So you’re ready to sell your house. You do all the necessary repairs and touch-ups. It’s so spotless and shiny you take one last gut check of, do we really want to move? It’s time. So you hire a Realtor and wait. Right? Wrong. We’ve talked before about you being the CEO of your listing and today we want to hone in on one particular piece of the puzzle you may be missing: Remarks. It’s the paragraph included on the MLS, all the sites like Zillow and Realtor.com, and in every marketing material. It’s a little blurb that tells a story of why someone would want to buy your home.

This is the part that most sellers leave up to the Realtor. This is their area of expertise and that’s why you hired them. True…BUT…how well do they know your home? How many times have they been through your door? Once? Twice? Not enough to truly know it. We’ve seen one too many remarks sections saying “It’s a 4 bed, 3 bath colonial…” Ugh. That was already stated in the listing! So here’s a task we think you should micromanage, for the benefit of all. What do you wish you knew about a house you were looking at buying?

The Good. What are the best parts of your home that someone might not have picked up on one stroll through? Maybe it’s the perennial gardens that all the neighbors oogle in the spring. Perhaps it’s the way Magic Hour lights up your master bathroom each evening and makes it feel like a luxe spa. What about all of the extra nooks in your kitchen that have allowed you to amass every gadget sold by QVC? Every update you’ve made, still keeping the charm, to rival new construction. We could go on! And that’s the point. Here’s a place to share things that you can’t see in photos.

The Bad. We’re not saying bad, but, maybe unexpected might be a better choice. To get your home ready for each showing is a huge deal. Lining up schedules, hours spent cleaning, getting everyone out of the house, etc. You only want the most qualified, interested buyers entering your door. In order to help weed out some of the iffy buyers, you want to make sure you meet all of their “dream home” criteria. So things like train noise, a tricky layout, a basement with low ceilings that wouldn’t be able to be finished – you get the idea. There’s a flowery way to say these things while still getting the point across that you need to. That way you don’t have a bunch of showings that will never work for that pool of buyers, and feedback stating the same thing over and over that you have no control to change.

The Heartwarming. This is where your listing remarks can shine. Be sure to highlight some of your family’s favorite things about your home that pictures can’t convey. How about the trails in your backyard that lead to the best picnic spot? The neighborhood block parties that are the talk of the town. The hundred year old butcher block that cooled thousands of pies through the years. One little paragraph has the power to tug at the heart strings of the reader and make them feel connected to your home long before they get to see it in person.

So we’re not saying you have to write the whole thing top to bottom for your Realtor. But if you can, you should. And if you don’t feel up to the task, maybe just sharing some of these nuggets with them would help them to craft the perfect remarks. These five or six sentences are so often a missed opportunity to really drive it h o m e. And that’s the whole point, isn’t it?

What sentence would make you want to buy your home all over again? We’d love to read it in the comments below!