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An agent has sworn by the success of using only bullet points in his listings, including one recent sale that sold for well over reserve.
Matt Smith from Klemich Real Estate in Adelaide used a short-and-sweet copywriting strategy to sell a four-bedroom home in Westbourne Park for $1.16 million – $260,000 more than the estimate he originally gave to the vendor.
Mr Smith told REB that he started attracting greater buyer interest once he switched to a simple copywriting style, which includes a heavy focus on bullet points.
“I’m absolutely convinced that you’ve got a very, very short period of time to capture the buyer’s imagination and interest, and if you give them too much you lose them,” he said.
Mr Smith began using dot points to highlight his listings five years ago and hasn’t looked back, labelling his former, longer-style descriptions as “waffle”.
“There is no doubt that from a consumer point of view, dot-point features with an opening, capturing paragraph is more user-friendly to the time-poor consumer,” he said.
“I think the consumer does enjoy the flowery write-up on a home. I think, however, the majority would prefer to get it in a snapshot.
“I’m sure there are designers that perhaps look at my descriptions and think it’s a bit too brief for them, but I think also that there’s nothing wrong with some buyer inquiry. It’s okay if the buyer has to ring to get a little bit more information because you’ve whet the appetite.”
The price estimate Mr Smith gave to the Westbourne Park vendor was $900,000, while the reserve price at the auction sat at $1.1 million.
Bidding started at $700,000, climbed in $100,000 increments until $900,000, and then increased in lots of $20,000, then $10,000 and finally $5,000.
“We took something in the order of about 57 bids. There were nine registered bidders and I’m going to say with a high level of confidence probably six of the nine registrations had a bid,” he said.
[Related: Do you use a professional copywriter for your listings?]
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