They are not choosing a room. They are choosing you.
Somebody reading a flatshare advert is deciding whether to live with three strangers. Most adverts give them four words on that: "three other friendly people". Every advert says that. It tells them nothing.
The section nobody writes is the one everybody reads for.
Room size, rent, transport links — those get written, because they feel like the facts. Then the reader gets to the end still not knowing whether the house cooks together, whether the living room is used or just walked through, whether people are around at weekends, or whether there is a rota. Those are the things they will actually decide on, and five honest sentences about the household will do more than any amount of polish on the room description.
The second thing that goes missing is money. "Bills extra" is the most common hidden cost in a flatshare and it is a real number the current household already knows — last month's total, split four ways. A reader who gets that figure can commit. A reader who gets "bills extra" has to ask, and asking is friction at exactly the point you wanted enthusiasm.
And the third is the bathroom count. It is the most asked question in flatshare enquiries and it is almost never in the advert.
Where a rewrite can do real damage.
This category needs saying out loud, because a general writing tool will improve the wording of something that has to come out entirely.
Since 1 May 2026 blanket bans on benefit recipients and on families with children are prohibited for landlords letting a property they do not live in, and the indirect version — "professionals only", "must be in permanent employment" — is caught the same way. An upfront admin fee for a tenancy has been unlawful for years, not merely unpopular. The deposit is capped at five weeks' rent below the higher-rent threshold, and where the arrangement is a tenancy the deposit has to be protected in an approved scheme.
But it forks, and the fork changes the answer. If you live in the property and share a kitchen or bathroom with the person taking the room, a narrow exception can permit some preference — stating you are looking for a female flatmate, for instance, in a house with a small enough number of other households. Race is outside that exception everywhere and always. If you do not live there, the exception is not available to you at all.
So the first thing the report establishes is whether you are a live-in landlord or a live-out one, and it will refuse to guess. Everything downstream of that — the tenancy type, the deposit rules, what the advert may lawfully say — depends on the answer, and an advert rewritten under the wrong assumption is worse than the one you started with.
A real advert, before and after.
From the SpareRoom rubric behind the job.
Double room available — £750
Nice double room in a lovely house share, great transport links, close to all amenities. Living with 3 other friendly people. Bills extra. Deposit 6 weeks. Available now, 12 month AST minimum, £150 admin fee payable on application. Professionals only, no DSS, no children, no pets.
Bright double with a desk in a four-person share, 8 min walk to [ADD FACT: station]
A double room in a four-bedroom house, sharing with three others. £750 per calendar month — that is the rent we will accept, we are not taking offers above it.
What it costs. Bills are on top: gas, electricity, water and broadband come to roughly [MUST SUPPLY: recent monthly total, and the month it was from] split four ways. Deposit [MUST SUPPLY: amount — capped at five weeks' rent, which on £750 pcm is £865.38, and it must be protected in an approved scheme]. No other fees are payable.
Who's here. Three of us, [ADD FACT: ages and what we do]. [ADD FACT: how the house runs — do you cook together, is it sociable or quiet, are people around at weekends, is there a cleaning rota]. This is the part people actually decide on, so it is worth five honest sentences.
The house. Four bedrooms, [ADD FACT: how many bathrooms — say it plainly, it is the first thing people ask].
Applications welcome from everyone, including people receiving benefits and people with children.
The £150 admin fee did not get softened, it got removed, with a note saying it is not a charge that can be made. Silently deleting it would have left the landlord unaware they had been charging it — and about to charge it again on the next advert.
The deposit line shows the arithmetic for the same reason: £865.38 on this rent. A cap stated as a rule still needs working out, and the version that gets worked out wrong has not helped anybody.
Three steps.
- Paste the advert. All of it, including the terms and the preferences, however awkwardly worded. Say whether you live in the property — that one answer changes more of the report than anything else you can tell it.
- £7 for 7,000 points. A ceiling of 3,500 on this job and only what the report costs is spent. Three revisions come with it, which you will use: the first pass will ask you for a bills figure and a bathroom count.
- Back comes the advert plus the blockers. A score capped by anything unlawful, the ranked fixes, a rewritten advert with a real household section, and the small number of facts only you can supply.
A generation that fails spends nothing.
Fit.
Worth it if
- You are re-advertising a room that has been up for three weeks.
- Your advert says "3 other friendly people" and stops there.
- You have written a preference and are not sure whether you are allowed to.
- You are a live-in landlord and every guide you find is written for letting a whole flat.
- You are getting enquiries from people who are clearly not right, and cannot see what is attracting them.
Not for you if
- You want to keep a blanket preference that is not permitted. It will take it out and explain, and if that is not what you want, do not pay for it.
- You want legal advice on your tenancy. It drafts and it checks; it does not advise.
- You want the bills figure estimated. It will ask for a real month.
- The room genuinely is small and dark and you want that written around. It will describe it accurately instead.
Have the advert read.
Paste it as it stands. The first question back is whether you live there, because everything else follows from it.
One payment, no subscription. 7,000 points; this job's ceiling is 3,500 and it spends only what it uses. Three revisions included.