Writing Advice for Real Estate Professionals: Drop the Acronyms

This is a big one for real estate professionals. Within and surrounding the real estate industry are a variety of meaningful phrases and designations that have been compacted into acronyms for convenience. These acronyms are the common vocabulary of real estate and business communities, but to outsiders they can be confusing.

A few examples:

• RFP (Request for Proposal)
• ROI (Return on Investment)
• APR (Annual Percentage Rate)
• MLS (Multiple Listing Service)
• CMA (Current Market Appraisal)
• FSBO (For Sale By Owner)

This list is nowhere near exhaustive. Financial slang, councils, associations and other industry players vary from region to region to comprise an extensive list of hundreds, maybe thousands of acronyms that a real estate consumer may encounter. While some of my examples may be obvious or commonly understood, remember that your duty as a professional is not to alienate very few people, but to alienate absolutely nobody.

This is why all of your customer facing copy should follow this simple formatting rule: Write the Full Abbreviation and Put the Acronym in Brackets (WFAPAB). Okay, that was a lame example but you get it. As much as boasting abbreviations of your various certifications and areas of expertise etc. may make you feel like an expert, your goal should always be to make your customer feel like an expert. The house buying process can be confusing and overwhelming. If a potential client can't understand the content on your website or blog, they are less likely to enlist your services.

This applies to abbreviations in house listings as well. As sensible as a 1500 sq. ft. 2 bdrm. bsmt. unit in great cond. with c/a and brand new dishwr. might sound to you, it is so worth your time to take an extra second while writing your listings to write the full words.

Be sure to follow our blog and social to stay updated next week when we talk about comma splicing.

To view the original article, visit the Lone Wolf blog.