OFFER!!! that drive me nuts.
January 21, 2008 — 1:33 pm
Derek Burress says:
A lot of people (myself included) tend to have a hard time writing descriptions. Like in my novel, for nearly four weeks, all I had to describe my character’s home was “Winding through an ancient grove of oaks overlooking the colorful Tar River stood….”
The home, it’s a two story, white (aren’t they all) antebellum home. That’s about as far as I got.
Old country store = wooden store that stood near the … that doubled as a gas station and … pastered by Red Man chewing tobacco signs and RC Colo advertisements.
It’s not as easy as it looks that is for sure.
January 21, 2008 — 3:13 pm
Phoenix az real estate says:
I agree with the ALL CAPS that is insane. If someone’s on the MLS, they don’t want to read ads that look like a 10 year old wrote them!
January 21, 2008 — 3:19 pm
Michael Wurzer says:
I agree that more could be done with remarks, and that it’s much more about the nouns than adjectives. I wrote a post just yesterday that quotes our head of development as saying, “MLS systems today capture what is common about properties but what sells the property is what’s uncommon.” Not all agents can craft concise and beautiful prose, but, if they want to be successful, all agents should know the facts that make the home valuable and attractive.
January 21, 2008 — 4:48 pm