I know we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover – but everyone does. So if people read your property listings, and they’re poorly written, people are going to think you’re unintelligent and unprofessional. Snap judgements are unfair, but that’s how the real world works. If you want to impress people with your property listings, do [...]
I know we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover – but everyone does. So if people read your property listings, and they’re poorly written, people are going to think you’re unintelligent and unprofessional. Snap judgements are unfair, but that’s how the real world works. If you want to impress people with your property listings, do [...]
Years ago, when I became a journalist, I learned a very important lesson: anything that can be misinterpreted will be misinterpreted. I would write articles that seemed clear, but which readers misinterpreted. I would write emails that seemed clear, but which my contacts misinterpreted. I would give briefs to people I was managing that seemed clear, [...]
Whenever I write a property listing, I like to play a game. The game is to see how many words I can remove. Not add, but remove. The reason I work hard to remove words is because I know that buyers have short attention spans, and that if you don't get to the point, they'll click [...]
One big mistake agents make when they write property listings is to use clichés. “Renovator’s delight”, “Location, location, location”, “This property won’t last long, so move fast” – these phrases have been used so many times that they no longer impress buyers. The reason we use clichés in our writing or our conversation is so we [...]
Your buyers are doing less thinking than you think. True story. Us humans do our thinking with our hearts; we then use our heads to justify our decisions. That’s why the best property listings place more importance on stirring emotions than reciting facts. That doesn’t mean facts aren’t important – they are. Nor does it mean [...]
Imagine you were a home owner who had decided to sell in six months and was now in the process of researching agents. And imagine, as part of the due diligence process, you were reading the property listings of all the agents in your suburb. If you encountered an agent with poorly-written listings – would that [...]
This property is amazing! The kitchen is fantastic! The bathrooms are extraordinary! Have you ever come across one of those property listings where every sentence ends with an exclamation mark? If you have, you probably know that agents undermine their credibility when they pepper their listings with exclamation marks. Because if everything is amazing … then [...]
We all know the dangers of giving off commission breath when you go to a vendor’s lounge room to pitch for business. Well, you also want to avoid commission breath when you write your property listings. Don’t write listings that make buyers feel you’d say or do anything to make the sale and earn your commission, [...]
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 [...]
