Real estate professionals.
Holy shit, LOVE you guys and the work you do.
You help us find our homes, and help us understand the best places for us to live our lives out of. Which is no small superpower. AND you help us understand the financial mumbo-jumbo of it all, which is another superpower in and of itself.
So I wanted to dedicate today’s video to you & ways you can make your job of selling and renting properties SO MUCH EASIER by making simple modifications to your listing descriptions.
99.9999999% of all real estate listings say exactly the same thing in the same boring, real estate jargon. This isn’t necessarily the fault of the person listing it…. because they’re probably not a professional writer, and it’s what everyone else in the market is doing, so you can hardly blame them.
BUT, what if there were an easier way?
In today’s video, I’ll show you three different ways to make easy tweaks to real estate copywriting that’ll make a HUGE difference in how successful they are.
Hello real estate agents! Or anyone interested in writing better copy for the real estate niche!
Today I want to help you learn how to write better copy so that you can have more success with your listings… no matter what kind of real estate market you’re in.
It’s always really easy to sell & rent in a seller’s market, because everything—including not-so-stellar properties—goes really quickly.
But even if you’re in a buyer’s market that’s much harder to sell in, you can make a HUGE difference in how well your properties do, no matter what kind of properties they are, by simply having better descriptions of them in their listings.
But this also works even if you’re in a seller’s market… you can use better listing copy to create even MORE desire for your listings, so you can attract more viewings, get more bids, and easily sell above list price, which is amazing for both you and the owner.
So in today’s video I’m going to walk you through re-writing three different real estate listings. We’ll focus on a home for sale, a residential rental unit, and a commercial space.
As I go through the re-write process of these three properties, you’ll notice how elements of story come into play and are very addicting to the brain, why it’s so important to get the reader to project himself into the space before he ever visits it, and why details—especially when they’re details written without using typical real estate jargon—are so effective in creating desire.
So without further ado, let’s get to it:
I chose this house, because to be honest, it really doesn’t look that enticing, and you can’t even see inside of it. And looking at the location, you could definitely do better for this price range. So copywriting on a listing like this is going to make a HUGE difference.
So this is what the description currently reads:
[read description]
But what if we took away the focus on all the lists of details & the fact that there’s a ton of photos missing, and we focused instead, on the STORY of what this single family home investment could be?
3-Bedroom, brick ranch home, just like the ones popularized after World War II to reflect the relaxed, laid-back lifestyle we’re so proud of here. Everything’s all on one level, except for the unfinished basement and attached garage that has HUGE potential. It’s the perfect place to make your own, start from scratch, and begin your family’s new chapter in Asheville.
-And yeah, this is still pretty basic. But we’re giving some historical detail that makes them feel like a greater, bigger picture just by simply being interested in the property… which attaches them to the idea of it from the get-go, AND we create a sort of “new beginning” narrative, so it’ll attract the kind of people who are more excited about something like that, so the fact that it needs some repairs will not be as big of a deal. Do you see how that works and how cool that is?
————
rental: imagine himself there already
-write out an ideal weekend morning
Okay, so now we’re looking at some luxury rentals. The hook reads “luxury apartments with the latest features & conveniences” and you scroll down to see this long description. Which, honestly, kind of drops the ball of excitement after promising luxury and convenience.
[read 1st paragraph]
It immediately dives into these details of confusing interstate directions that really have not that much to do with the actual living space itself. It means mountain views, but that’s about it.
Instead, with something like this, especially since it’s luxury and will therefore call for a luxury price tag, we want the reader to feel like they’re already sold before we have to sell them. It makes it MUCH easier as a real estate professional representing a place like this if people are already 90% or more sold on the idea of living here before they get in touch.
So instead of vomiting detail after detail at them… which they can easily find in other places on this website… let’s paint a picture that the reader can EASILY insert herself into.
You wake up to your bedroom curtains drawn back, letting just the perfect amount of light in. It feels peaceful, clean, and bright, and off in the distance you can see why the Blue Ridge Mountains are called Blue. It’s beautiful.
After taking your dog out for a quick morning run around the leashless dog park while you stretch and wake up, you bring your coffee to the poolside, and dive into the book you’ve been waiting to start all week long.
…..etc…..
Can you see also how I’m giving the details listed out in the second paragraph, but without listing them off in a boring way? Instead, I’m using them to draw the reader into the narrative of them living here soon.
And it feels GOOD to read a story like this and think about it with yourself as the main character, doesn’t it? Which is why this approach to writing real estate copy can be so effective.
——————
commercial: details w/o real estate jargon
And finally, we’re going to look at improving a commercial listing. To give you an idea, this is what we’re working with: [pictures]
And it’s a HUGE space, with 6,516 square feet available, divided by two different spaces.
Here’s what the description currently reads:
[read description]
So reading this, there’s a lot that can actually be condensed here and that’s really repetitive: “Asheville’s busiest corridors” “Merrimon Ave” (everyone here knows how busy Merrimon is), and walkable to downtown & several high-growth neighborhoods.
So let’s take the real estate jargon that spells out the actual benefits, like “high visibility with great frontage to Merrimon Ave” and break that down into non-jargon that a retail business owner could get REALLY excited about.
[Write:]
Showcase your business to every single passerby just as they enter downtown… but have the parking to making coming into your shop a no-brainer. A five-minute walk from the Trader Joe’s intersection with walking access to Montford, one of Asheville’s best neighborhoods, guarantees you’ll have the kind of foot (and vehicle) traffic needed to make this investment a success.
Do you see how getting rid of the jargon and breaking it down into simpler terms suddenly makes this way more interesting to the prospects that would be interested in this space?
Okay, so to review:
-review gist of each of the 3 listings-
So now I think you can see how doing these things will be MUCH more helpful to selling more in your real estate business.
If you want to take it a step further, and maybe even want to use your website to attract clients… either people trying to sell or people wanting to buy property… you can do that too.
I’ve got another video on writing for websites in my YouTube channel, which I think will be really helpful for you. Or, if you really want to take things to the next level, I have a free email course that teaches you easy-to-implement writing exercises that will really take your website copy from something that’s “good enough” to something that REALLY gets remembered by everyone in your target audience.
You can sign up for it by clicking on the link that appears over this video, or I’ve got a link below in the description. It really is a great course, and I constantly get emails from people telling me how much it’s helped them. (And it’s free!) So go ahead and sign up for it now, and I’ll see you in your inbox soon.
Bye!
Hi Chelsea,
This is absolutely fantastic, the video stands out to be very helpful. A must watch especially for those in the real estate industry.
Michael Evans recently posted…The Luxury Collection: Episode 4
Thanks Michael! Glad it was helpful to you!
nice video it must watch in Real estate business…
Hi Chelsea, I like your article plus video to and I like the way you explain it simple and straight. Especially I like this line 99.9999999% of all real estate listings say exactly the same thing in the same boring and this is true.
Thanks