You're not letting
a room.
Paste your SpareRoom ad. You get back the real monthly cost written out in full, the household described the way people actually choose one, and anything in there that should not run flagged first — with the reason, not just the deletion.
You're letting a household.
Someone reading your ad is deciding who they will share a bathroom, a fridge and a Sunday morning with for the next year. Price and location get them to click. What makes them message is the description of the people and the way the house works — and that is the one thing almost no advert contains, because it is the awkward part to write.
This is why the generic listing advice fails hardest here. There is no condition, no unit, no postage. The most persuasive fact you own — "there are three of us in our thirties, we mostly cook separately, and the house is quiet at weekends" — has no equivalent in any product catalogue. SpareRoom's own guidance says the same thing: use the ad to give people an idea of what you are like, because they are going to be living with you, not just renting a room.
The question it resolves first
Do you live there? A live-in landlord is taking a lodger under an excluded licence. A live-out landlord is granting a tenancy. That single fork decides whether the deposit must be protected in a statutory scheme, whether the five-week cap applies, whether more than a month's rent can be taken in advance, whether an admin fee may be charged at all, and what the ad may lawfully say about who you are hoping to find. Getting it the wrong way round is the most consequential mistake available in this category — a live-out landlord told they may state a preference has been handed advice that does not apply to them — so if your ad does not settle it, the report asks rather than assumes.
Where room adverts go wrong
- "Bills extra" with no number. The most common hidden cost in a flatshare. It wants last quarter's real total and the month it came from.
- An admin or holding fee that is not chargeable. For a tenancy, upfront fees of that kind were banned outright by the Tenant Fees Act 2019.
- A deposit over the cap. Five weeks' rent below £50,000 annual rent, six above. On £750 a month that is £865.38, and the report shows the arithmetic.
- "12 month AST minimum". Assured tenancies in England are periodic now; that is a tenancy that cannot be granted.
- Never saying how many people share the bathroom. The single most-asked question in flatshare messages, and the easiest thing in the world to answer.
- A photo set with no bathroom in it. Nine slots, and readers assume the worst about anything unphotographed. They are usually right.
- Deleting and re-posting to climb the results. Prohibited, and ads get pulled for it. Boosts are the legitimate version.
What a fix looks like
Double room available — £750. Nice double in a lovely house share, great transport links. Living with 3 other friendly people. Bills extra. Deposit 6 weeks. 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]. £750 per calendar month — that is the rent we will accept. Bills on top: gas, electricity, water and broadband come to roughly [MUST SUPPLY: recent monthly total, and which month] split four ways. Deposit [MUST SUPPLY: amount — capped at five weeks, which on £750 is £865.38, protected in a government-approved scheme]. No other fees are payable. Who's here: three of us, [ADD FACT: ages and what we do, whether you cook together, how sociable it actually is — this is the part people decide on, so it is worth five honest sentences]. Applications welcome from everyone, including people receiving benefits and people with children.
The ad got longer, which is the right direction here. Four cost items went from unanswerable to answerable, one unlawful line and one unchargeable fee came out with their reasons attached, and the paragraph that decides whether anyone messages you now exists.
Before you pay.
Why does it keep asking whether I live there?
Because almost everything else forks on it. A live-in landlord is taking a lodger under an excluded licence; a live-out landlord is granting a tenancy. Deposit protection, the deposit cap, rent in advance, what fees may be charged and what the ad may say about who you are looking for all differ between the two. If your ad does not make it clear, that question is the first thing on your list, and the rest of the advice is provisional until you answer it.
It removed "professionals only". Why?
Because for a live-out landlord it is the polite form of "no DSS", and the indirect versions are caught alongside the blunt ones — as are blanket bans on families with children. It does not just vanish from the copy: it comes back as the first-ranked issue with the reason attached, because a landlord who never learns why it went writes it again in the next ad.
Will it work out my bills and my deposit for me?
No. It never invents a rent, a bills figure, a deposit, a room size, a broadband speed, a commute time or the number of people in the house. It asks for last quarter's actual energy total and the month it came from, and it shows you the arithmetic on the deposit cap so the figure you write is one you can stand behind.
What actually makes a room advert work?
Answering the questions people message to ask. How many of you share the bathroom. What the bills really come to. Whether the living room gets used or is somebody's overflow. Whether you cook together. The room gets them to click; the household is what makes them message, and "three other friendly people" is what every other ad already says.
What does it cost?
£7 buys 7,000 points, one pack. This job has a ceiling of 3,500 points and spends only what a finished report actually costs, so one payment covers two adverts — or one now with the rest kept for another job. Three revisions are included. A job that fails to generate spends nothing at all.
Other jobs Unfussed does.
One £7 pack buys 7,000 points and any job can spend them — see everything Unfussed does.
- Fix My Property ListingLetting the whole place instead of a room? Rightmove and Zoopla work on required fields, not prose.
- Fix My Airbnb ListingNights rather than months, and a guest who audits your description on arrival.
- Write My ComplaintLandlord, agent or anyone else — timeline and evidence in, a ready-to-send letter out.
- Fix My ListingClearing out before the new housemate arrives — paste any product listing.
Same job, tuned to another kind of advert: a car, a trade profile, a Google Business Profile, Etsy, eBay, Amazon, Vinted, Depop or Facebook Marketplace. Not selling anything? There is Wedding Speech Writer and Write My Card too.
Three newer jobs: Listing Video turns five to twenty of your own photographs into a short walkthrough or walkaround, Check This Scam reads a message you were not expecting and tells you what is visible in it and what you can check for yourself, and Explain My Document puts a letter, bill or notice into plain English.