Rightmove Listing Format: Summary, Key Features and Description That Convert

Rightmove rewards listings that are formatted for how people actually browse: on a phone, at speed, comparing a dozen properties at once. Understanding what appears where — and what gets cut off — changes how you should write each field.

The search result card: your seven-second audition

In search results, buyers see your lead photo, price, address line and the opening of your summary. On mobile the summary truncates after a line or two — so front-load it. "We are delighted to offer to the market…" spends your most valuable characters saying nothing. "Extended four-bed with south-facing garden and no chain" wins the click. Our headline guide covers this in depth.

Key features: bullets that do real work

The key features list renders prominently above the description. Best practice that holds up in 2026:

• Make every bullet a concrete, checkable fact — "Driveway parking for two", not "Must be seen".
• Order them by rarity: the features other listings on the page don't have go first.
• Six to eight strong bullets beat a longer list padded with filler.
• Don't duplicate the structured fields (price, bedrooms) — use bullets for what the fields can't say.

The description: structure for skimmers

Most readers skim. Two to four short paragraphs in a logical walk-through order (living space → kitchen → bedrooms → bathrooms → outside) outperform a wall of text. Avoid markdown-style formatting and special characters — portal feeds can mangle them. Write in plain, flowing prose.

Material information fields: complete them all

Tenure, council tax band, EPC and (for lettings) deposit aren't optional extras — incomplete listings are flagged on the portals and can be misleading by omission under the DMCC Act. Filling every field also helps you appear in filtered searches that incomplete listings drop out of.

Exact limits change — write to the behaviour, not the number

Field character limits vary by feed/CRM and get revised, so don't chase a magic number. The behaviour that doesn't change: summaries truncate early on mobile, bullets get read before prose, and the first sentence of your description does most of the work. Write for that.

ListSmith produces all of it in one pass — a front-loaded summary, concrete key-feature bullets and a skimmable description, written only from your property's facts. Try it free, and see our 12 portal listing tips for the full checklist.