How to write an MLS listing description

How long should a listing description be?

The technical ceiling and the useful length are different numbers. RESO defines PublicRemarks as "text remarks that may be displayed to the public" with a suggested maximum length of 4,000 characters, and individual MLSs set their own limit at or below that, commonly somewhere between 1,000 and 4,000. Check your own before you write, because a description that is silently truncated at the field boundary loses its last sentence on every portal at once.

The useful length is shorter than the ceiling. A consumer meets your remarks on a phone, below the photographs, usually behind a show more control, and the first two or three lines decide whether the rest is read. Write the first 200 characters as though they are the whole description, then let the body run long enough to answer what a buyer would otherwise have to call you to ask: what was done to the house and when, what the lot does, what the monthly obligations are, and what the layout is.

Anything that will not go into plain sentences probably belongs in a structured field. Portals and search systems read the fields, and a fact buried in prose is invisible to a filter. Year built, heating type, parking, HOA fee and lot size all have their own places, and repeating them in the remarks is worth doing only where the number is part of the argument.

What must never appear in public remarks?

Start with the RESO definition, because it is the common denominator across every system: the field should not carry information about property entry, seller or tenant details, or listing member contact information. Individual MLSs then write it out in detail. CRMLS Rule 12.5 restricts public remarks to "the description, features and condition of the property and related amenities" and lists what may not appear: contact information of any kind, branded content, links to external websites including video tours and offer submission platforms, showing instructions or open house information, lockbox, alarm and gate codes, occupancy status, anything directed at agents including references to compensation or bonuses, and any solicitation for the public to contact the listing agent. Misuse of public remarks is a $250 citation there, and a second citation covers contact information specifically.

ARMLS in Arizona reaches the same place from a different angle. Its Inappropriate Language in MLS Listings Policy, published 3 April 2025, bans all websites and phone numbers from public remarks "regardless of whether or not the phone number or web address leads a consumer to the listing agent," and bans anything that "may lead someone to bypass their own contracted agent," which expressly includes open house and showing information. A bare statement that there are no showings is allowed. Rule 11.6 limits public remarks to the physical traits of the property, its location and the transaction preferences for it, and the penalty for inappropriate use of the remarks fields is $200.

Compensation is the trap with the biggest number attached. Under the practice changes that took effect on 17 August 2024 following the Sitzer/Burnett settlement, offers of compensation cannot be published on a multiple listing service. NAR's settlement FAQs answer the workaround directly: asked whether a cooperative commission offer can go in the agent remarks once the compensation field is removed, the answer is no. ARMLS states the same prohibition applies "anywhere on the listing," across all fields and attachments, and prices it at $500 for a first offence and a minimum of $5,000 up to $15,000 for a subsequent one, automatically and without waiver. Compensation may still be communicated off MLS, which is a different channel with different paperwork.

Content	Where it belongs	Why
Lockbox code, alarm code, gate code	Showing instructions, never public	RESO excludes property entry information from PublicRemarks
Showing windows, appointment rules, pet on site	Agent remarks or showing instructions	Operational, and it dates fast
Any offer of buyer broker compensation	Off MLS only	Prohibited in the MLS since 17 August 2024
Your name, phone, email, brokerage or website	Nowhere in public remarks	RESO excludes listing member contact information; MLS rules repeat it
Seller motivation, divorce, relocation, tenant details	Nowhere	Breaches the seller's interest and the RESO definition
Open house dates	The open house field	The field syndicates and updates; prose does not
Words describing the likely buyer	Nowhere	42 U.S.C. 3604(c) turns on what the ad conveys
Square footage with no stated source	A field with a source attribute	The number is checkable and the claim is yours

Fair housing sits over all of it and does not care that a machine wrote the sentence. The rule that survives every version of the word lists is short: describe the property, and never describe the buyer you are picturing. The detail on which phrases actually get flagged, and which warnings are folklore, is in fair housing words to avoid in a listing description.

What structure actually works?

Four blocks, in this order, and the discipline is in the first one.

Open with the property's single strongest verifiable fact. "A 1926 brick bungalow on a 7,800 square foot corner lot, three blocks from the Green Line" does more in one line than any paragraph of adjectives, because every element is checkable and each answers a filter a buyer has already set. Follow with the work: what was replaced, what year, and by whom where that matters. Roof 2021, furnace 2019, kitchen taken back to the studs in 2023. Buyers price a house by what they will have to do to it, so this block takes future costs off the table.

Third block is the layout and the outside, walked in the order a viewer would move: room counts, which rooms are on which floor, where the light comes from, what the outdoor space is used for. Close with the practical facts a buyer needs before booking, such as HOA fee and what it covers, parking, and any known condition they will find anyway. A description that admits the one flaw the photographs cannot hide is more persuasive than one that hopes nobody looks.

Two habits do most of the damage. Adjective stacking, where "stunning gorgeous immaculate" replaces the specific noun a buyer could search for, and the copied paragraph, where an agent lifts remarks from a comparable listing. NAR's guidance on listing content treats a purely factual sentence as unprotectable and a description carrying real characterisation as protected expression, and CRMLS Rule 12.5 goes further by requiring prior written authorisation from the originating listing agent before a subsequent agent copies remarks at all.

Which claims create liability?

Anything measurable. A description is an advertisement about a specific property, and a buyer who relies on a statement in it has the statement in writing. Square footage, lot size, room counts, zoning, permitted status of an addition, flood position, school assignment, tenure and HOA obligations are the recurring sources of a complaint that sticks, because each one is checkable against a public record.

Square footage deserves its own rule. Appraisers working to Fannie Mae requirements must follow ANSI Z765-2021 when measuring and reporting above and below grade area, per Selling Guide section B4-1.3-05, and that standard does not count finished basement space as above grade living area. Your MLS number usually comes from a tax record or from the owner and will often disagree with an appraisal for exactly that reason. The RESO Data Dictionary provides a LivingAreaSource field whose permitted values are Appraiser, Assessor, Builder, Estimated, Other, Owner, Plans, Public Records and See Remarks, so record which one applies rather than publishing a bare number.

Condition language is the other one, and it is more permissive than agents fear. ARMLS explicitly allows transactional preferences in public remarks so long as they are not conditioned on retaining or paying a broker, giving as acceptable examples "the property is to be sold in present condition", "auction to conclude by a specific date" and "seller will include 1-year warranty with full price offer". What "as is" does not do is describe the property, so if the house needs work, name the work. Disclosure duties are set by state law and are not satisfied by a phrase in the remarks, but a remark that contradicts a disclosure form is evidence in whatever comes next.

How do you keep it accurate after it goes live?

The MLS is the record, and the model rules put the burden on you. NAR's model rules require participants and subscribers to submit accurate listing data and to correct any known errors, and they require status changes, including closing and sale price, to be reported within a window your MLS sets in hours. Ordinary filing of a new listing runs on a separate deadline, usually 48 hours after the seller's signatures, and Clear Cooperation adds a one business day deadline once the property has been publicly marketed at all.

Update the description as the file changes rather than only the price. A price reduction with a description still promising a spring closing reads as neglect to every buyer agent who looks. When the paragraph changes, the change flows outward through the portals on their own schedule, which is a mechanism worth understanding before you promise a seller anything about timing: how listing syndication to Zillow and Realtor.com works covers the feed path. The photographs have to keep agreeing with the words as well, and the rules governing them are covered in real estate listing photo standards.

Frequently asked questions

How many characters do I actually get?

The RESO Data Dictionary suggests 4,000 characters for PublicRemarks, and your MLS sets the real limit, which is often lower. Find the number in your rules or by testing the field, and write to it. Systems truncate silently, so a description that ends mid sentence on a portal is usually a length problem rather than a syndication fault.

Can I put my phone number in the remarks if the seller asks me to?

No. RESO excludes listing member contact information from the public remarks field and MLS rules generally repeat the prohibition, because the MLS record is displayed by cooperating brokers through IDX. Your contact details reach the consumer through the portal's own agent module and through your own marketing.

Is it a problem to mention a school by name?

Naming a school and giving a distance is a factual statement. It becomes a problem when it is wrong, when the assignment boundary changes, or when it is used as a proxy for who lives in an area. Check the current assignment with the district rather than the tax record, state it as of a date, and drop it entirely if your brokerage policy says so.

Should the description repeat what is already in the fields?

Only where the number is part of the argument. Filters read the fields, so a fact that lives only in prose does not reach a search. Repeating the year built is worth it when the year is the selling point, and wasteful when it is just a data point the buyer already filtered on.

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Last verified: 2026-09-02