Real estate listings is like app store copy, only 5% to 10% of the sales work is done through the copy.

10% of the work is done by the copy.

90% of the work is done by the images.

Just remember:

If someone thinks a house is terrible, there's almost no amount of copy that will change their minds.

So what's a copywriter to do in this situation? I mean, the images do all the heavy lifting right?

WAIT A SECOND I HAVE AN IDEA:

What if we combine the copy and the images, kind of like a slideshow presentation? 

A good friend David Shapiro let us use one of his live real estate listings for this experiment:

Look at that handsome fella!

Here's the house we're going to try and sell:

David's Listing: [Link]

Zillow Listing: [Link]

Redfin Listing: [Link]

It's a 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bathroom, 2,022 sqft townhouse built in 2017 going for $337,900.

We chose this listing because it's a pretty standard house....nothing extremely crazy or lavish about it....which makes it perfect for showing off the power of combining text + images.

But before we slap a bunch of text on the images of the house, we've got to know the rules of the platforms we post them on:

Rules of Real Estate Listing Platforms (No Personal Promotion Allowed):

Keep in mind every single real estate platform has rules on what images you can upload, and they are pretty much all the same: Text is allowed on photos, but ZERO advertising, branding, or contact information can be included. We checked on the big three platforms and they are all the same:

MLS (Multiple Listing Service): 

Photos: ✅  |  Text on Photos: ✅  |  Branding: ❌  |  Contact Info: ❌

"Digital images and photo description text shall not contain legible contact information such as names, phone numbers, email addresses or web site addresses, including the use of embedded, overlayed, or digitally stamped information." [Source]

RedFin:

Photos: ✅  |  Text on Photos: ✅  |  Branding: ❌  |  Contact Info: ❌

"No advertisements (this includes rental adds or For Sale by Owner listings). No photos that only include people. No large group photos." [Source]

Zillow:

Photos: ✅  |  Text on Photos: ✅  |  Branding: ❌  |  Contact Info: ❌

"Zillow Group restricts the inclusion of self-promoting information on listings. This includes, but is not limited to, an agent's name, company, logo, phone number, email address or branded watermarks." [Source]

Your own website:

Photos: ✅  |  Text on Photos: ✅  |  Branding: ✅  |  Contact Info: ✅

On your own website you can do whatever you want!

Let's Tell A  "Story" In Our Pictures:

So many real estate listing photos simply "jump around" with out of order photos. You might see a picture of a kitchen, then a random basement picture, then a picture of a backyard. It doesn't have any flow, and it sure as hell doesn't communicate a story.

Most good real estate agents know there is a certain "flow" and "story" when showing a home in person. They size up the buyers and try to first identify WHY they are buying the house:

Are they trying to make this their family "forever home"?

They will customize their story to why this home is great for a growing family, has plenty of space for kids, great schools, and a family oriented community.

Are they trying to fix up and flip this house for a profit?

They will customize their story to how this home is a bargain price because of certain issues, and how those issues can be repaired quickly, and how "hot" this neighborhood is for sellers.

Are they trying to make this house into a rental property?

They will customize their story to how lucrative other rental properties are in this area, and how the neighborhood is a bit iffy right now, but there is a new Whole Foods popping up down the block, and there's a rapid influx of money into the area making this a fantastic longterm opportunity for renting.

We're Going to Use Google Presentations to Make These Image/Text Slides:

[See the Full Doc Here]

All we did to improve this real estate listing was correctly order the pictures, and add "captions" to each one so it tells a linear story.

Since we did the whole thing in Google Presentations, we can easily change around images, and even download each slide as a JPG for easy posting on other platforms.

You can see the entire presentation laid out here:

As you can see, a person browsing this listing is taken on more of a "Journey" through the house than simply viewing random photos.

At the end we even show some neighborhood rental stats that show the value of this zip code going up significantly, which should appeal to many buyers rational side. Even if they are not buying this home as a rental property, it's always helpful to know your property value has the potential to go up.

Now let's modify the listing text:

Now that we've made the presentation and told the "story" and "flow" of this house, we can re-iterate that inside the actual listing description.

Since the Images + Text we made already do 90% of the convincing (as that's what most people view), we don't even have to spend that much time on the listing.

Previous Listing Text:

That's a pretty standard listing description, however with our newly captioned photos we can literally steal the text from them and add the, onto this listing. Here's how it turned out:

UPDATED Listing Text:

As you can see by this new listing description, it was taken from the same structure we used in our Presentation Doc to make the images.

All of this was done with no special tech, and it transforms the entire listing!

TEXT + IMAGES = AWESOME!

P.S. Checkout my collection of favorite real estate flyers.

P.P.S. Do you have any other ways you'd improve this listing? Or have you seen any really effective strategies realtors in your area use?? Leave a comment below: