Show of hands, please: How many of you have seen a home for sale with these keywords in the description?
- “Desirable”
- “Exclusive”
- “Rare”
- “Stunning”
- “Sought-after”
- ….and the list goes on.
Would You Like Cheese with That?
Maybe this works. It must, right? Because it seems just about every listing (especially in the more high-end neighborhoods) contains these words. Tell me, does it make you want to go see a house (and perhaps even buy it) if it was first described as being “stunning” and “rare” in the “exclusive” and “desirable” neighborhood of ______?
Or does it just kind of turn you off a little?
Don’t Tell Me What I Like
Personally, I feel overly-flowery and flattering descriptions are a tad insulting. Like, who are you, Listing Agent, to tell me (buyer), what I like and should desire? If a property or neighborhood really is “sought-after”, well, that’s pretty obvious if you’re the one looking at the listing. Presumably, seeking that “sought-after” property.
Just the (Property) Facts
Now, in fairness, there are times where words like “rare” are accurate. If the home for sale being described is, for instance, a 4-bedroom, 3,000 square foot house on Mercer Island, in good shape, and listed under $1,000,000, then yes, that’s “rare”–and highly sought-after. Or perhaps a particularly unique, architecturally significant property that has never been on the market before. That would be rare. Gated community? Exclusive. You get the idea.
There are times for those flowery descriptions, but if EVERY property is rare, sought-after, exclusive, stunning, etc., etc., etc., those words become rather meaningless.
Yes, descriptive words are necessary to create the warm, fuzzy, excited feelings that make a buyer want to actually go see a home in person. If a property listing featured a totally dry, bare-bones paragraph consisting of descriptions like, “the bedroom is large and looks over the bay”, you probably would be less inclined to visit it while you’re more keen to see the home with the “massive master suite with huge views of the Seattle skyline and Elliott Bay.”
But sometimes we need to take the fluff with a large grain of (imported, exotic, Himalayan pink) salt as we digest the meaty parts of a property description.
Balancing Act
In the MLS description field, the part that you see across every MLS listing, there’s a character limit. Here in the NWMLS, it’s 500 characters. That’s not a lot! We real estate agents need to fit a good deal of information in that little field.
But personally, I feel it’s more important to describe the actual features and their benefits than attempting to tell buyers how cool my listing is because it’s so rare/exclusive/dusted with the hairs of a unicorn, blah blah blah.
What Do You Think?
Do certain descriptions make you want to see a property more or less than another with a more pragmatic description? Tell me.