Writing up listings after hours
The negotiator has three new instructions and their notes from each valuation. The descriptions have to be written before the photos go up. So they do it in the evening, copying last month's description for a similar house and changing the details. Every listing starts with deceptively spacious or beautifully presented, and a buyer looking at five of your properties could swap the text between them.
Sometimes a detail slips through from the old text. A garage that the new house does not have. A south-facing garden that faces north.
Why descriptions are slow and samey
The facts are already recorded: room sizes from the floorplan, features from the valuation notes, tenure and council tax from the material information. But the description is written as free text, separate from all that, so the negotiator re-reads and retypes. Copying an old listing as a starting point is quick but brings in errors and the same tired phrases.
House style is usually unwritten. Each negotiator has habits, and some write far better than others.
| Source of fact | How it reaches the description today |
|---|---|
| Floorplan and room sizes | Retyped |
| Valuation notes | Remembered or re-read |
| Material information | Copied across by hand |
| Photos | Looked at for inspiration |
| Local features | The negotiator's own knowledge |
The price of rushed particulars
Negotiator time spent writing is time not spent on viewings and calls. Inaccurate descriptions are a bigger problem: a listing that claims something untrue leads to wasted viewings, unhappy buyers, and a difficult conversation. Your business will have its own rules and guidance about accuracy in property marketing, and a description copied from another listing is the easiest way to fall foul of them.
There is also a quieter marketing cost. Buyers scroll past dozens of listings that open with the same adjectives. A description that says something specific and true about the house, such as where the evening sun falls or how the kitchen connects to the garden, gives a buyer a reason to book a viewing. Generic text written in a hurry rarely does.
The drafting tool we build
- Facts first: the tool gathers the property's recorded facts from your CRM and listing file, including room sizes, features from valuation notes and confirmed material information.
- House style: we write down your house style with you, including phrases you like, phrases you ban, and the structure you want, and use it as the instruction for drafting.
- Draft generation: a language model such as OpenAI or Anthropic Claude drafts the description and room-by-room text from those facts only.
- Claim check: every factual statement in the draft is checked against the recorded facts. Anything the draft asserts that is not in the record is highlighted for the negotiator to confirm or remove.
- Negotiator edit: the negotiator adds local knowledge and personality, then approves. Nothing is published without a person's approval.
- Variants: shorter versions for social posts or window cards can be drafted from the approved text.
Descriptions that start from facts
The evening writing session shrinks to a review. Descriptions start from the right facts instead of an old listing, so errors from copy and paste stop appearing. Each description sounds like your agency, and the stronger writers' habits become the house style rather than staying with one person.
New negotiators get a good starting point on day one, which helps quality across the branch.
Could this help you?
- Negotiators write descriptions in their own time.
- Descriptions are often started by copying an older listing.
- Errors from copied text have reached the portals.
- Your listings use the same few phrases over and over.