I’ve read tens of thousands of property descriptions over the years. And although you’ve probably read fewer than I have, we all know how to read between the lines. When an agent says a house is “cozy,” what they really mean is that it’s small. If the property “has good bones” it means the house needs a cosmetic update. And if the description encourages you to “bring your vision” for the home, it’s going to require a contractor and a full rehab to make it livable.

We can all have a little chuckle at these clichés, because there is definitely some truth to be found in them. But what is really becoming interesting is that AI is changing the fundamental structure of how property descriptions are written - and unlike us, AI doesn't get the joke. It reads every word literally.

For the last 20 years, searching for a home to buy has meant going to a real estate website and filling out the drop down boxes for location, price, size, and maybe a few other things like numbers of bedrooms and bathrooms. Only then do you see the pictures, read the descriptions, and decide whether you're interested.

But searches of all kinds, including those for houses, are quickly migrating to AI. Consumers are using ChatGPT to find their next home in addition to a real estate website. And the search terms are far different. Now, a buyer will tell AI, “I have 3 kids and a dog, so I want to be in a good school district in the north metro with enough space for them to play. I like to cook, so a good kitchen is important. I would love to have a property with a nice view and cute curb appeal. I sent you my budget a while back, so refer to that and only send me houses in my price range.”

Those instructions include no cities, no prices, no sizes. Really nothing that coincides with the drop down boxes of the traditional house search at all. AI is being asked to read the descriptions, look at the pictures, and discover which homes are the best fit. And it’s doing it better and better every day.

Which means your listing - the description, the pictures, the virtual tours, the video - needs to speak to both a human audience and an AI audience.

Here’s a quick description of how I’m doing that: I start by taking all the pictures of the house I’m listing and give them to ChatGPT. You can now link many traditional real estate websites to ChatGPT, so it has the insider’s view of what buyers are looking for. I ask it to look at the pictures and location and give me the top features that will get buyers excited. Then I take that list, along with the pictures, and give everything to Claude. Claude is built for nuanced writing, so I ask it to compose a description that speaks to both a human reader and an AI reader at the same time. I ask it to emphasize the best features according to ChatGPT. Then I review it for accuracy and post it. Because the tools are only as good as the human behind them.

The result is a description that a buyer can connect with emotionally, and that AI can read, understand, and recommend accurately. This process takes me longer than it would to just write the description myself. But my goal isn't to save time or cut corners - it's to bring as many serious buyers as possible to every home I list. Because the buyers who find your home first are increasingly the ones who never typed your address into a search bar - they just described their life to AI, and it pointed them to your door.

Clint Kuipers