Think back to 2006. You may remember hearing about the launch of a new social media platform, Twitter. However, you most likely didn’t because it came with little fanfare.
Posts to the social media platform were dubbed “tweets,” and tweeters were limited to only 140 characters at that time.
Does that remind you of anything?
As you know, each MLS has a limit on how many words (or characters) agents can use in the public-facing listing description. We attempted to determine the average word count restriction, but couldn’t.
Unless you write professionally, listing descriptions can be challenging to craft. But they don’t have to be if you follow a few simple rules.
The anatomy of a listing description from a buyer’s point of view
It’s common knowledge now that most house hunters turn to the internet for their initial search.
It’s also well known that these buyers won’t look at a listing that doesn’t include photos (2011 ocular tracking study E.V. Williams Center for Real Estate, Old Dominion University).
That study showed us that homebuyers overwhelmingly scan the listing photo first and spend the most time doing so. They check out the property description next.
The agent’s listing description was the last item they were interested in perusing, and 20 percent of the homebuyers studied didn’t bother reading them.
Because of this, the researchers claim that listing descriptions are unimportant.
Did they miss the fact that 80 percent DID read the agent’s listing description?
This is an important statistic for listing agents to concentrate on when writing the listing description.
Use your words . . . strategically
When asked by Shakespeare’s Polonius what he was reading, Hamlet replied, “Words, words, words.”
What he was reading, obviously, was meaningless. Words with meaning, on the other hand, are powerful and can actually help sell a home.
We don’t advocate outright lying in a listing description, but Spencer Rascoff and Stan Humphries beg to differ:
“Bottom-tier homes described as luxurious tend to beat their expected sale price by a whopping 8.2 percent.”
They go on to claim that if your listing’s value is “$110,000, but your listing includes the keyword ‘luxurious,’ you could pocket an extra $8,965.”
Additional money-making words from their study include:
- Captivating
- Impeccable (listings in the lower price ranges that include this word sold for nearly 6 percent more than the list price)
- Stainless (a 5 percent bonus if your low-priced listing has stainless steel appliances and you incorporate that info in the listing description)
- Landscaped
- Granite (no surprise here, right?)
- Remodeled
- Beautiful
- Spotless
Check out the rest of the list at Zillow.com. Be aware that the list is a bit old, but some of these trends still exist, such as granite (or quartz) countertops. Research is your friend.
Sure, brilliant listing descriptions aren’t that critical in the current market. But, markets change and often do so on a dime. Keep the aforementioned information in your back pocket and pull it out when homes aren’t selling as soon as listed. And, remember, adjectives, apparently, are money-makers.
Sprinkle liberally for a brilliant listing description.
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