How to Write Great Rental Descriptions?
Written By: mcsherryproper on April 4, 2021Like Lakewood property management firms and other full-service property management companies, property management companies should learn how to write rental descriptions with the most impact.
Scouting a great new location and finding a new property to list with the help of your commercial property managers is awesome – until you realize that no one seems to be interested.
Whether the neighborhood or the property has a great reputation won’t matter if no one wants to tour the new property. That’s why you need to hook potential tenants with the short copy or text that comes with every listing. Here are some tips:
Focus on the Selling Points
The selling points of a property are the most important details in any rental description. The minimum is three to five essential selling points that put the property above similar properties with similar price points.
People will compare properties based on their price points, so to stand out, the property you are advertising should offer more. The main selling points should be woven into the headline and the subheading, too. The subheading is the line directly beneath the title of the listing.
Remember that different markets have different standards. What is common in one market may stand out in another. With this in mind, make sure that what you are listing as selling points are truly unique so potential tenants won’t dismiss them.
When thinking of selling points to write, please think of the property’s traits that give it character and class. Think of what’s distinct about it. Think of the aesthetics, indoors and outdoors. The key details that might not be apparent immediately to a common viewer can make a property stand out in different markets.
Don’t Overload the Reader
After thinking of all the good stuff that your property provides, you might be tempted to list down every little detail in the rental description’s main body.
While that may be truly tempting, please don’t do it for the simple reason that readers won’t be able to remember anything. We don’t want readers to memorize an exhausting laundry list of property details. We want the property to become memorable so it sticks out among the many other properties that may be offering the same space and amenities.
Adding too much information will result in a diluted and ineffective rental description. Readers will likely forget the most important selling points, which make the property worth the price in the first place.
Furthermore, renters rarely choose a property because of the smaller details. The smaller, pleasant details can be left to the renters to discover on their own. Think of these details as pleasant surprises that make the tenant warm up to the place even more – after signing with the property management company (and you, of course).
You might be worried that leaving out anything may cause qualified tenants to back out and leave your property behind. That’s not the case. While the risk of the competition outdoing you for the listing you are creating is valid, it’s important not to crow the tenant’s imagination at any point before he/she signs the rental agreement.
Why not make the language warm and welcoming, too? Make the tenant want to be in the place because the property sounds so inviting in the first place. Show them that you value tenant experiences, and you want them to be genuinely happy with their decision to pick that property over the others.
Describe the Amenities
Right next to the major selling points, renters want to know the amenities they will enjoy when they pick your property over the others. The type and number of amenities in each market are different.
For example, if you mostly have properties that cater to college students, basic amenities like a fridge, dishwasher, and gas range might be reasonable for the type of housing being offered. As you go up the scale of housing, the expectations for the amenities can change drastically.
Value-added descriptions are useful in this case. Don’t just write “TV,” write “42-inch flat-screen TV with Netflix.” You can take a leaf off of how the hosts of bed and breakfast-type lodgings write their rental descriptions. And while housing is certainly no Airbnb or hotel room in a resort, there’s nothing wrong with writing in a way that already works with so many guests.
If your property has more than ten attractive amenities, you are better off with a detailed, bulleted list of these amenities. Share away and dazzle all your readers because this may be winning half the battle already. Now, if there are only a handful of them, instead of writing a short and uninteresting bulleted list, write a story about the amenities instead.
Create a short narration of what they’re going to get, with additional details of each of the amenities. The purpose of the extra narration is to get the reader into a warm groove about the property’s amenities.
What about amenities that are not included? It’s best to mention these early, so the rest of the rental description can remedy any disappointment or dampened feelings. No use in holding out on the reader or hiding the fact that you are not offering Wi-Fi, for example.
Don’t Write Technical Information
If you find yourself writing about how Alexa works and what commands work best, stop writing. If you describe that the TV remote will only work with new batteries, or if you smack it a little on its side, again, stop. These are technical details that any renter does not need at the beginning of the customer journey. Also, technical details that are rushed in a small space tend to be fuzzy, so it’s not the best use of space either. Sure, you can write a long rental description to satisfy yourself, but will the writing impress tenants? Probably not.
