Pathos and Patter in Real Estate Parlance

This paper presents the first systematic analysis of estate agent language and employs Aristotle’s ponderings on the art of persuasion as a means of classifying the peculiar parlance of property peddlers. “Des. Res.”, “rarely available”, “viewing essential” – these are all part of the peculiar parlance of housing advertisements. The question is whether the selling agent’s penchant for rhetoric is uniform across a single urban system or whether there are variations, even within a relatively limited geographical area. We are also interested in how the use of superlatives varies over the market cycle. For example, are estate agents more inclined to use hyperbole when the market is buoyant or when it is flat? This paper attempts to answer these questions by applying textual analysis to a unique dataset of 49,926 records of real estate transactions in the West of Scotland over the period 1999 to 2006. Our analysis has implications for our understanding of the agency behaviour of housing market professionals and endeavours to open up a new avenue of research into the market-impact of rhetoric in the language of selling.