Advertising your property
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      Build the property advert

      How to get your advert started with Advert builder

      This article includes help on each section of the Advert step of Advert builder.

      Advert builder is the first thing you see once you have created the property. It's also available from the horizontal menu of the property. 

      1. Photos - you have to upload at least 1 photo to publish your property, but we recommend at least 6 to get renters interested. They need to be no larger than 10MB each, and a file type of JPEG, PNG, BMP or GIF.

      It's important your photos do justice to your property. You can order professional photos, video tour and floorplan by contacting your Letting Expert.

      When you upload your photos, we scan each one to make sure it is suitable to use in your advert. We'll automatically blur any portion of the photo that contains text or faces, to keep you safe and anonymous. If we do that, we'll let you know. We may reject a photo if it isn't appropriate for advertising your property.

      If you think we've rejected an image that shouldn't be, contact your Letting Expert. They'll review it and if they agree, they will override the rejection.

      You can choose the order of your photos by clicking on the the small version in edit mode and dragging and dropping them in the order you want. The first photo will always be the cover image on the advert.

      It can help to keep your advert fresh if you rotate the order of your photos once in a while, and then republish your advert.

       

      2. New build flag - if your property has been built in the last 12 months, it's considered a new build. You can add a New build flag to your advert by entering the date of the build completion. If it is within 12 months of today's date, we'll add the New build flag. If not, just leave it blank.

      If it is a new build when you advertise, but stops qualifying as one while your property is still being advertised, we'll remove the flag in Advert builder. To remove it from the property advert you'll need to republish it.

       

      3. Address - only the parts of the address that will be visible on the advert are displayed here. You can click the address section to enter edit mode and see all fields to make changes.

       

      4. Rent details - if you're not sure what rent to ask for, use our Insights page to generate a monthly rental valuation. Complete all the required inputs and click 'Get Valuation' to see what you can expect per month. Then go back to Advert builder and enter your asking rent. It will always be per calendar month (pcm), but you can change the rental payment frequency that you'd like to agree on in the Tenancy Conditions step.

       

      5. Letting details - tell us when the property is sitting empty from, or if it is available to rent now.

      We've pre-selected a 5 week security deposit, which is the maximum you can request under the Tenant Fee Act 2019, but you can change that by selecting another option. There are other security deposit settings under the Tenancy Conditions step, like how the deposit will be registered.

      Set the tenancy length. You can choose one of our pre-defined lengths or enter a custom length in the text box. We only offer AST agreements, so the tenancy length has to be between 6 and 36 months. You can specify a break clause under the Tenancy Conditions step.

      Select the furnish type and the council tax band, and the Lettings details are complete. 

       

      6. Property details - the type and subtype have been pre-selected based on what you picked when you first created the property, but you can edit them here. 

      Choose the number of bedrooms, bathrooms and receptions rooms.  A kitchen does not count as a reception room.

      We don't recommend that you include a room with just a toilet and sink when calculating the number of bathrooms in the property. If you decide to include this type of room in the total number, you should make it very clear in the property description.

      Add the total property size to finish the Property details section. You can find the size of the property on either the floorplan (if you have one), or on the EPC certificate right below the top blue box ('Total floor area'). You need to enter this in square feet. If your measurement is in square meters, convert it to square feet by multiplying it by 10.764.

       

      7. More details - this section is optional. If you don't enter any values here, the advert on Rightmove will say 'Ask agent' for each field. We have lots of options for parking if you click Load more to see them all. If you have a driveway and a garage, for example, you can select both. There is currently not a 'No parking' option, so if your property has no parking at all leave it blank and include that in the description.

       

      8. Media - this is also optional, but a floorplan really drives up those enquiries. If you don't have one, speak to your Letting Expert about buying one through Hello Neighbour. 

      Upload your floorplan image; it needs to be no larger than 10MB. If the image is larger than 10MB, you can compress it using online tools that are widely available. If you have a tour as well, you can upload this to your advert. It can be a virtual or video tour, but needs to be no larger than 20MB. If the file is larger than this, consider hosting it on a video sharing site and choosing 'Provide link' to enter the URL.

      9. Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) - all properties available for rent need to have an EPC. You must provide the EPC details before advertising the property with Hello Neighbour. If you don't have an up-to-date EPC (it needs to have been issued within the last 10 years), you can order one from Advert builder.

      Make sure you enter the report reference number accurately, because we use this to provide the EPC to the tenants before they move in.

      We use the scores you provide for current and potential energy performance to draw the chart that is used when advertising the property. We don't upload the full EPC document so that your full property address is not made available online. 

       

      10. Key features - this section is optional but really helps draw attention to the main selling points of the property. You can select up to 9 key features (we use one spot to explain how viewings work). Clicking on a category will display that category's options at the bottom of the key features section. If you want to view all options together, click View all. If you want to search for all options containing a particular word or phrase, use the search box.

      The options that you select will appear at the top of the section and you can reorder them by dragging and dropping into the order you want them to appear.

       

      11. Description - Type your property description in the text box. You'll need to validate that the description you have written meets our content safety standards, by clicking the Validate button. Until you do this you won't be able to publish your property advert.

      The validation is instant and the results will be shown below the text box. If it doesn't pass validation, you will be told the reason and the preview text at the top of the section will highlight the text that contains the issue. You'll need to amend the text in the text box and click Validate again to check if it now passes. When you see the green tick, the text has passed and is ready for publishing.

      For additional help, check out our article on how to write a great property description. It will give you a list a do's and don'ts to ensure your description meets our content safety standards.

       

      Now that you have completed every section, if you have been clicking the Preview or Save buttons at the bottom of each section, you'll get a really good idea of what your property advert will look like when it is published to the property Portals (Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket). If you are on a computer you can use the right hand menu to jump to a particular section, if you are on a mobile device you can scroll to find it. 

      When you are happy with how the advert looks, click 'Next step' at the bottom of the page, or the Viewings tab near the top of the page, to move to the next section.