StreetEasy listings have become a must-have in the world of New York City real estate. However, there’s more to a successful listing than just putting one out there. Agents have numerous tools, features, and best practices at their disposal to optimize every component of their StreetEasy listings, leading to more inquiries and showings. Here are some partner agents’ best tips for important listing components.
Photos
Photos can make or break a listing. Of course, you want them to showcase the property in the best possible light (quite literally), but there are other important considerations.
Keep them honest. “Be careful offering deceptive retouching or Photoshop. That’s a recipe for disaster,” says Fabiano Proa, an agent with R New York. Buyers don’t like being surprised when they see a property in person and it doesn’t match the listing photos, and it could sour their opinion of you. Proa also advises using caution with wide-angle camera lenses. “Though a wide-angle lens is appropriate for most listings, don’t go too wide. I have seen a love seat turn into a couch, so be very careful when selecting what type of lens you are going to use.”
Be mindful of the order. “I always make sure that the first listing photo is crisp and exciting, so that it immediately catches viewers’ attention,” says Sere Conde, an agent with the Eklund | Gomes Team at Douglas Elliman. Rachel Epstein, an associate broker with The Agency, is also highly intentional in how she orders listing photos: “I like the pictures to provide a flow, by ordering them how you would naturally walk through if you were viewing a home in person.”
Don’t be repetitive. “Avoid posting similar pictures of the listing for the sake of quantity,” Conde adds.
Video and 3D Tours
StreetEasy listings allow agents to include a video and a 3D tour of a property. Agents can easily create a 3D tour using Zillow’s 3D Home® app, at no extra cost.
Include a video or 3D tour to save time. As Proa puts it, “it’s an open house 24/7” when a listing includes a 3D tour. “3D tours allow [buyers] to walk through the home in their own time, which can help them find answers to some of their questions,” he adds. In Epstein’s experience, “buyers love to watch listing videos, and it helps them decide whether it’s worth them going to view it in person.” In other words, including a video or 3D tour can save you time spent answering questions and help ensure you’re showing the property to more serious buyers.
Epstein also adds: “A well done video on your listing will get you more in-person viewings.” In fact, buyers who watched a video or 3D tour were 128% more likely to contact an agent about a StreetEasy sale listing, and renters were 147% more likely.
Use them to paint a fuller picture of the listing. Proa believes video tours can “provide a personal connection with the agent and the property,” and likes that they allow agents to highlight specific features. In addition, “agents can show off the best a particular neighborhood has to offer, and also highlight attractions, restaurants, parks, schools, and other community favorites,” he says.
Description
As the most open-ended section of a listing, descriptions can be challenging to optimize, but a few guiding principles apply.
Don’t make it longer than it needs to be. “Remember that the basic property details are already visible on the listing page,” says Proa, so there’s no need to repeat them in the description. Epstein agrees: “I think short and precise descriptions are the most beneficial to buyers. I have seen agents write very long descriptions with lots of fluff words, but buyers want to know details that will help them decide if this home is something they should see in person,” she says.
Include what matters most to buyers. “A property description is a summary of everything that matters most about the property,” Proa says. “Show your expertise by including key details that matter to buyers.” By contrast, vague descriptions “can attract a lot of false positives, while pushing away people who are in a buying mindset,” he points out. Proa also urges agents: “Don’t overpromise.”
Draw attention to high-value amenities. StreetEasy listings have a designated section for amenities, but some are worth pointing out in the description too. “I utilize the description space to speak about amenities in the building such as a gym, doorman, rooftop, and elevator, as well as information on pet-friendliness, sublet policies, and flip tax information,” Epstein says.
Certain features in an NYC home for sale can command a premium, and certain amenities have seen large growth in searches on the StreetEasy site since 2021. For sales: dishwasher, pets allowed, elevator, in-unit laundry, doorman. For rentals: in-unit laundry, dishwasher, doorman, elevator, private outdoor space.
Additionally, “let your residents know that your amenities are more than just a convenience,” recommends Proa, meaning sell them as though they’re must-haves.
Make it tell a story. “Create a compelling and inspiring narrative,” Proa suggests. “Arrange the selling points in a logical order. Create a story and highlight the benefits without going overboard.”
Pricing
A listing can be spectacular in every way, but if the price isn’t right, buyers may not even look at it. Fortunately, StreetEasy offers tools powered by an extensive database that agents can use to develop an informed, data-driven pricing strategy.
Analyze comparable StreetEasy listings. “I like to search for properties that are in contract and view the number of days on market, so that I understand how long it took at each price point for a listing to go in contract,” Epstein says. She also uses StreetEasy’s Agent Tools to generate comparables reports, which allow her to see what has sold in the last 6-12 months and how many days the listings spent on the market. “Buyers pay attention to price reductions and days on market, so pricing homes at market value will get more buyers to your listing and hopefully making offers,” she adds.
Leverage data using the StreetEasy Data Dashboard. This easy-to-use tool allows agents to analyze StreetEasy sale and rental data across various metrics, including inventory, price, days on market, and much more. “Pricing decisions are based on a combination of intuition and traditional data,” Proa says. “The StreetEasy Data Dashboard makes it possible to paint a more vivid picture of a location’s future risks and opportunities.”
Epstein appreciates that “you can combine different metrics such as inventory, price point, and days on market to understand market conditions and how your listing can best be sold,” she says. “Having specific data provided to you that you can then provide to your seller and potential buyers is how we become experts in our market.”
Marketing
Giving a listing a little boost can go a long way, but how and when to do so also matters.
Use Featured Listings. Agents can promote their StreetEasy listings by making them Featured Listings, which appear at the top of search results with relevant criteria on the StreetEasy site. Featured Listings receive 137% more inquiries for rentals and 94% more inquiries for sales than non-featured listings.
“I got more requests in one week than the previous four weeks combined,” Proa says about a listing he featured recently. “In such a competitive market, it’s so hard to stand out from the crowd, and Featured Listings are an effective way to achieve fast results.” Nicole Hay of Compass also vouches for the speedy results that Featured Listings can achieve: “The level of attention, inquiries, and showings that result from it always lead to more offers for my sellers, and help me get the job done that much faster.”
Give a boost to listings that have been on the market for a while by featuring them. “If a listing has been on the market for 2-3 months, I like to use Featured Listings so that new buyers that are now looking will have access to my listing right away,” says Epstein. “Listings that stay at the top of search will get more views, and therefore more showings.”
Feature a listing when it has a significant development, such as an open house or price cut. “I use this tool whenever I have a significant listing event such as a price change,” says Rachel King, an agent with Serhant. “I definitely receive more clicks and showings when my listing is featured.”
Reassess when necessary. “Sellers always want to know how their listing is standing up to the competition,” Proa says. Agents participating in the StreetEasy Experts program can access a listing performance dashboard, which provides up-to-date metrics such as the listing’s days on market, views, messages, saves, and shares, as well as comparisons to similar homes on the market. Proa likes that it “provides a fast update on the listing, so we can measure the results and make the proper changes, if necessary.” Perhaps the price needs to be reconsidered, the photos are missing the mark, or the description could use some tweaking.
No matter how a listing performs, choosing to list on StreetEasy is always a great start. There’s a reason there are so many listings to stand out from on the site, and these agent-approved tips should help make that possible.