Writing a Successful House For Sale Classified Ad
Your house for sale ad is the first step to closing on your home. A good ad attracts attention and gets your home on a buyer’s short list. What does it take to write a successful real estate ad? Let’s take a look.
Read the Market
If you are selling your house yourself, you should be doing market research to discover the best price point for your home. While you are digging through the real estate ads and listings, take a few minutes to think like a homebuyer. As you scan the classifieds, ask yourself this question:
Which ads demand your attention?
Analyze the wording these ads used to make you take notice. Grab a piece of scratch paper and copy the words and phrases that spoke to your inner homebuyer. When you write an ad to sell your house, keep this sheet of paper handy for inspiration.
The Big Four plus One: Price, Location, Bedrooms, Bathrooms, and Contact
After you have read the market and gathered a few words and phrases that caught your eye, you are ready to sketch out a rough draft of your classified home ad. Four things must be in every real estate ad:
- Price
- Location
- Number of Bedrooms
- Number of Bathrooms
The big four answer the typical buyer’s questions that put your home on his or her short list of properties. Once you answer the big four questions, slip in amenities that make your home stand out from the competition.
What’s the plus one? Close your ad with your contact information.
Tip for contact information: choose a contact address, phone number or email, or a combination of the above that is manned at all times. A buyer will toss you off the short list in a hurry if he or she cannot get in touch with you.
Newspaper versus Internet
Armed with a rough draft of your house-for-sale ad, you are ready for the finishing stage. The process of finishing your classified ad depends on where you are going to publish the ad.
If you are taking the newspaper route, less is more. Each word in a newspaper classified ad will cost you money, so every word must count. When writing for the newspaper classifieds, stick to the big four plus one.
If you are trying to sell your home online and posting your classified on the Internet, you will often have a little more room. Spend a little more time on the amenities, but try to keep your total word count at 150 words or less. You may want to create a stripped down “teaser” version for use as a search title and save the description for the actual body of the classified ad.
Closing Thoughts
Double-check the spelling of the ad, and always put yourself in the mindset of the buyer. Remember: the ad is the first step to the close, not the close itself.