A listing written for an Irish portal reads slightly wrong on a French one, and the other way round. The difference comes down to three things: what the reader looks for first (the BER in Ireland, the floor area in France), the counting unit (bedrooms versus rooms), and the mandatory disclosures. The substance of the listing does not change; its opening does.
The short version
- An Irish reader looks for the BER and the area first.
- A French reader looks for the floor area and the room count first.
- Ireland counts bedrooms, France counts rooms — a T3 is not a 3-bed.
- Disclosure requirements differ and must be checked before every publication.
What the reader looks for first
On Daft, the BER rating is front-line information. Buyers scan it, filter on it, and a listing that buries it looks incomplete. The area comes next: in Dublin, the line "Dublin 6" carries social and practical information that the price alone does not convey.
On SeLoger, the DPE matters just as much, but it does not open the reading. What a French reader looks for first is the floor area. A listing that pushes it to the end of the description looks evasive — and on a market where surface area is the primary comparison criterion, evasive reads as concealment.
Bedrooms or rooms: the classic confusion
This is the most common mistake among agencies working both markets.
| Ireland | France | |
|---|---|---|
| Advertised unit | Bedrooms (2-bed) | Rooms (T3) |
| Does the living room count? | No | Yes |
| Usual equivalence | 2-bed | T3 |
A French "T3" generally corresponds to an Irish "2-bed": two bedrooms plus a living room. Translating "T3" mechanically as "3-bed" inflates the listing by a bedroom that does not exist — at best it generates disappointed viewings, at worst it is a misleading advertisement.
A French reader looks for the floor area first. An Irish reader looks for the BER. Same property, different opening line.
Mandatory disclosures
| Market | Must appear |
|---|---|
| Ireland | BER rating · Agent's PSRA licence number |
| France | DPE labels · Estimated annual energy spend · Loi Carrez floor area in co-ownership · Fees and their split · Géorisques reference |
[TO VERIFY: these obligations change regularly. Confirm what is in force before publishing.]
Sources: the SEAI's BER guidance, and the French DPE rules.
In practice: one listing, two openings
Daft version: "Two-bed with a private south-facing garden, Rathmines — BER C1. First-floor apartment of 74 m², rewired and insulated last year, five minutes' walk from the Luas green line."
SeLoger version: "Appartement 3 pièces de 74 m², jardin privatif exposé sud sans vis-à-vis — Rathmines, Dublin 6. Premier étage. Électricité et isolation refaites en 2025. Tramway à 5 minutes. DPE : C1."
The property is identical and the facts are identical. Only the order changes — and that order decides whether the reader keeps going.
None of it is complicated, just annoying to remember
None of these rules is hard once you know it. They are simply annoying to recall at six in the evening, when there are three listings left to get out across two markets.
The full writing method is in the complete guide to writing property listings. To see what automatic per-portal formatting looks like, book a 10-minute call.