Years ago, when I started out in journalism, I learned something called the ‘pub intro’, which is a fantastic device to use when you’re wondering how to start a piece of writing. 

Imagine you interviewed someone for a news story, learned some fascinating information, went to the pub across the road, bumped into your best friend and couldn’t wait to tell him about the fascinating person you’d just interviewed. 

“Nick, you’ll never believe this, but … ” – and at that point, without needing to think about it, you’d blurt out the most interesting detail of the conversation. That’s how you should begin your news story. 

You can use the pub intro when you write your property listings. 

Imagine you’d just won the listing, gone to the pub across the road and bumped into your best friend. What’s the first thing you’d blurt out about your new listing? 

Whatever it is, that information should go in your opening sentence and the headline.