Hi Everyone,

Last time we talked about tips from a Russian real estate portal on how to sell your property to Russian buyers quicker and for more money. The #1 tip was: your ad or listing must be written in good Russian without spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes.

There is a report "Mistakes in Home Listings Bother Buyers" published by Redfin, an American real estate company, that I believe is the solid reason for such an advice (in any language)

It states that grammar and spelling matter to homebuyers: 43% of more than 1,200 people surveyed said they would be much less inclined to tour a home if its online listing contained misspellings or improper grammar. (It was about listings in English, but we can spread the results to any language of course)

We are not even talking here about such factual mistakes as wrong home, rooms and lot sizes, addresses and phone numbers, etc. that might make your ad or listing completely useless or at the very least might scare some potential buyers away from you as an unreliable partner in the future deal; but we concentrate on language mistakes that make your property description hard to understand or look comical or strange or even stupid and become eventually fatal for your sale in the target market.

As we have a talk in English here, I can't give you direct examples of real Russian property listings mistakes in this newsletter, but will translate them back into English and here they are:

From one of the international real estate portals that uses machine translation between languages: "Исключительнеишее derogation paradise resort located in ocean view. Loosen in luxury, the best way is assigned Kondo glance beach 1100 ft sq segment." (My note: Any idea what's that? Actually it's published for a Miami luxury condo for rent. Will Russians rent this property or move on?)

Another one from the same line: "This resort осeаnfrоnt luxury 4 star must be experienced first-hand and I am sure appease even underlines for travelers."

Well, these (apparently machine translated) pearls will definitely kill any deal for their posters who paid for listings hoping to get results from their advertising money spent… The agents or owners of these properties apparently do not know Russian and rely on the portal to post their listings for the Russian market without checking how exactly their offers look like for the foreign market…

Although not all mistakes are that bad, but anyway almost any error can blow up a sale. Your castle may not sell, no matter how grand, especially in the Russian market (or any foreign one for this matter) where buyers first thoroughly scour the internet listings as they are not able to jump in the car immediately to go and see your property.

So, if you are going to spend your advertising money to promote your property for sale in Russian market, spend it wisely – your ad or listing should look for Russian buyers as naturally written, without mistakes in facts and language.

To your best business success,

Sincerely,