5 Tips for Writing a Great House Share Listing

Writing a great house share listing will ensure you get the best results in finding the right housemates. Here we offer 5 tips of what to include and why.

1. Add a personal photo

We know it might sometimes feel uncomfortable or require time to look for a suitable picture but it is important for two reasons:

1. When starting the process of finding potential housemates, like it or not, first impressions count. A personal photo shows other people that you are being open and friendly – and a real human being! Without a photo other people might wonder why you do not want to upload one.

2. Because we know profile pictures are important to our members we want to prioritise the most complete listings. Our systems places listings with a personal photo above those without in all relevant searches. Listings with a photo are more complete and therefore more useful to other people.

Listings with photos are more visible and are seen approximately 5x more than listings without.

One more word about personal photos. We like them because it adds a sense of community to the site and helps to demonstrate the diversity of people who are interested in house sharing.

2. Write a meaningful headline

The headline appears just below your photo in searches and is designed to give a first impression. Limited to 40 characters for space reasons, you have the opportunity to capture the essence of your interest in sharing.

Headlines don’t have to be funny or creative, although that might catch the eye. Most of all, write something useful and functional to help others begin to understand you and your interest.

A good descriptive headline might be: ‘Seeking cat-friendly home‘ or ‘Sociable 50-year old looking for housemates’. You do not have to include the location in your headline, it will automatically show as part of your profile. Be as creative as you like, but all within 40 characters.

So headlines are important … but the really important field is ‘A bit more about me’. Read on.

3. Description – A bit more about you

This bit is crucial – as it is about you – and what you are looking for! Who you live with is one of the most important aspects of a successful house share. Of course, distance to the station and decoration of the property are important, but if you are not comfortable being at home because of someone you live with, then you won’t want to stay there too long. And it should be just the opposite, a harmonious, fun, life-enriching relationship you have with the people you live with.

No housemate is perfect, just like other relationships, but try and use this space to tell people what sort of housemate you will be and what you are looking for from others as housemates.

4. Sharing preferences

Some sharing preferences are compulsory within the housemate registration process and for good reason. Living in a home with pets, children or smokers is a deal breaker for some and a necessity for others. Other information is optional but we encourage you to think about your own preferences and to add these.

The number of people you house share with is important but a little more flexible in some cases, depending on who you find as potential housemates. And so are interests, TV viewing and level of sociability, but we do recommend adding this information to help others make an initial assessment. For some people it may be really important that you like Love Island!

5. Share your tips

If you have experience of sharing a house, then is valuable experience for you, but can also be useful to others. Not only does it tell others what sort of house sharing values you hold (reassuringly), but also advises others. You can read these Tips for sharing on each person’s listing, but we also picked out the top 20 tips for sharing in our article House Share Experience Counts.

6. Keep your listing up-to-date

Lastly but not least, please update your user account and listing if your circumstances change.

You can change your listing status from active to inactive (tags near bottom) in case you want to pause your membership and your user account will not be displayed in searches. It remains saved on our systems so that you can come back to it anytime. This will save you having to set up a user account and listing again should you need it in future.

If you would like to register but the whole process seems like a lot of effort, let us do it for you. You can provide us with the necessary details by email or phone and we’ll do the rest. Find out more.