Writing property listing descriptions
A listing description is a set of facts a buyer can check, plus a short account of how the home lives. The facts come from the file. The adjectives come second. A person who knows the property approves it before it is published.
Order
Start with what decides a viewing: place, bedrooms and bathrooms, tenure or let type, outside space, parking, and the price basis (asking price, guide, offers over, rent). Then the rooms in an order a viewer can walk. Then the practicals: council tax band, EPC rating, service charge and ground rent where they exist, lease years remaining. End with the viewing instruction.
If a fact is missing, leave a blank the negotiator can see. Do not borrow a typical figure for the area. “Short walk to the station” is fair only if you would say it to the vendor’s face. Distances you have not measured should stay out.
Material information and fair description
In the UK, information that would change a decision to view or offer is supposed to be available, not discovered at a survey. Lease length, a known issue the vendor has told you about, and the tenure are in that set. National Trading Standards publishes the guidance. Follow the current document. This page is not that document.
US remarks have MLS limits on length and on what counts as a fair-housing problem. Describe the building and the lot. Do not describe the neighbours, a place of worship as a selling point aimed at a group, or who the home is “perfect for” in a way that excludes people.
Drafting with an assistant
Give it the approved facts and the vendor’s own phrases you are willing to use. Ask for a draft at a length that fits the portal. Then read it against the photograph. Models add skylights, underfloor heating and “recently renovated” kitchens that are not there. Delete those sentences. The vendor should see the text before it goes live, which is already good agency practice.
Price changes must hit every copy: CRM, brochure, portal. A description that still says the old price is a complaint waiting to happen. KeyAccess does not upload to Rightmove, Zoopla, OnTheMarket or an MLS. Your existing feed does, from the CRM, once a person has published.
A structure you can reuse
One opening sentence a person who has not seen the house can understand. A paragraph on the living space. A paragraph on the bedrooms and bathrooms. A paragraph on the outside and the location, with only claims you can support. A last line on tenure or tenancy, costs, and how to view. The template on this site is that shape, with brackets instead of fake facts.
Keep a banned-word list for your brand if you like. More useful is a banned-invention rule: no feature unless it is on the fact sheet the vendor signed off.
Questions
Can the vendor’s words be used wholesale?
Use the ones that are accurate and that you would be happy to defend. Take out superlatives you cannot evidence, and anything that describes people rather than the property.
Will KeyAccess publish to Rightmove or Zillow?
No. It can draft the text. Publishing stays with your CRM feed, your portal account or your MLS, after a person approves the copy.
What length works?
Long enough to cover the facts a buyer needs, short enough that the portal does not cut the lease length off the end. Put the decision-changing facts near the top.