What Makes a Quality Online Home Listing?

In a world with thousands of online home and apartment listings, it can be hard to set your listing apart from the rest. A good listing is informative, honest, visually appealing, and paints a story about what it’s like to live in the home.

Here at Senné, our marketing team are experts in creating apartment and home listings that showcase what makes each of our properties unique. Through quality graphics, photography, and descriptions, our team is able to increase the value of home and rental properties by creating a listing that entices buyers and renters. Below are some guiding principles our team follows when creating a listing that will bring more eyes to your property—and ultimately more value.

Craft a story

Our homes are where we spent a great deal of time: it’s where we cook meals, relax after a long day at work, and entertain our friends and family members. Someone looking to buy your home or rent your apartment wants to envision what their lives would be like if they moved in. Use your listing to paint a picture of what that would be like. Provide details that speak to the experience of living in the home and not just what materials or appliances are found in the home. For example, you can explain how the flow of the home is well-suited for hosting guests or how the east-facing bedrooms allow residents to be gently woken up by the sun.

The story of your home also extends to its surroundings. It’s critical to mention details like how quiet the street it or if the neighborhood is tight-knit. The more detail you provide on the living experience, the more confident a buyer or renter will feel in making their decision.

Be Detailed  

A good property description is a thorough one. Before you start crafting the description for the listing, go through the home room by room make a list of specific details like special features, brand-names for appliances, and recent upgrades. Use this list to ensure that you are featuring the best, most unique traits that will stand out to a buyer.

Descriptive adjectives are an easy way to add interest and provide accurate information to whoever is reading your listing. Think to yourself, is the living room bright, spacious, modern, or cozy? Be sure to remain truthful in your description and not oversell. If the backyard is just a small patch of grass, don’t call it sprawling.

It can also be easy to go on and on about what makes the property so great, so keep in mind that when browsing hundreds of listings online a reader with a short attention span might just quickly skim through your listing or just read the first couple of sentences. Keep the most important information and features at the top to ensure buyers can quickly see the location, the number of bedrooms, the move-in date for rentals, or whether it was recently renovated right away.

Images are everything

The photos are a critical part of the home or apartment listing. On paper, many homes can have three bedrooms and a modern kitchen, but in photos those homes could potentially look completely different. Buyers and renters want to see the property for what it is. Well-lit photos that accurately reflect the size and features of each room is what you’re striving for.

When it comes to real estate photography, hiring a professional could be the difference in attracting more people to your open house and ultimately raising the potential for selling the property for the highest value. With professional cameras and lighting set-ups, a photographer can capture your property in a way that is aesthetically-pleasing and accurate to reality.

Stand out with technology

Visuals don’t end with photography. Online listings give you the freedom to get creative and utilize technology to the fullest extent to set your listing apart from the rest. One simple way to do this is to take a video walking through the property. This gives buyers and renters a better sense of flow, rather than simply seeing photos of separate rooms.

Another way to boost your listing is to create a Matterport 3D tour. These are immersive tours that allow people to virtually walk through the home and even take measurements. For instance, if you have a large couch and want to ensure it fits in the living room, a Matterport tour can give you the ability to determine if it will fit without ever stepping foot in the apartment. A Matterport home tour makes your home listing desirable for a wider range of people, including people who want to relocate or are international buyers. Even for a local buyer, having a Matterport helps them determine whether the home is right for them from the comfort of their home without having to schedule an appointment.

An online listing is your home’s first impression to the buyer. Ensuring that your listing is detailed, engaging, and appealing is critical to making your property stand out when buyers and renters are sifting through hundreds of listings on online marketplaces.