When euphemisms become overused, people learn to read between the lines. Why make them work for it?

I’ve been looking at a lot of home sale listings lately. I’m not moving right away, but it’s probably going to happen in the next couple years and I want to get a solid feel for the market.

My dear aunt is a real estate agent, and a fine one at that. I’d have her as my own if she lived nearby. But she’s been kind enough to plug my email address into her system, and I receive a listing every day for every new house that comes on the market in my price range. The reports have become something I look forward to as I open my email each morning.

Everyone is familiar with the language of real estate. Agents are in the business to sell, and it wouldn’t do to mention the blemishes of a particular property. Instead, they paper over them with a collection of well-honed euphemisms: phrases that say one thing and mean another.

Here’s one from today’s listing — and I love this one: “Original owners–clean and well-maintained-Bring your decorator’s touch to this value-priced home”. If you put that sentence together with the notable lack of indoor photos of the house, you get a very clear picture: original shag carpeting throughout, leopard-print furniture, wood panelling on the walls.

Another one I like is “Must be seen”: to me, this suggests a house that looks modest from the outside, but has some charm within to justify its surprisingly high price. Or “excellent investment opportunity”. Ouch: that just screams “here’s a dump on a good piece of land”!

Some listings are good, in the sense that the agent has written a piece that forgoes the editorializing, doling out “just the facts”. In these cases, they praise the positive features, and follow my mom’s advice: if you’ve got nothing good to say, don’t say anything.

There’s a movement afoot in the technical writing community called Plain Language. The term refers to a style of writing that dispenses with euphemism, and gives the reader only what they need. Critics would argue that plain language sucks the life out of writing, but for those whose jobs it is to get a message out, the practice is a godsend.

And for those of us who have to read it, plain language can make the difference between my rolling my eyes, and, well, not.

Here’s an example of a good listing: “Spacious Bungalow Close To Downtown. Hardwood Floors In Upper Level, Marble Floor In Kitchen. Large, Bright Living Room And Dining Room. Walkout To 16′ X 20′ Deck From Master Bedroom. Extra Kitchen, Bedroom And 4 Pc Bath In The Basement. Hepa Air Wash And Cleaning System.”

Sounds good, right? It’s also good because it doesn’t mention the bad stuff: nothing about the roof, for example.

So we’re part-way there: a decent description that doesn’t make me read between the lines. But what is a perfect listing? Clearly, it would be one that would be just as good as seeing the home in person. Much of the information in a home listing is actually a set of form fields: how many bedrooms, type of heating, home age, number of parking spaces, etc. The written description is a necessary accompaniment to those stats, but as we’ve seen, it still doesn’t tell the whole story.

Here’s my perfect listing.

• Standard Data Every facet of a home would be described by a statistic, from the age and type of roof to the plumbing and electrical wiring. You’d be able to consistently compare listings based on any metric, and all the data would be mandatory. Right now, many listings forego the “Age” field. Yikes.
• More Pictures Some postings go up with no pictures at all! That’s insane and pointless. Matters have improved here in recent years, with most listings having multiple shots that can be thumbed through. But there is still room for improvement. For one, some agents could use a tip or two on how to take good home pictures; we’re past the point of thinking that just having any pictures at all is good enough. And like my point above about having complete data, we should have complete pictures too: I want a picture of every room, not just the good ones. And definitely not of the furniture in the rooms.
• Floorplans This would be amazing, and it’s probably not currently possible. But I think having a floor plan would allow potential buyers to quickly get a handle on the size and use of a house. To me, this sounds like a fantastic business opportunity. Ah, I’m not the first to think about it.

Make these standard, and you’ll have a home listing that really tells me about the place I might spend the bank’s money on.

Share This

This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 9:24 pm and is filed under E-Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.