Property descriptions: examples and best practices

man sitting on a green grass field

Check out this Nila June description on Homes.com

This is an example of our “short version” in commercial deployment. Some agents go with the short version, while others prefer the longer one. We always deliver both. When you read this, remember that our customer went from blank page to great description in just 5 minutes.

21127 Brookside Ln Sterling, VA 20165

There are a ton of these, of course, and no two are alike. That’s because the content depends on your responses to our property briefing survey, rather than on the frequency-based predictions of GPT or other Large Language Model (LLM). 

What about the “long version?”  Here’s an example, also on Homes.com.

103 Smackover Ln White Oak, TX 75693

Be "buyer neutral"

Search for occurrences of “perfect for” on Zillow, and you’ll find no shortage of property descriptions that limit the potential market for the home.

If  you had a dollar for every home on Zillow that is “perfect for young families,” you’d have more than three grand! Here’s the thing: your sellers don’t care who buys the house. Maybe the buyer is an aging confirmed bachelor. Or Santa Claus. Who cares? It’s best to avoid playing matchmaker between home and buyer. 

Perfect for entertaining?” At a dollar per occurrence, that’s worth more than three million bucks! News flash: Not everyone has “entertaining” on their list of to-dos. If you need to draw attention to a room or feature that might be useful for entertaining, try to suggest a range of uses, one of which might be throwing a party. 

 

Remember, the agent’s job is to market the property as broadly as possible. Don’t use “perfect for” in property descriptions. Here’s some more good advice from Homes.com.

Don't use the word "boasts"

This one is so important that we wrote a separate blog post about it. “Boasts” announces that you can’t think of any other way to introduce an important feature. Frequently, it’s misapplied to something ordinary. The home “boasts” a kitchen? Really?

Survey Question

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Are you listing a house or a condominium?


Nila June is a "buy when needed" service, not a subscription service

Unlike (it seems) every other company in the world today, we don’t aim to be a forgotten subscription charge on your credit card bill. Our business model is to provide you value when you need it. You buy from us only when you need a description.

Don’t get us wrong. We’d like you to use Nila June every time you need a listing. The fact is, most of our business comes from repeat customers anyway. For us, it’s almost like a subscription. For you, it’s better.  Here’s more on our pricing.

Examples of listing descriptions that began with Nila June

If you’re not a writer, start with Nila June. Even if the out-of-box write-up is not perfect for your home (and, really, it might be perfect!), you’ll find it easier to edit finished text than to create a new listing description from scratch. This is a point that Inman News makes in its positive coverage of Nila June. Remember: the property listing description describes the home, but it also describes you. It’s your calling card for new listings.

All of these property description examples below began with Nila June, and were improved by the listing agent: Zillow, HomesTrulia, and Compass.

"Free" property description generators can be very expensive!

There are cheaper services than Nila June, but they’re not as good. Frequently they require photo uploads and/or monthly subscription fees. Agents who prefer to go the DIY route entirely can contend with a blank screen for “free,” if they value their time at $0 per hour. But ask yourself: doesn’t the seller who is about to pay you thousands in commission deserve a great property description? Is that ChatGPT property description going to win you a great referral?

There are more expensive services, too. An automated property description is simply not going to fit every house. For an implausibly extreme example, Nila June would not do a good job describing the International Space Station. Agents should turn to professional human freelancers to handle outlier properties.

Survey Question

Get your property description now!

Are you listing a house or a condominium?