Sales Copy for Real Estate – The Ultimate Guide for Better Conversions

Do you have something slightly resembling a real estate sales funnel involving the written word?

Maybe it’s a real estate landing page, a video script, or a PPC ad on Google Search.

Or maybe it’s a real estate business card, door hangers, or a postcard?

If you do, you will likely stumble upon articles like this one that mention real estate copy and real estate copywriting.

You may have heard that you not only can sell and persuade verbally over the phone and in in-person meetings but also through the written word.

And frequently, the written word to persuade is the precursor to selling more personally over the phone or in meetings, especially for higher-priced items such as properties with a longer sales cycle.

Since I have already mentioned real estate copywriting in several articles here on my site, but only aspects of the topic, I decided to write a more in-depth guide about it.

So, if you are interested in how you can improve real estate conversion rates by applying different copywriting principles, please keep reading.

What Is Copy in Real Estate?

Copy in real estate is the product of real estate copywriting, and this product is the persuasive text used in different real estate marketing channels aimed at sellers or buyers.

The ultimate goal is to make a real estate transaction happen.

Since buying or selling properties usually involves a more significant amount of money, the real estate copy alone usually doesn’t make this happen.

So, you mostly find it in the top and middle of a real estate marketing funnel (my article about different types of real estate marketing funnels), where you convert prospects into leads and leads into appointments.

After that step of coming closer to the real estate transaction, the sales communication is rather done on a personal level (e.g., phone, meetings, etc.).

In other words, anytime you want to persuade a potential buyer or seller to make an appointment with you (the real estate professional), you will need and want to use real estate copy in your various marketing channels.

You must know the different copywriting principles to produce good real estate copy.

The Areas Where You Want to Use Real Estate Copy

So, now you might wonder in which areas you will need to produce real estate copy then.

As I’ve mentioned, it will be roughly from the top to the middle of the real estate sales funnel.

This means all the real estate marketing channels you are using.

To better illustrate this, I prepared an infographic below.

As you can see in the infographic, this more general real estate sales funnel consists of five steps, and only for the first two steps at the top you will use real estate copy.

But as you go down the funnel further, you will use real estate copy less since you come closer to the real estate transaction.

The further you go down, the more you will use personal sales communication over the phone, video calls, or personal meetings.

You can also see that you are better off using real estate copy in all real estate marketing channels where you want to convert prospects and/or cold traffic into leads.

To name a few, this applies to real estate marketing channels such as:

• Direct mail (flyers, door hangers, letters, postcards, etc.)
• Business cards
• Your real estate website (e.g., property listing descriptions, real estate landing pages, real estate bios, etc.)
• PPC search and social ads
• Native ads
• Radio ads
• Video ads
• Cold emails
• White Papers
• Text messages
• Following up via email nurturing and/or text messages
• Letters of Intent

How to Write Your Best Real Estate Copy for Better Conversions [Example Included]

In my experience, producing a real estate copy or any other copy is about 80% preparation and only 20% actual writing.

Why is that?

Because before you start writing, you will need to know your target audience’s needs, greed, pains, and problems pretty well, and then you want to align the copy with that to finally lead them to a particular conversion goal.

This is not done by just starting to write.

So, for the preparation part, you want to start with the end in mind and ask yourself what goal you have with the specific piece of copy you will write for your target audience.

For instance, a goal could be for a potential client to make an appointment with you or subscribe to your email list.

To clarify the process, let’s use a practical example that might come in handy in a sellers’ market – a real estate landing page copy for sellers.

1) The Goal to Achieve with the Real Estate Copy

This landing page example aims to convert potential sellers into email subscribers you can further market to via email nurturing campaigns, text messaging, or follow-up calls.

Ideally, the potential seller makes an appointment with you at once from the landing page, so we cover both motivated and potential sellers that need some follow-up.

So, how do we start?

2) Your Positioning

Well, first, you are ideally in a particular real estate niche and are specialized in a specific type of property and neighborhood.

That’s an excellent prerequisite to help prepare and produce the real estate copy.

Why? Because it is easier to identify and research the needs, greed, pains, and problems of the target audience.

So, the first step is to identify these needs, greeds, pains, and problems of the type of seller you are specialized in.

For the sake of this example, let’s say you are specialized in single-family homes in the suburbs of New York.

3) Researching and Collecting Needs, Wants, Desires, Problems, Pains, and Emotions

The greed and need of a potential seller could be to get top dollar for their property in a short amount of time to buy and/or finance a second home in Hawaii, and the pains and problems could be one or more of the following:

• Going through a divorce
• Property management stress
• Delayed rental payments
• Roof damage
• Maintenance overwhelms and thus cracked, peeling, and dirty, painted surfaces, crumbling masonry, etc.
• Problems with grading/drainage
• Pricing the home correctly
• Choosing the right realtor
• Maintaining a “show-ready” home
• Local market conditions
• Getting a home ready to sell
• Worries about not finding the right house after selling the current one

As you may well know, due to the current market conditions being a bit more difficult (low inventory), we will need to do a bit more convincing to get a potential seller to convert.

In addition to the already researched and collected information, you can also check if universal needs could be combined and/or the ones you already know from your target sellers.

In my copywriting checklist that you can get for free below, I included more of the universal needs that more or less all human beings have, and I will mention some of them below.

They are called Life Force 8, and you can read in-depth about them in one of my favorite advertising and copywriting books called Cashvertising:

• Survival, enjoyment of life, life extension
• Sexual companionship
• Comfortable living conditions
• To be superior, winning, keeping up with the Joneses
• Care and protection of loved ones
• Social approval
• Enjoyment of food and beverages
• Freedom from fear, pain, and danger

Still, in the preparation phase, we can also see which emotion(s) the potential seller likely has to deal with.

For the sake of this example, let’s say we identify the fear of missing out, also called “FOMO.”

A potential seller’s thought linked to this emotion would be: “If I don’t sell my house soon, I might miss out on selling for top dollar and not getting my dream home in Hawaii for my golden days.”

4) Finding the Benefits

From what we have collected, we can derive the benefits the real estate landing page must communicate.

But let’s not use all of them.

Let’s assume we use the need that the seller wants top dollar for their property in a short amount of time to buy and/or finance a second home in Hawaii to enjoy comfortable living conditions (one of the Life Force 8).

The seller has problems pricing the home correctly and maintaining a “show ready” home.

Let’s first derive benefits from the need to get top dollar for their property in a short amount of time.

Isn’t this already a benefit if we could offer that in an offer?

Yes, almost.

But when digging for benefits, we always want to ask the questions “Why?” and/or “So what?” several times.

So, why would the seller need top dollar for their home in a short amount of time?

The first answer would be to not sell below market value and leave money on the table.

Again, we will need to dig deeper. Why does the seller not want to leave money on the table?

To have enough cash to pay off the remainder of the mortgage and have enough options for a second home in Hawaii.

Why does the seller want to have enough options when it comes to buying a second home in Hawaii?

To ensure he is not getting outbid by other buyers and get fast enough into the dream home for the golden years.

At this point, we could go even further with why questions and get into psychological stuff, different fears, etc.

But we already have identified a benefit or two.

Let’s stay with “getting fast enough into the dream home for the golden years to enjoy a comfortable living for the rest of your life” (remember, the latter is one of the Life Force 8).

The next one is made of two problems we can easily convert to benefits by first using the opposite where it makes sense.

So, the two problems are: pricing the home correctly and maintaining a “show-ready” home.

The first problem is pricing the home correctly, so the benefit you offer would be to help price the home correctly. That’s obvious, but let’s dig deeper with a bunch of why questions.

Why does the seller want to price the home correctly?

The answer would be again (remember above?) to not sell below market value and leave money on the table, which leads to the benefit we already derived.

Done for now with this one.

The next problem is not being able to maintain a “show-ready” home.

So a feature (not a benefit) you could offer could be a service similar to home staging, where you take care of maintaining a “show-ready” home for the seller.

But let’s dig a bit deeper into this problem.

Why is this a problem for the seller?

It makes them feel stressed and can interrupt their daily routines and work because it can already be annoying to have to leave home for a showing, and now, on top of that, the house has to be cleaned again and again beforehand.

The seller may also feel limited in their freedom and planning.

So, the main problem is likely not the work of cleaning itself but being constantly on stand-by and not being able to plan.

So, the benefit of an offer where the feature is done-for-you “show-ready” homes will be having a relaxed showing phase and more freedom of time.

To summarize the features and benefits of an offer to generate seller leads:

• We make sure to price your home correctly, so you get top dollars and get fast enough into your dream home for your golden years to enjoy a comfortable living for the rest of your life.
• Our done-for-you “show-ready” home service will make the showing phase relaxing and protects your time (no more constant cleaning that interrupts your day).

5) Writing the Real Estate Copy for Your Landing Page with Different Formulas

Only now can we start with the actual real estate copywriting.

Well, I did a little bit already in the benefits summary part.

I will use a landing page with a short copy to not overwhelm you with text with the different versions that will follow here.

This is suitable for this situation since the aim is not to have a transaction involving money immediately.

Ideally, we aim to get an appointment with a seller at once or a subscriber to follow up with.

The incentive to subscribe could be a little e-guide showing the seller how he could manage to maintain their home “show-ready” without going nuts and a free home valuation.

What follows will be two different copywriting formulas that will use what we already collected during the preparation.

Copywriting formulas generally help you give the copy a structure and not forget to include critical persuasive elements.

Landing Page Version 1 With PAS (Problem, Agitate, Solve)

Headline (problem): Don’t Leave Your Money on The Table When Selling Your Home

“In today’s market, getting the pricing of your home wrong may prevent you from having enough cash to get into the dream home for your golden years. (agitate)

We have you covered. With our most accurate home evaluation method on the market and done-for-you “show-ready” home service, you will not only get top dollar for your home but will also have a smooth and relaxing showing process. Showings in the home where you live don’t have to be stressful and time-consuming. (solve)”

“Schedule an Appointment Now” (call to action one).

“If you are not ready yet, you can get a free home valuation, and as a bonus, our e-guide shows you how you can maintain your home “show-ready” stress-free.”

“Evaluate My Home and Get the E-Guide Now” (call to action two).

Landing Page Version 2 With QUEST (Qualify, Understand, Educate, Stimulate, Transition)

Side-Note: This formula is usually more suitable for a long-form copy.

Headline (Qualify): Thinking of Selling Your Home to Buy a Second One, But Are Afraid of Pricing it Wrongly, and Showings?

(Understand)
“By talking to many of our seller clients in their golden years (a little social approval), we learned that in today’s market, many are afraid of getting the price of their home wrong and thus leaving money on the table.

As a consequence of that, they then often fear not being able to have enough cash at their disposal to act as strong buyers for their second dream home.

Many also feel pretty stressed when it comes to constantly being on stand-by and not being able to plan their days to maintain the home “show-ready.”

We feel these concerns and know this doesn’t have to be this way. Therefore, we perfected our way of doing home evaluations and showings with an objective approach.

With this home evaluation method, we make sure you sell at or more than the market price.

And concerning the stress of maintaining your home “show-ready,” we include a done-for-you show-ready home service that gets you out of the equation when it comes to showings, should you work with us. (Educate + Stimulate).

So, as one of our seller clients, you will experience a pretty smooth and relaxed showing phase, and sooner than later, you will earn top dollars for your home. (Transition)

Ready to be our new relaxed seller client?”

“Schedule an Appointment Now” (call to action one).

If you are not ready yet, you can get a free home valuation, and as a bonus, our e-guide shows you how you can maintain your home “show-ready” stress-free.

“Evaluate My Home and Get the E-Guide Now” (call to action two).

There are many more copywriting formulas, such as AIDA, already often mentioned in various of my articles. If you are interested, you can get all of them in the updated version of my real estate copywriting checklist below as part of my free “Real Estate Marketing Power Bundle”.

Real Estate Copywriting for Buyers

Now that we have produced real estate copy for a particular type of real estate seller, you may wonder how we do this for buyers.

The answer is that you do it just in the same way as we did for sellers. Sure, there are nuances I will cover in this section, but the principles stay the same.

You research and collect the buyers’ needs, wants, desires, problems, pains, and emotions.

Then, you find the benefits for them that you want to include in your offer, and finally, you write the real estate copy applying one of the different copywriting formulas.

Most of the time, the goal of the real estate copy for buyers is to get potential buyers to buy a property with your help as a real estate professional.

So, this type of real estate copy will mostly be applied to property listings descriptions and/or ads and real estate landing pages to subscribe to your newsletter.

The nuances or differences in contrast to sellers will be, of course, in the needs, wants, desires, problems, pains, and emotions, and then in the benefits, you derive from the former.

However, in today’s market, you won’t have to work that hard to get real estate buyers because it’s still a sellers’ market with a low inventory.

But it’s good to know how to apply copywriting principles to real estate buyers, should the market turn into a buyers’ market at some point in time or at least reach more balance.

Here are some problems and challenges of today’s buyers you can get inspiration from for your real estate copy:

• An intense buyer competition
• Having enough cash for a downpayment (not being able to afford a home)
• Qualifying for a loan
• Making the right offer
• A low housing inventory
• Overconfident and unreasonable sellers
• Making fast decisions on a major item because of intense buyer competition
• The risk of overpaying
• Selling and buying at the same time

By the way, in this and this article, I already showed how to write copy for a real estate listing and a unique property that addresses buyers.

Luxury Real Estate Copywriting

It will come as no surprise that the same copywriting principles as above also apply to luxury real estate copywriting.

But again, you will have to be aware of the nuances and different needs, wants, desires, problems, pains, and emotions both luxury real estate buyer clients and sellers have and tailor your copy accordingly to them.

From my article “How to Attract High-End Real Estate Clients,” you may have already learned that your copy for a luxury real estate situation will likely need to be used for the following marketing channels:

• Open house event marketing
• Your own branded high-quality print magazine with your listings descriptions
• High-quality videos
• Business cards
• A top designed and branded (here you use copy) office
• Advertising on a large billboard
• Emails to co-listing agents and brokers for more referrals
• Email nurturing campaigns (current and past clients) to get either more referrals or convert directly
• Content in local publications

Remember the funnel infographic from the beginning of this article?

In luxury real estate, you will operate much more in the middle of the funnel on a more personal exclusive level (e.g., calls, personal meetings, etc.).

This means you will generally need less copywriting and do your persuasion work more verbally.

Nevertheless, here are some needs, wants, desires, problems, pains, and emotions to inspire the potential copy for luxury real estate clients:

• The feeling of inauthenticity and, as a result, behaving less confident
• Possible interior psychological pain and a harmed self-worth
• The need for reliability that the product in question is to be of high quality
• A lack of time to do anything operational related to buying or selling a property
• Fear or worry of wasting valuable time
• Social approval
• To be superior
• The need to collect and social standing

7 Real Estate Headlines Formulas Applied to Real Estate Copy

We can borrow from well-working headline formulas to create real estate copy headlines and tailor them to real estate.

Not to be repetitive, but the key here is again that you did your preoperational work for the overall copy and know who’s needs, etc., you are targeting.

Headline formula 1: End Result Customer Wants + Specific Time + Address the Objections
Real estate headline example: Get Your House Sold for Top Dollar Within 7 Days Even Though It Is Not Ready to Sell

Headline formula 2: [Take this action] + [Specific Time Period] + [End Result]
Real estate headline example: List with Us Today and Sell Your Home for Top Dollar

Headline formula 3: ROT (Results – Objections – Time)
Real estate headline example: Buy Your Dream Home Despite Having Bad Credit, and Move-in Within 2 Weeks

Headline formula 4: State the claim as a question
Real estate headline example: Who Else Wants Tenants That Always Pay On Time?

Headline formula 5 (fear of loss): The astonishingly simple reason [target audience] Often Ignored [Problem/ Topic], and How Many Miss Out On [Benefit]
Real estate headline example: The astonishingly simple reason homeowners often ignore home staging and How Many Miss Out On 20% Higher Profits

Headline formula 6 (fear of change): New (power word) Approach is Teaching [target audience] How To Unlock The Secret Power of [benefit/topic]… Without [objection]
Real estate headline example: This New Secret Approach is Teaching Homeowners How to Unlock The Secret Power of Competitive Pricing Without Cannibalizing Their Profits

Headline formula 7 (fear of unknown/ hope): Meet [target audience/noun] Who Perfected [Benefit/Topic], and Learn How [Result + Time]
Real estate headline example: Meet This First-Time Homebuyer Who Perfected the Way of Making Offers and Learn How He Could Purchase His Dream Home Within 6 Weeks

Don’t Want to Do It Yourself? – Real Estate Copywriting Services & Costs

This is the last section of my article, I promise. And if you stayed with me until now, my kudos to you, by the way. I almost didn’t manage to write it to the end myself.

So, after reading all this, you may have realized that it’s a bunch of work to produce decent real estate copy.

More work often means a greater investment of your time.

And chances are you don’t have too much time on hand and/or simply don’t want to do this yourself.

In this case, you may be interested in real estate copywriting services; you can delegate this task.

Therefore, I collected several of them in the overview table below that you might find helpful.

I analyzed the different service providers based on their location and in what real estate niche they specialize.

I also added some independent freelancers from Upwork and Fiverr with enough good reviews specialized in real estate copywriting.

Well, I need to correct myself after further research.

I didn’t include Fiverr freelancers because I couldn’t find any copywriter who specialized in real estate with decent reviews.

This brings me to a caveat.

Remember that finding independent freelancers on platforms such as Upwork or Fiverr who call themselves copywriters doesn’t mean they are truly copywriters.

But you can filter them by checking their profile and finding out if they apply good copywriting to their own profile that should sell you the one potentially buying their services.

The same is true for agencies, by the way, and it’s a handy pre-qualification method.

And for a really good copywriter producing lead-converting copy, you may need a slightly higher budget.

Heck, great copywriters can charge more than $240 per hour, and star copywriters from the past, such as David Ogilvy, Garry Halbert, Leo Burnett, etc., could easily charge on a flat pricing basis in the mid to high five-figures.

This article has been reviewed by our editorial team. It has been approved for publication in accordance with our editorial policy.

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Tobias Schnellbacher

Tobias is an internet entrepreneur with a passion for digital marketing and copywriting, particularly in the real estate sector. He also likes cats and fitness. For nine years, he operated an international online referral real estate agency serving U.S., Canadian, and German sellers and buyers, which resulted in multiple seven-figure property sales.Learn more

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