When writing a listing description for MLS and Realtor.ca we only have 463 characters to tell you about all the great things a property has to offer.

It’s not much and it’s the reason behind all the seemingly insane shorthand you see about glming hdwd flrs & 50+ptlghts.

I hate it. Some short forms are becoming better known among house-hunters like ELFs (Electrical Light Fixtures, not Dobby) but others I’m left struggling with. No one wants to decode every other word. And if you do, we haven’t met yet. Looking forward to meeting you, MLS Listing Decoder Genius.

But maybe, just maybe, things are about to change: Realtor.ca has introduced a keyword search tool which should have us agents choosing our words, and spelling, more carefully. According to CREA (Canadian Real Estate Association) the most popular words so far in Canada have been ‘in-law suite’, ‘bungalow’, ‘income suite’ and in Toronto we can add ‘finished basement’ to the list. Surprise surprise, people search with full words and not ‘fnshd bsmt’.

We like searching with keywords and it turns out other people do, too. Fortunately we are already committed to writing descriptions without reducing the key features to unreadable, and now unsearchable, shorthand.

Rock on. Can’t wait to read about that gorgeous restoration rather than searching for missing vowels.