Frequently Asked Questions

What is UrbanTurf Listings?

UrbanTurf Listings is a marketing service for DC-area real estate agents to advertise their property listings on UrbanTurf, one of the most popular websites for home buyers in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. UrbanTurf Listings showcases properties in an enjoyable and useful format through a combination of large, beautiful photos and simplified property descriptions.

The service also offers inclusion in a weekly article published on UrbanTurf (like these), which is routinely among the most popular articles of the week.

What is the benefit of UrbanTurf Listings?

Exposure. Today’s urban home buyers search for their new home online. As one of the most popular online sources of local real estate insight, news, and guidance, UrbanTurf reaches thousands of readers every week that are searching for a home in DC, Northern Virginia, and Maryland. UrbanTurf Listings offers the opportunity to make this highly targeted audience of local home buyers aware of your listed property.

Quality. UrbanTurf Listings is designed to present individual properties with beautiful, large photos. An easy-to-use slideshow feature allows home buyers to effortlessly scan all the photos of your advertised listing. This format provides the home buyer with a simple and enjoyable way to experience your listing online that distinguishes UrbanTurf Listings from other listings sites.

Affordability. At only $149 per month, a campaign with UrbanTurf Listings provides great value at a very low price, especially when compared with area alternatives that charge many times that to reach a much less targeted audience.

Convenience. Your ad with UrbanTurf Listings is purchased and managed through a self-service website that was designed for ease-of-use and simplicity. You can place your ad and have it running on UrbanTurf in just a few quick steps. After the initial purchase of your ad, updating or otherwise managing it is easy and self-serve.

How does it work?

Easy. As an agent, you register here with your email address and chosen password. Then you login to the website and fill out a page with your contact information. After that you can post an ad in three quick steps: fill out your listing’s information, upload photos, and pay with a credit card. Start to finish, posting a new ad on UrbanTurf Listings takes about 10 minutes. Your ad will be showcased here for the thousands of weekly UrbanTurf readers to discover.

A single ad lasts for one month, and you can buy additional months at any time to extend the length of your campaign.

Tell me more about the article in which my listing will be included.

Every Wednesday afternoon UrbanTurf publishes an article entitled UrbanTurf Listings: New This Week that features all the property ads posted during the previous seven days. When you post your ad, you can expect that it will be included in that article on the first Wednesday following the day you posted it. See examples of what the article looks like here.

Be sure to get your listing ad posted by noon on Tuesday, which is the deadline to be included in the following Wednesday’s article.

Note that your listing will be included in the Wednesday article just once, not every week that your ad is live.

The MLS has tons of fields to fill out about my property. Why can't I add all that information on UrbanTurf Listings?

UrbanTurf Listings is not meant to aggregate data about all properties on the market. It is a marketing service meant to showcase properties with large, beautiful photos and provide the essential information like price, location, property type, square footage, and number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Home buyers who are interested in learning more about your property will click the link that you provided as part of the listing’s ad or will contact you directly via email or phone.

Why do the photos of my listing have to be so big?

If the three rules of real estate are "location, location, location," the three rules of a successful listing are "good photos, good photos, good photos."

UrbanTurf readers constantly tell us that they love looking at the properties featured in the site’s articles. The consistent popularity of weekly UrbanTurf articles such as Best New Listings is further evidence that home buyers enjoy seeing properties showcased with expansive, attractive photos.

UrbanTurf Listings is designed to be as enjoyable for home buyers as it is useful by giving them what they want: large, high-quality photos that make them feel as if they are in the property.

Can I edit my listing and its photos once I have started the campaign?

Yes, it is very easy to make modifications to your listing at any time, including adding or removing photos and editing other property information such as the price or dates of an upcoming open house. You can also take your listing offline if for some reason you no longer want it displayed.

Can I publicize the open house for my listing?

Yes, in the ad’s property description you are encouraged to mention the date and time of the property’s next open house.

How much does it cost?

An ad for a single property costs $149 per month. Your listing’s ad campaign will officially begin at midnight of the night you purchase it, then run for one month.

Bulk listing purchases are also available. Please contact us to find out more.

What methods of payment are available?

At this time we only accept credit card payments through the self-serve system. It's very easy to use and totally secure.

May I advertise rental properties or just for-sale properties?

While UrbanTurf Listings was designed with for-sale properties in mind, you may post a rental. Just make sure you state clearly in the listing description that the property is for rent and that the listed price represents the monthly rent.

Does buying an ad with Listings guarantee editorial coverage of my property?

The Wednesday following the day you post your ad, it will be included in the weekly Urban Listings: New This Week article. That article is a very popular weekly feature, thereby ensuring lots of exposure within the editorial stream of UrbanTurf content.

As for inclusion in weekly features such as Best New Listings or This Week’s Find, the selections for those articles are made by our editors. UrbanTurf treats the separation between advertising and editorial very seriously, so purchasing an UrbanTurf Listing will not result in your property being selected for those articles. Having said that, it is more likely that our editorial staff will notice your listing if you run a campaign on UrbanTurf Listings than if it is just a needle in the MLS haystack of thousands of other homes on the market. (Home buyers will be more likely to notice it, too!)

I have another question not answered in this FAQ. Who do I ask?

Feel free to contact us anytime by phone (703-842-1391) or email (advertising@urbanturf.com).