What to put in MLS private, showing and offer remarks

Most agents spend an hour on the public description and two minutes on everything else. The other remarks fields are the ones cooperating agents actually read before they book a showing or register an offer, and they’re where small mistakes cost you: a lockbox code in the wrong box, an offer date that disagrees with the one on your showing instructions, or a phone number that gets the listing bounced by the board. Here’s what goes where, with examples you can adapt.

Each field has one job

Ontario boards split listing remarks into separate fields because each one has a different audience. The names vary by system (Matrix and Realm label them differently), but the jobs are the same. PropTx, the MLS behind TRREB and several other boards, spells them out in its MLS Rules:

• •Public remarks describe the property: its features, its renovations, the things a buyer should know. They show on public sites.
• •Broker remarks (often called private remarks) carry what affects a cooperating brokerage, such as terms that change the commission offered and the seller’s contact arrangements.
• •Offer remarks carry everything about registering and presenting offers: the offer date and time, whether the seller will look at pre-emptive offers, and any direction about who attends the presentation.
• •Showing remarks carry everything about getting in the door.

If your board uses different field names or different rules, read its MLS rules before you rely on this list. The principle holds everywhere: put each piece of information in the one field whose readers need it, and nowhere else.

What stays out of public remarks

Public remarks are for the property. PropTx’s rules say the public-facing fields can’t promote goods or services and can’t carry self-promotion, including phone numbers, email addresses and website URLs. Contact details for the agent to call belong in the brokerage remarks instead. Other boards have similar rules, and a listing that breaks them can be corrected or pulled, usually at the worst moment.

A few more things that don’t belong in public remarks even where the rules are silent:

• •Anything about who the home suits. Describe the property and let buyers decide. Our post on fair-housing wording covers the phrases that cause trouble.
• •The seller’s reasons for selling, their timeline or their flexibility on price.
• •Offer instructions. Buyers can’t act on them, and repeating them in two fields means two places to update.
• •Showing details like “vacant” or “owner away weekends”. That’s information for agents, and for security reasons it shouldn’t be public.

Broker (private) remarks

Write these for the agent who is deciding whether to spend an evening on your listing. Keep them factual and short. Good things to include:

• •How to reach you for questions, and your preferred channel.
• •Anything in the listing agreement that changes what a cooperating brokerage is paid, stated plainly.
• •Which documents are available and where: a survey, a floor plan, a status certificate for a condo, a recent inspection.
• •Rental items and anything excluded that a buyer agent should know before writing, such as a leased water heater or a light fixture the seller is taking.

An example: “Survey, floor plan and 2025 pre-list inspection available on request. Water heater is a rental. Dining room chandelier excluded. Questions: text or call the listing agent at the number above.”

Showing remarks

Showing remarks get read on a phone in a car, often in the minute before a showing. Put the steps in the order the agent will need them:

• •How to book, and how much notice the seller needs.
• •Where the lockbox is. The code itself goes through your showing system or a confirmation message, never in a remarks field.
• •Pets, alarms, and anything the agent has to do on arrival or departure (lights off, doors locked, shoes off).
• •Parking, and any access quirk: a side door, a shared driveway, a buzzer.

An example: “Book through the showing system, 2 hours notice. Lockbox on the side gate. Cat in the house, please keep the basement door closed. Please turn off lights and lock both doors on exit. Park on the street.”

Offer remarks

This is the field that causes the most calls when it’s vague. State the date, the time, how to register and what to include, and use the same words you used everywhere else you mention the offer date:

• •The offer date and the time offers will be reviewed.
• •The registration deadline and how to register.
• •What to include with an offer (schedules, a copy of the deposit, any acknowledgement your brokerage uses).
• •Whether the seller will look at pre-emptive offers, and on what terms.
• •Any seller direction about the presentation, such as whether cooperating agents attend.

An example: “Offers reviewed Tuesday, October 13 at 7 PM. Register by 6 PM using the registration link in the listing. Include all schedules and a copy of the deposit. Seller reserves the right to review pre-emptive offers.” If you are holding offers, our offer night post walks through the rest of the process.

Keep the fields in agreement

The most common remarks problem is two fields that disagree after a change. The offer date moves, you update the offer remarks, and the showing remarks still say “offers on the 13th”. Any time you change a date, a price or a showing arrangement, check every field and your listing page at the same time. A quick checklist helps:

• •Offer date and time match in offer remarks, showing remarks and your listing page.
• •No contact details, links or promotion in public remarks.
• •No lockbox code in any field.
• •Each field fits its length limit. Matrix and Realm cut off differently, so write to the shorter one if you enter the same listing on both.

Writing all four from one listing

Listing Launchpad’s MLS description generator writes public, private, showing and offer remarks from the listing’s details, keeps each one under the smaller of the Matrix and Realm length limits, and checks every draft for fair-housing and unsupported advertising claims. You edit each field before it goes anywhere, and the Autofill extension puts them into the board form.