Having read over thousands of real estate ads, it is obvious that some realtors make a greater effort at writing descriptions for their listings. I often wondered how important a well-written description is to the potential buyer, especially with the rise of high-resolution images and video and virtual tours. Do I need to be told that the kitchen has stainless steel appliances when I can see it in the pictures or video? Well someone has just released a study on just this topic. I read this on the CBC website this morning:

Nothing deters a house-hunter like the terms “must-see” or “motivated seller,” suggests a new Canadian study on language and real estate.

Paul Anglin, an economy professor at the University of Guelph, analyzed home sales in Windsor, Ont., over a four-year period.

“There is a basic question about how house prices are determined,” Anglin said. “I was building on earlier research that was looking into that question.”

Anglin found that when realtors described houses as “beautiful” or “gorgeous” they sold 15 per cent faster and for as much as five per cent more than a comparable house. A house that was described as in “move-in condition” sold in 12 per cent less time, on average.

“I guess it makes sense that every house is beautiful to somebody,” Anglin said. “I’m surprised that that just attaching the label would make a difference.”

Toronto realtor Ian Shaw said it’s important to accentuate the positive aspects of a house but said the adjectives must be accurate.

“If you say it the wrong way, you can actually turn people right off,” he said. “I think language is quite important.”

Anglin found that when houses used descriptors including “as is” or “must see” or promised a “motivated seller,” the houses took longer to sell and often sold for less.

http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2006/12/22/real-estate.html

It seems that the description may be a cue or trigger to motivate the potential buyer to look for more information. This leads to the question, if you already have had a video produced and it is linked to the mls website, how can you increase its number of views? The mls website does not allow for any differentiation between “Virtual Tours”. According to the mls, a virtual tour can be a gallery of images, a 360/panoramic tour or a video. It becomes very difficult to harness the demand for video when there is no way of determining the type of “Multimedia” that resides on the other side of the VIEW MULTIMEDIA link. We always suggest to our clients that they write “VIDEO TOUR” in all descriptions. I will also make it a point to suggest that a well written description with words that entice the Internet audience, will drive even more views of their video as well!