Tiffany Raiford
My husband and I have a strange obsession; we really love looking at the houses that are for sale in our neighborhood. Perhaps it stems from years of looking at houses for sale in our neighborhood before we even lived here since it’s our dream neighborhood. You know the one. The neighborhood that makes people’s eyes get a little bit bigger and they immediately say, “Oh, nice!” when they ask where you live and you tell them. It’s the neighborhood in which everyone wants to be. We wanted to be here for more than a decade before our stars aligned magically and our dream house appeared out of nowhere as a foreclosure for the perfect price.
We still check it out. Now it’s not because we are looking for a new home. Now it’s because we are checking out the competition. Who is selling for what, how big is their house, how big is their lot, do they have the same upgrades as us or as many bedrooms and bathrooms as we do? It’s all about the home value, and we like it. On that note, there is one thing that drives me absolutely crazy; the ads that are listed for the homes for sale.
Most are written by professionals, and they read horribly. They are unprofessional, they are filled with errors and they do nothing to make the house seem more spectacular than it is, and they’re all just so wrong. There are good ones, of course, but the bad ones are just so prevalent. Perhaps it’s the creative mind in me that sees what is written and automatically feels that I can make it so much better. Perhaps it’s that I was a buyer once, I know what appeals to me and what doesn’t, and I assume that everyone wants to have what I want to have, and that’s how things should be written.
Whatever it is, I have done some research that might help anyone who is looking to sell write the best ad for your home that ever was. According to real estate professionals, there is an art to writing the best ad for a home, and we have that information right here. Perhaps this is the answer you need to sell your home faster.
Be Accurate
The most amazing thing I notice when I peruse real estate listings is just how many homes do not have the correct information listed. A photo might mention a home has 4 bathrooms but the information in the listing might list it at 3. Which is it? Your ad needs to be 100% correct from square footage to location to amenities to size to space to everything in between. It’s easy to find this information, so take the time to do that.
Be Detailed
We want to know, as buyers, what you have to offer in your home. I want the most specific list of information as you can possibly come up with. I want to know if the den has a door that can turn it into an office, or if the den has a closet that might make it seem like another bedroom. I want to know if you are counting that upstairs loft with its own private bathroom as a loft or as one of the bedrooms you have listed so that I don’t go into your home thinking it’s 5 bedrooms with an additional loft only to find out that the fifth bedroom is the loft. Be specific, detailed and go ahead and provide too much information.
Take Great Photos
I recently noticed a home for sale that has a beautiful description, a lovely ad written for it, and I wanted to see more about it. The ad was great; it talked up this house like you wouldn’t believe. I clicked on the photos wanting to see more of what might actually be the prefect house. It really wasn’t. The dream kitchen in all its luxurious glory was too dark and there was no natural light. You could tell from the photos that the house is not open at all but very closed off as you can only see the room being photographed in each photo and nothing beyond that. The photos were grainy, they cut off pieces of each room and half the things we wanted to see were not even included in the photos.
A great photo only enhances your ad; but a bad photo detracts from it. You can talk up a house more than ever and it won’t look good or seem good at all if you don’t have quality, beautiful photos to accompany it.
Focus on Positives
So your cabinets are not custom cabinets, but your granite is grade C and absolutely gorgeous; talk about the granite. Talk up that high-end finish on the pool deck or the travertine tiles on the floors – not the fact that they’re impossible to clean. Don’t talk about how you wish the island was a little bit bigger or that the closets are small but functional; talk about having an island to make your kitchen workspace bigger and more efficient and how many closets you have in the house for storage. Talk it up all the time.
Photo by Getty Images
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