Listing copy that gets clicked, and the first line that does it
Portal search results show a photograph, a price and about eight words. Almost everybody wastes the eight words.
Open a portal search and look at what you actually get: a thumbnail, a price, a bed count, and the opening fragment of the description before it truncates. That fragment is the only writing that competes for the click, and the overwhelming majority of listings spend it on "A well-presented three bedroom semi-detached property situated in a popular residential area".
Every word of that is either already on the card or true of two hundred other listings.
Lead with the thing only this property has
Something is the reason this house is worth more than its neighbour. The garden faces south and runs eighty feet. The loft is already converted with building regs. It is the only house on the street with off-street parking. The kitchen was done last year. Whatever it is, it goes first, in plain words, in the first eight.
"South-facing 80ft garden, loft already converted" tells a buyer more than three lines of "well-presented" ever will, and it selects for the buyer who wants those things, which is the buyer who books.
Then write for somebody deciding, not admiring
- Name the schools, the station and the walk times. "Popular residential area" is what you write when you have not.
- Say what has been done and when. A buyer reads "rewired 2023" as one less thing to pay for.
- Say what has not. A listing that admits the bathroom is original is a listing the buyer believes about everything else.
- Room by room, briefly, in the order somebody walks through. The description is a viewing for people who have not booked one yet.
- Cut every adjective that could apply to any house. Stunning, immaculate, deceptively spacious. They are noise, and "deceptively" is a word that should worry you.
The bit that is not about writing
Copy cannot rescue a bad lead photograph, and a good one does most of the work before a word is read. Which one you lead with is a real decision: the kitchen usually beats the exterior, and the exterior usually beats an empty bedroom. If the front of the house is the weakest thing about it, do not open with the front of the house.
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