A Rightmove Listing That Actually Gets Viewings
Most UK buyers start in one place, sort by newest, and decide from a thumbnail and a price. Everything else is downstream of that.
The UK portal market is concentrated enough that for most properties the listing is the marketing. Buyers sort by newest, scan a grid of thumbnails and price, and decide in about a second per property. Optimising for that second is a different discipline from writing good particulars.
How buyers actually browse
Most searches are sorted by newest first, which means your listing gets its best exposure in the first forty-eight hours. Launching an incomplete listing to "get it live" spends that window on a weak version.
The buyer's first screen is a grid of thumbnails with a price. Nothing else you wrote is being read yet, so the thumbnail and the price are doing all the work.
Price banding matters because buyers search in round numbers. A property at just over a round threshold is invisible to everyone whose maximum is that threshold.
The first photo should be the front elevation for a house and the best living space for a flat. Buyers use the exterior to place a house in a category, and a flat has no useful exterior.
The first photo and the price
Shoot the front elevation with the sun on it, which in most of the UK means checking which way the property faces and coming back at the right time. It is the single highest-return hour in property photography.
Photo count has a sweet spot. Too few reads as concealment; too many buries the good ones. Twelve to twenty strong images beats forty including three of the boiler.
Order them as a walk through the property, ending on the garden or the view. Buyers swipe until they lose interest, so front-load and finish strong.
The description's first line appears in the search results on some views. Spend it on the thing that distinguishes the property rather than on "we are delighted to offer".
What earns the second look
Floorplans materially increase enquiries and remain the most under-supplied asset in UK listings. A property without one asks the buyer to do work they will not do.
Video and virtual tours sit in a secondary tab and are used by serious buyers rather than browsers. Their job is converting a shortlist, not winning attention, which changes what the video should contain.
Relaunching a stale listing with a price change and better photographs recovers some of the newest-first advantage, but you only get to do it convincingly once.
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Try PropVid free See all 1,094 templatesFrequently asked questions
What should the first photo be?
The front elevation for a house, the best living space for a flat. Buyers categorise a house by its exterior, and a flat rarely has an exterior worth leading with.
How many photos should a listing have?
Twelve to twenty strong images. Too few reads as concealment and too many dilutes the good ones — nobody was ever persuaded by the third photograph of a utility cupboard.
Do property videos increase enquiries?
They convert shortlists rather than win attention, because they sit behind the photos in a secondary tab. Produce them to answer a serious buyer's remaining questions, not to compete for the first click.
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