An analysis of Zillow data looks at the text accompanying real estate listings:

Longer is almost always better, though above a certain length, you didn’t get any added value — you don’t need to write a novel. Over 250 words, it doesn’t seem to matter. Our takeaway was that if you’ve got it, flaunt it. Descriptive words are very helpful. “Stainless steel,” “granite,” “view” and “landscaped” were found in listings that got a higher sales price than comparable homes.

And there are words you should stay away from, especially “nice.” We think that in the American dialect, you say “nice” if you don’t have anything more to say. And then there are the words that immediately tell a buyer that the house is small: When we analyzed the data, we found that homes described as “charming” averaged 1,487 square feet, “quaint” averaged 1,299 square feet, and “cute” averaged 1,128. All of them were smaller than the average house in our sampling.

The impact of words seems to vary by price tier. For example, “spotless” in a lower-priced house seemed to pay off in a 2 percent bonus in the final price, but it didn’t seem to affect more pricey homes. “Captivating” paid off by 6.5 percent in top-tier homes, but didn’t seem to matter in lower-priced ones.

There are certainly codes in real estate listings that are necessary due to the limited space for words. But, as the article notes some of the words are more precise than others. If someone says they have stainless steel appliances, the potential buyer has a really good idea of what is there. But, other words are much more ambiguous. Just how “new” are some big-ticket items like roofs or flooring or furnaces? The big data of real estate listings allows us to see the patterns tied to these words. Just remember the order for size: cute is small, quaint is slightly larger, and charming slightly bigger still.

If I’m Zillow, is it time to sell this info to select real estate professionals?