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How to Email Your Likely to Sell List Without Sounding Like a Mass Blast
Most real estate agents are sitting on a list of homeowners who are statistically likely to sell in the next year, and they have never sent those people a single email. Not because they do not care. Because the moment they open the Home Platform, they freeze. How do I select everyone? What do I write? Will this feel spammy?
Why most real estate agents never email this list
The blocker is almost never the technology. It is confidence.
A real estate agent I work with recently told me straight out that she had already tagged her contacts and still could not bring herself to hit send. She knew the names. She knew the neighborhood. She just did not trust the process.
We worked together and had it done in about five minutes. That is the real lesson here. The workflow is short. The fear is long.
What is a “Likely to Sell” list in the Home Platform, really?
It is a group of contacts your the Home Platform has flagged as having a higher probability of listing, based on behavior and data signals rather than on you guessing.
It is not a guarantee. It is a priority order. Think of it as your platform telling you which thirty conversations to have first instead of which three hundred to have randomly.
That distinction matters, because it changes the tone of your email. You are not pitching. You are offering information to someone who might actually want it.
The five step workflow
Here is the sequence I teach…
1. Go to the Likely to Sell section of the Home Platform, not to your general contacts list.
2. Click the checkbox at the very top of the list, next to the name column.
3. Choose select all, so you capture every contact and not only the ones visible on your screen.
4. Click email. The Home Platform will draft a starting message for you and merge in each recipient’s first name automatically.
5. Edit the draft like a normal email, then optionally you can use the personal note feature to customize individual copies before you send.
That is it. Five steps, start to finish.
Why start from the list instead of a tag?
Because tags and smart lists are not the same thing, and they drift apart fast.
I have watched a real estate agent filter by a “likely to sell tag” and get forty seven contacts, while the platform itself was showing well over one hundred likely to sell recommendations. The tag only captured what she had manually gotten around to tagging.
There is a second reason. The built in list usually tracks who you have already contacted and moves them into a completed state. Your manual tag does not do that, which means you risk emailing the same homeowner three times in a month.
Why select all matters more than you think
Clicking the header checkbox often selects only the contacts loaded on the current page. You feel like you grabbed everyone. You grabbed twenty five people.
Look for the select all confirmation that appears after you click. The Home Platform tells you the total number of recipients before you send, read it. That number is your sanity check.
How do you keep a bulk email from feeling like a bulk email?
Use the personal note feature, and use it on the twenty percent of the list you actually know.
Here is how it works. After you draft your main message, you click into one individual recipient and start typing. Those edits apply only to that person’s copy. Everyone else still receives the original.
So the neighbor you coached through a bidding war last spring gets a sentence that references it. The rest of the list gets a clean, useful, neutral message. Same send, completely different experience on the other end.
This is what personalization at scale actually looks like. It is not a writing problem. It is a workflow problem.
Should you send one email or break the list up by area?
Ask yourself one question. Can every person on this list read this exact message and find it relevant?
If you have a homeowner in Hudson County and a second home owner in another state on the same list, the answer is probably no. Split it.
If your message is genuinely general, something like an offer to send a report of recent activity near them, one send is fine.
Why these templates use vague language on purpose
A lot of built in CRM’s like the Home Platform drafts say something like “there is something interesting happening in your area”. Real estate agents hate that line. It feels empty.
I get it, but there is logic behind it. Interesting is neutral and general. It works whether the local market news is good or bad, which matters when one message is going to five different towns.
My take: if your list is one neighborhood, delete that word and get specific. Name the activity. If your list spans several markets, leave the neutral framing and let the reply be where you get specific.
And whatever the draft gives you, rewrite the first sentence and the subject line in your own voice. Those two lines are the entire difference between a template and a personal brand.
What to do this week
You can run all of this in one sitting. Here is the order.
1. Open the Home Platform and compare your likely to sell list count to your likely to sell tag count (if you made one). If the numbers do not match, trust the list.
2. Scan the list and remove anyone who clearly does not belong, like a former client who moved out of your market.
3. Open the bulk email tool and rewrite the subject line and the opening sentence in your own words.
4. Personalize five individual copies using the personal note feature. Five. Not fifty.
That is a real marketing action, done in under an hour, with zero ad spend.
Frequently asked questions
How many contacts should I email at once?
Send to the full likely to sell list if the message is relevant to all of them. There is no advantage to artificially shrinking the list. The only reason to split is relevance, such as different towns or different property types. Localizing and sending to a smaller niche will make it feel even more personal, but obviously, it will take more time.
What if some of my emails do not send?
That is normal. The Home Platform will quietly exclude addresses they already know are undeliverable, so your recipient count may come in slightly lower than your contact count. It is the platform protecting your sender reputation, not an error on your end.
How often should I email my likely to sell list?
A useful rhythm for most real estate agents is once every six to eight weeks, with a genuinely helpful piece of information each time. Lean on your CRM’s completed status so you are not re contacting the same homeowners too quickly. But in that timeframe, it would be great to also target those contacts via postcard in the mail, or general marketing materials. Keep you on their mind.
Do I need a fancy subject line?
No. You need a specific one. A subject line that names the neighborhood or the type of information you are offering will beat anything clever, because homeowners open email about their own street.
If you want to talk through how this fits your database or your market, my door is open. Send me a note any time and we can work through it together.
Stop Typing Into Home Platform: How Real Estate Agents Can Just Talk to It Instead
I spend my weeks sitting next to real estate agents across Northern New Jersey, Hudson County, and Westchester, New York, walking through their tools as a Field Marketing Specialist at Coldwell Banker. And there is one pattern I see over and over.
It is not that real estate agents do not know what to do. Most of them know exactly what to do. They just do not know where to start, and the starting point is almost always buried under administrative friction.
So let me hand you the single highest leverage habit I teach right now. Stop typing into The Home Platform. Start talking to it.
Why your CRM notes never make it into the Home Platform
Here is the honest workflow for most real estate agents. You take a call. You scribble notes on a legal pad. You tell yourself you will enter them later.
Later never comes. Three days pass, the pad gets buried, and the detail that would have won you the listing evaporates.
That is not a discipline problem. That is a friction problem. Typing notes into a CRM after every single call is a boring, repetitive task, and boring repetitive tasks always lose to the next phone call.
The fix is not more willpower. The fix is removing the typing.
What does the AI assistant inside your CRM actually do?
Short answer: it reads your database for you, and it does data entry for you when you speak to it.
There are two features I want every real estate agent to use. They take almost no time and they compound fast.
The daily briefing
Open your AI assistant in the morning and ask for your daily briefing. It scans the last twenty four hours of activity across your contacts, your listings, your calendar, and your tasks, and it tells you what deserves attention today.
When your database is new, the briefing will be quiet. That is normal. The system is still learning you. The more you use it, the sharper it gets.
I also love it for tasks. I once told the platform to remind me to pick up my dry cleaning tomorrow. The next morning I got an email telling me I had a task due. It works for your business and it works for your actual life.
Voice mode
This is the one that makes real estate agents sit up straight.
Voice mode lets you talk to your CRM out loud, the same way you would talk to a person. You say what happened, and it takes the action.
I recently sat with a real estate agent who was about to manually type a long list of buyer criteria. We said it out loud instead and had the assistant build it. Same result, a fraction of the time.
How do you log a call without typing a word?
Here is the exact workflow. Try it after your very next phone call.
1. Open the AI assistant on your phone or your computer and turn on voice mode.
2. Say the contact’s name, email address, and phone number out loud and ask it to add them to your CRM.
3. Ask it to log the activity, and say in plain language what you discussed.
4. Ask it to draft a friendly follow up email about that conversation.
5. Review the draft, edit anything you want, and approve it.
That entire sequence takes roughly fifteen seconds. I have watched the assistant create a brand new contact, store the email and phone number, and have a warm follow up email waiting in the composer before the real estate agent could finish opening a spreadsheet.
You can add details the same way. Say the client’s birthday out loud and it goes onto the contact record. No forms, no tabs, no typing.
What happens when the AI gets something wrong?
It will. Let me be the guy who tells you that plainly.
In that same session, the assistant successfully created the contact and drafted the email, then failed to create a Business Tracker I asked for. It reported it failed and the folder was not there.
That is the reality of these tools right now. They are powerful and they are imperfect.
So here is my rule. Use the AI to do the heavy lifting, then spend five seconds verifying the result. Open the contact. Confirm it is there. Confirm the email draft looks like you.
A tool that gets you eighty percent of the way there in fifteen seconds still beats a perfect manual system you will never actually maintain.
What to do this week
You do not need a system overhaul. You need three habits.
1. Every morning, open the AI assistant and run your daily briefing before you do anything else. It takes under a minute.
2. After every client conversation, use voice mode to log the activity. Do not overthink the wording. One sentence is enough. Imperfect notes beat no notes.
3. Pick one active buyer and ask the Ai Assistant to build them a Collection. See what happens.
Do those three things for one week and you will feel the difference in how organized your pipeline looks. Do them for a month and your follow up will be unrecognizable.
Let us talk about it
If any of this feels like something you want to actually set up rather than just read about, send me a note. I am always happy to walk a real estate agent through it one on one.
The Private Exclusive Listing Strategy: How to Take an Overpriced Listing Without Getting Burned
Every real estate agent I work with has the same story. A seller wants 1.8 million. The comps say 1.5 on the best day of the year. The seller points at the neighbor’s sale and says their kitchen is bigger.
So you have two bad choices. Take the listing and spend the next month watching it rot, or walk away and hand it to someone who will say yes to anything.
I want to show you a third option, because it is the one that has changed the most listing conversations for the real estate agents I support across Northern New Jersey, Hudson County, and Westchester, New York.
Why do overpriced listings hurt real estate agents so much?
When I ask real estate agents why they hate overpriced listings, I get the same two answers.
The first is money and time. You are fronting the cost of marketing a property you know you will be carrying longer than you should.
The second is worse. You know that in two or three weeks you are going to have a genuinely unpleasant conversation with a frustrated seller who wants to know why there are no offers, and who does not want to hear that the price was the problem all along.
Underneath both of those is one thing. The moment a listing goes live on the MLS and hits the public portals, two numbers start running against you. Days on market, and price history.
In a fast market, those numbers move quickly. If homes in your area are going under contract in about ten days, a listing sitting at day thirty starts to look like damaged goods to buyers, even when nothing at all is wrong with the house.
That is the real cost. Not the price. The public record of the price.
What is a phased listing strategy?
A phased listing strategy means you do not launch a listing once. You launch it three times.
Phase one is Private Exclusive. Phase two is Coming Soon. Phase three is active on the MLS.
Each phase widens your audience, and the first two phases do it without creating public days on market or price history. That is the whole trick.
Phase one: Private Exclusive
In this phase the listing lives on the Home Platform, where real estate professionals across the network can see it. It is not on the MLS and it is not on the consumer portals.
No days on market. No price history. No public risk to your seller.
You also get to choose what you show. You can include photos or not. You can include a price or not. I am not telling you to skip either one, but you and your seller have the option, and options are leverage.
Phase two: Coming Soon
Coming soon is the widening step. The listing stays on the Home Platform and also gets distributed to consumer facing sites, which means a much larger audience of real buyers starts seeing it.
Still no accruing days on market. Still no public price history.
This is where early demand gets built. People start asking about it before anyone can technically make an offer, and that is exactly the energy you want walking into launch day.
Phase three: active on the MLS
Now you go live. Full MLS syndication, every portal, every buyer.
The difference is that you are not guessing anymore. You have had weeks of feedback, you have refined the price, you have fixed whatever people kept mentioning, and you have a warm buyer list already watching.
You are entering the public market with demand instead of hoping to build it there.
How do you pitch this in the living room?
Here is what I want real estate agents to understand. This is not a technology feature. It is a marketing strategy, and it is a differentiator.
When you walk into a listing appointment, you are usually competing against three or four other real estate agents. Most of them are going to say some version of the same thing about photos, open houses, and social media.
Try this instead. Something in the spirit of: I have a 3-phased marketing strategy that lets us test price, gain real pricing insight, and generate early demand while launching your home three times so you receive the best offers.
Then stop talking.
What happens in that silence is the point. The seller has not heard that from anybody else. You sound like a person with a plan, and a plan is what they are actually shopping for.
The follow up line is just as strong. Most brokerages wait until your home hits the MLS to start marketing it. I start the moment you sign the listing agreement.
How does this let you take an overpriced listing?
This is my favorite part, because it flips the whole problem.
You are not fighting the seller about price anymore. You are collecting evidence.
Here is roughly how the conversation goes. Mr. and Mrs. Seller, I do not have data that supports 1.8. My concern is that if we go public at that number and sit for thirty days in a market where homes are going under contract in about ten, we look like damaged goods.
But I have a proposal. I can market your home privately to a large network of top real estate agents with no risk to you. No days on market. No price history. No public price drops.
Over the next seven days I am going to contact the top real estate agents in our market, the ones who bring the most buyers. I am going to share your property at your number. I am going to gather their feedback. And in seven days I am coming back to you with what they said so we can decide our next step together.
Now look at what you just did. You signed the listing. You protected the seller. And you handed the pricing conversation over to the market instead of owning it yourself.
When you return on day seven with honest feedback, you are not arguing. You are reporting. Sellers argue with opinions. They rarely argue with a pile of consistent feedback from people who sell homes for a living.
What about the seller who wants to wait a few months?
Same framework, different objection.
You know this one. “We love you, we are definitely selling, we just want to wait until after the holidays.”
Most real estate agents say great, January is a wonderful time, I will put a reminder in my calendar and call you in December. Then one of two things happens. The seller cools off and decides not to move, or you call in December and find out a relative just got licensed.
With a private exclusive you have a better answer. January is a great time to list. In the meantime I have a program that lets me start privately marketing your home right now with no days on market and no price history, so I can spend these months building a list of interested buyers who will be ready the day we launch.
You sign the agreement today. You remove both risks. And the seller starts feeling like the process has genuinely begun, because it has.
What this means for real estate agents working with buyers
Since buyer representation agreements became standard, the old pitch of do not worry about it, the seller pays me does not hold up. Buyers want to know what they actually get.
Private exclusive inventory is a real answer. You can honestly say you have access to listings nationwide that a buyer will not find on the major consumer portals, and then you can open your phone and show them.
Think about what the old printed MLS books did. Buyers had to come to a real estate agent because the real estate agent held the inventory. Private inventory quietly restores a piece of that. It also makes out of area referrals easy, because you can pull up a city your client is relocating to and show them homes before you introduce them to a colleague there.
What to do this week
Here is the practical part. As a Field Marketing Specialist at Coldwell Banker Realty, this is exactly the list I give real estate agents who want to act on this immediately.
1. Move the Home Platform app to the first screen of your phone. If it is buried on the last page with the apps you never open, you will not use it, and this entire strategy runs through it.
2. Open the app, tap the home icon in the bottom left, and find the private exclusives and coming soon tile. Spend ten minutes browsing your own market so you know what is actually in there.
3. Zoom into a city where you have a past client who relocated. Screenshot what you find. That is a referral conversation waiting to happen.
4. Write out your three phase pitch in your own words and say it out loud until it sounds like you and not like a script.
5. Build one script per phase. One for private exclusive, one for coming soon, one for the public launch. Keep them short enough to say from memory.
6. Use it at your very next listing appointment, even if the seller is priced correctly. You want the reps before you need it on a hard one.
7. Revisit one seller you lost or postponed this year and reopen the conversation with the private exclusive angle.
Do not try to memorize everything at once. Most real estate agents need to hear a new idea several times before it becomes natural, so pick two items from this list and do them today.
Frequently asked questions
Does a private exclusive listing accrue days on market?
No. A private exclusive is not on the MLS and is not syndicated to public consumer portals, so days on market and public price history do not begin accruing. Those clocks start when the listing goes active on the MLS. That is the core reason the strategy protects sellers who want to test a price.
Do I have to include photos and a price on a private exclusive?
No. During the private exclusive phase, photos and pricing are optional, so you and your seller decide what to share. Most of the time I still recommend including good photos, because the listing needs to look serious to the real estate agents viewing it. The point is that you have the choice.
Is private marketing bad for my seller?
It should always be the seller’s informed decision. Used well, the private phase reduces risk by letting the seller test price without public days on market or price drops, then still reach the full public market in the final phase. Used poorly, it can limit exposure. Document the conversation, explain the tradeoffs plainly, and follow your local MLS rules and your brokerage policy.
How long should the private exclusive phase last?
It depends on your goal. For a pricing test, seven days is often enough to gather meaningful feedback from the top real estate agents in your market. For a seller who is waiting on a future launch date, the phase can run for months while you quietly build a buyer list.
What is the difference between private exclusive and coming soon?
Private exclusive is visible to real estate professionals on the Home Platform only. Coming soon widens the audience to consumers on brokerage and partner sites while still avoiding public days on market and price history. Private exclusive is your testing phase and coming soon is your demand building phase.
If any of this sparked a question about how you would actually say it in front of a seller, come find me. I am always happy to sit down and work through the language with you.
Home Platform Public Collections: A New Way to Showcase Listings
A new feature just landed inside Home Platform that I think a lot of Real Estate Agents are going to love once they find it: Home Platform Public Collections. If you already use Collections to share homes with an individual buyer, this is the same idea, but built for anyone with the link, not just one client.
I work with Real Estate Agents across 19 offices in New Jersey and New York as a Field Marketing Specialist for Coldwell Banker, and Home Platform Public Collections are exactly the kind of feature I want on every agent’s radar the week it launches. Here is what it is, how it is different from a regular collection, and how to build your first one.
What Are Home Platform Public Collections?
A Public Collection is a curated list of listings you build inside Home Platform and share with a link that anyone can open, no invitation required. Most Real Estate Agents are building these around a specific neighborhood or price point, something like Best New Listings Under 800K in Ridgewood or Waterfront Homes in Hoboken This Fall.
Once it is live, you can drop that link into an email newsletter, a social media post, or embed it directly on your website.
Public Collection vs Private Collection: What Is the Difference?
If you have used Collections in Home Platform before, this will feel familiar. A private collection is tied to one client’s search and their specific criteria, and only that client can see it once invited.
A Public Collection skips all of that. It is not attached to any one client, and anyone with the link can view it. That makes it a marketing tool first, built to showcase your listings and your expertise to a wider audience instead of guiding a single buyer’s search.
How to Create Home Platform Public Collections Step by Step
Here is exactly how to build your first Home Platform Public Collection, step by step.
1. Start Your Search
From your Home Platform dashboard, scroll down and select Search, then enter your criteria. Most Real Estate Agents build a Public Collection around a neighborhood or price point, so search with that theme in mind.
2. Select the Homes You Want to Showcase
Once your search results load, click the checkbox next to each home you want to include. Keep in mind that a collection can hold up to 100 homes, so you have plenty of room to build something thorough.
When you are done selecting, click Add to Collection on the blue bar at the top of the page.
3. Create the Collection and Set It to Public
Click Create New Collection, then under Collection Type select Public. Give it a title. Your viewers will see this title, so keep it clean and skip any special characters.
Click Create Collection, then Add to Collection, then Done.
4. Add Comments and Preview Your Collection
From the left sidebar, click Workspace, then Public Collections, and open the one you just created. If you want to add a personal note on any property, click into it and type in the Add a Comment field, then click Add.
Before you share anything, click the three dots in the upper right corner and choose Preview so you can see exactly what your viewers will see.
5. Share Your Public Collection
Click the three dots again and choose Share. From there you can click the pencil icon to add a cover image, click any of your connected social media platforms to post directly, or click Copy This Link to grab a URL for an email newsletter. If you want to add the collection to your own website, click Embed This Code instead.
One thing worth flagging, a Public Collection will not update itself with new listings. If you want to add more properties later, you will need to go back to Search and add them manually.
A Few Things to Know Before You Share
A couple of details are easy to miss the first time through. You will need to be signed in to whichever social platform you are posting to before Home Platform can publish on your behalf.
Also, deleting a Public Collection is permanent. If you need to remove one, go to Workspace, Public Collections, check the box in the upper right of the collection, and click Delete. Home Platform will ask you to confirm before it is gone for good.
A Few Ways Real Estate Agents Are Using Public Collections
A few ways I am already seeing Real Estate Agents put Public Collections to work. Some build a rolling New Listings This Week collection that highlights everything they have brought to market recently. Others build a Neighborhood Spotlight collection featuring every active listing in one town, which does double duty as local market expertise.
A Price Point Roundup works well for first time buyer content, and an Open House Weekend collection is a fast way to round up everything you are hosting on a given Saturday and Sunday. Pick whichever angle fits your current inventory and build from there.
Make This Part of Your Listing Marketing This Week
If you have not built one yet, this is a great week to start. Pick a neighborhood or price point you want to be known for, pull together your strongest listings, and build your first Home Platform Public Collection.
Then put that link to work. Drop it into your next newsletter, share it on your social channels, or embed it on your website so it keeps working for you long after you hit publish.
Let’s Build Yours Together
If you want help thinking through which listings to feature or how to weave a Public Collection into your broader marketing, let’s talk it through. You can find more tips like this one on the marketingwithphil.com blog.
Book a quick session with me here and we will map it out together.
What to Do When a Client Chooses Another Real Estate Agent
What to Do When a Client Chooses Another Real Estate Agent
Somewhere between the listing presentation and the “we went with someone else” text, a little piece of your confidence takes a hit. If you have been in this business for more than five minutes, you know exactly the feeling I am talking about.
I am Phil, a Field Marketing Specialist at Coldwell Banker, and I spend most of my time helping Real Estate Agents get comfortable with the tools that make this job easier. But today I want to talk about something that has nothing to do with a feature list and everything to do with what happens right after a client rejects you.
It Happens to Every Real Estate Agent, Even the Good Ones
Losing a client is not a reflection of your skill, your effort, or your worth as a Real Estate Agent. Sometimes a seller’s cousin has a license. Sometimes a buyer gets cold feet about the whole process. Sometimes the timing is just off.
None of that makes the moment sting less. But it does mean the story is not over, it just took an unexpected turn.
Give Yourself a Minute Before You Do Anything Else
Before you touch your CRM or fire off a follow up text, let yourself actually feel the disappointment for a second. Real Estate Agents are expected to bounce back instantly, and that expectation is not fair or realistic.
Take the breath. Then, when you are ready, let’s turn this into something productive instead of something you carry around all week.
Turn the Moment Into Data, Not Dwelling
Here is where the mindset shift happens. A “no” today is information you can actually use, not evidence that you did something wrong.
Log What Happened While It’s Fresh
Open the contact’s profile in Home Platform and add a quick note. What did they say? Why did they go another direction? Was it price, timing, a personal connection, something else?
You are not writing this to relive the rejection. You are writing it so future you has real context the next time this contact resurfaces, and so you can spot patterns across your business over time.
Five Steps to Take Inside Home Platform After a Client Says No
Once you have processed the moment and logged the details, here is exactly what I recommend doing inside Home Platform. Each of these takes two minutes or less.
1. Tag the Contact Instead of Deleting Them
Resist the urge to archive them and move on. Add a tag like “Lost Listing” or “Circle Back” instead. Home Platform allows up to 50 tags per contact, so you have plenty of room to keep your CRM organized without losing track of anyone.
Tagging keeps the relationship alive in your system even when it is not active in your day to day attention.
2. Move Them to Nurturing, Not Closed
Inside Business Tracker, shift the contact’s pipeline stage from wherever it was to Nurturing. This one small action reframes the entire relationship in your own head. It is not a closed door, it is a client on a slower timeline.
3. Set a Future Check In Task
Add a task inside Home Platform to reach back out in three months, six months, or whenever feels appropriate for the situation. Let the platform hold that date for you instead of relying on memory or, worse, guilt.
4. Enroll Them in a Long Term Action Plan
If it fits the relationship, enroll the contact in a longer nurture Action Plan. Action Plans in Home Platform run as a drip sequence, and you can enroll up to 100 contacts into a single plan at a time. That means you can build one plan for all your “not right now” contacts and let it quietly work in the background.
5. Let the System Carry the Relationship So You Don’t Have To
This is the part I really want Real Estate Agents to internalize. Once the tag is set, the stage is updated, the task is scheduled, and the Action Plan is running, you do not need to keep this client top of mind out of anxiety. The system is doing that job now. You are free to focus on your next opportunity.
Why “Not Right Now” Isn’t the Same as “Never”
I have talked to enough Real Estate Agents to know that some of your best future clients are sitting in a “lost” pile somewhere in your CRM right now. Circumstances change. The other agent’s contract ends. The timeline shifts. When that happens, you want to be the one who stayed visible, not the one who disappeared after the first no.
The Real Takeaway for Real Estate Agents
Rejection is part of this business, full stop. What separates burnt out agents from resilient ones is not that resilient agents never lose a client, it is that they have a system for what happens next.
Home Platform gives you that system already built in. You do not need a separate spreadsheet or a sticky note on your monitor. You need five minutes and the steps above.
Let’s Build a Follow Up System That Actually Works for You
If you want help setting up tags, Business Tracker stages, or your first long term Action Plan inside Home Platform, I would love to walk through it with you. Grab some time on my calendar and we will get your follow up system running so the next “not right now” turns into a “yes” down the road.
Your Daily Home Platform Checklist: A 10-Minute Cadence for Real Estate Agents
A few weeks ago I posted a quick carousel about the Home Platform and got a comment that stuck with me. Someone asked if anyone had put together a Home Platform daily checklist, something simple to check and do in the platform every day. That question is exactly why I wanted to write this post.
I work with Real Estate Agents across 19 offices in New Jersey and New York as a Field Marketing Specialist for Coldwell Banker, and the Home Platform question I hear most often is not “what does this tool do.” It is “what do I actually do with it every day.” Here is the Home Platform daily checklist I am telling my agents to start with.
Why a Daily Checklist Matters More Than the Platform Itself
Any new CRM or production platform can feel overwhelming in the first few weeks. Home Platform has a lot packed into it, from your contacts and Business Tracker to Marketing Center and an AI Assistant.
The Real Estate Agents who get real value out of a daily checklist are not the ones who explore every feature. They are the ones who build a short, repeatable routine and stick to it. Ten focused minutes a day beats a two hour deep dive once a month, every time.
The 6-Step Home Platform Daily Checklist
1. Start With Your AI Assistant’s Daily Briefing
Open the AI Assistant panel from the top nav and look for the “Get Daily Briefing” prompt. It will generate a daily briefing that pulls together what actually needs your attention that day.
I like starting here because it sets the agenda before you get pulled into your inbox. Think of it as your first stop, not an extra step.
2. Scan Your Home Dashboard
Your Home dashboard is built from widgets like Saved Searches, My Buyers, and My Sellers. Give it a quick scan for anything new since yesterday, a new search result, a buyer who has gone quiet, a seller lead that needs a follow up.
This should take you two minutes, not twenty. You are scanning for what changed, not re-reading everything.
3. Work Your Likely to Sell List
The Likely to Sell tool scores your own contacts based on things like how long they have owned their home, local sales trends, and appreciation. It is sitting right there under the Needs Outreach tab.
This is one of the most underused features I see. These are warm contacts the platform has already flagged for you. Reach out to two or three of them a day and you will notice your pipeline filling in ways cold prospecting never delivers as consistently.
4. Clear Your Tasks
Head to Tasks and clear anything marked Overdue first, then work through what is due Today. This sounds obvious, but an overdue task list is one of the fastest ways to lose trust with a client who is waiting to hear from you.
If you are using Action Plans to enroll contacts in a drip sequence, this is also where you will catch anything that needs a personal touch instead of an automated one.
5. Check Business Tracker
For every active deal, open Business Tracker and look at the Today and Up Next section on the Overview tab. Log a quick note while the details are still fresh instead of trying to remember them at the end of the week.
Business Tracker is meant to be your transaction command center. It only works that way if you actually update it daily instead of only when something goes wrong.
6. Review Your Message Engagement
Last stop, check your Messages tab for opens, clicks, and replies on anything you have sent recently. If someone opened your last email three times, that is a signal, not a coincidence.
Following up with an engaged contact the same day you notice the activity is one of the simplest ways to turn a quiet lead into a live conversation.
What This Home Platform Daily Checklist Gets You
None of these six steps take long on their own. Together, they take most Real Estate Agents about ten minutes, and this checklist touches every part of the platform that actually drives business: your AI Assistant, your dashboard, your warmest leads, your open tasks, your active deals, and your engagement signals.
The real value is not any single feature. It is the habit. Real Estate Agents who run through the same checklist every day stop letting leads go cold and stop scrambling to remember where a deal stands.
Make It Stick This Week
Here is how I would put this into practice starting tomorrow morning.
Set a recurring ten minute block on your calendar before you open your regular email inbox. Run through the six steps in order every time so it becomes automatic instead of something you have to think through. Keep a saved screenshot of this Home Platform daily checklist until it sticks, most Real Estate Agents have it memorized within two weeks.
If you already have your own version of a daily checklist that works for you, I would love to hear it. Drop me a message or bring it up next time we talk shop.
Let’s Build Your Routine Together
If you want help building out your own Home Platform checklist, or just want to talk through what is working and what is not, let’s grab some time. I would rather help you get this right than watch you figure it out alone. You can find more tips like this one on the marketingwithphil.com blog.
Book a quick session with me here and let’s map out your cadence together.
What the 2026 Luxury Mid-Year Report Really Means for Your Marketing
The Coldwell Banker Global Luxury 2026 Mid-Year Report just dropped, and if you work anywhere near the high end of this business, it is worth your time. Luxury real estate marketing 2026 looks different than it did even a year ago, and this report explains exactly why. I spend my days as a Field Marketing Specialist at Coldwell Banker helping Real Estate Agents turn market information into marketing that actually moves people, so I read these reports with a specific question in mind.
Not just what does the data say. But what do I do with it on Monday morning.
That is what this post is about. I will walk through the numbers that matter, share where I think the real story lives, and then give you practical ways to put it to work in your own marketing.
The Headline Numbers Everyone Will Quote
Let’s get the stats out of the way first, because you will see these floating around LinkedIn for the next month.
- Luxury sales grew 1.2% year over year, nearly double the 0.7% growth in the broader market
- Median sold price for luxury single family homes climbed 4.7% to just over $1.83 million
- Average monthly luxury inventory fell 3.7% for single family homes and 6.1% for attached properties
- The top 5% of transactions accounted for 65.6% of total dollar volume in the single family segment
- Over 78% of surveyed Luxury Property Specialists reported feeling confident about the second half of 2026
- Global luxury inquiries on JamesEdition jumped 50.8% in the first five months of the year
Solid numbers. Genuinely encouraging ones. But the real work of luxury real estate marketing 2026 starts after you read the stats. But here is the thing about statistics in real estate marketing: everyone has access to the same data. Quoting it is not a differentiator. Interpreting it is.
What Most People Will Miss About Luxury Real Estate Marketing 2026
I read this report three times. The second and third passes are where it got interesting for me.
The Market Split in Two, and Your Marketing Should Too
The report describes a K-shaped luxury market, and I think this is the single most useful concept in the whole document. Single family homes are climbing. Attached properties are contracting. Median prices for luxury single family homes rose 4.7% while attached properties fell 2.4%. Days on market for single family held steady at 33 days while attached stretched to 37.
Those are two different markets wearing the same label.
If you market both segments with the same messaging, the same visuals, and the same urgency, one of those campaigns is going to underperform. Detached buyers are responding to space, land, and privacy. Attached buyers need a different value proposition entirely, one built around location, lifestyle convenience, and lock and leave flexibility.
Segment your messaging. It sounds obvious. Most agents still do not do it.
Scarcity Became the Selling Point
Inventory is down, and the natural instinct is to frame that as a challenge. The report reframes it beautifully, and I think Real Estate Agents should borrow this framing wholesale.
When exceptional properties are genuinely scarce, competition intensifies among a buyer pool that has plenty of capital and nowhere better to put it. Scarcity is not suppressing demand here. It is concentrating it.
There is also a fascinating detail about shadow inventory. Nearly 59% of surveyed specialists expect inventory to rise slightly by year end, largely from sellers currently sitting on the sidelines waiting for the right moment. That is a listing conversation waiting to happen.
Buyers Slowed Down on Purpose
This one changed how I think about luxury real estate marketing content.
The report introduces the low compromise buyer, and 43% of surveyed specialists named this refusal to settle as the top buying trend in their market, a big jump from 30% the year before. On top of that, 51% said luxury buyers rarely make trade offs during closing.
Meanwhile, agents across the network are reporting that buyers are showing up with AI research already done. They have compared neighborhoods, run appreciation models, and pulled school data before the first showing. If that shift interests you, my guide on getting recommended by AI is a good companion read.
Urgency based marketing does not work on this buyer. Information based marketing does.
Five Luxury Real Estate Marketing 2026 Moves You Can Make This Week
Here is where I want to be genuinely useful. These are things you can act on immediately.
1. Rewrite Your Listing Copy Around Irreplaceability
The report is clear that buyers are paying premiums for properties that cannot be recreated. Historic character, waterfront acreage, architectural pedigree, protected views.
Go look at your three most recent listing descriptions. Count how many sentences describe features versus how many describe what makes the property genuinely impossible to duplicate. If feature lists are winning, rewrite them. Lead with the irreplaceable thing in the first line.
2. Build a Simple Market Update You Actually Send
Most agents either send nothing or send a data dump nobody reads. Pick three numbers from this report, add two sentences of your own interpretation for your local market, and send it monthly.
That is it. Consistency beats comprehensiveness every single time in this business.
3. Lead Your Listing Presentations With the Scarcity Story
Sellers who have been waiting need a reason to move now. The scarcity dynamic gives you one that is honest and data supported.
Frame it simply: fewer comparable properties on the market means less competition for your seller’s home and more concentrated attention from serious buyers. That is a stronger argument than any pressure tactic.
4. Give the Analytical Buyer Something to Analyze
If today’s buyer is going to research anyway, be their source. Add pricing history context to your listing pages. Include neighborhood appreciation data in your follow up. Create a one page property brief with the details they would otherwise go dig up themselves.
Local search matters here too. Making sure your Google Business Profile is fully optimized means these research-driven buyers actually find you while they are digging.
5. Start the Generational Wealth Conversation Early
The report cites an estimated $38.3 trillion generational wealth transfer already underway, and just over 33% of surveyed specialists named it the single most important force reshaping the high end market over the next 12 to 24 months.
Your past clients have adult children. Those children are becoming buyers, often with family capital behind them. Building relationships with the next generation now is one of the highest leverage marketing moves available to you, and almost nobody is doing it deliberately.
The Bigger Lesson for Luxury Real Estate Marketing 2026
If I had to compress this entire report into one marketing principle, it would be this.
The luxury market is rewarding patience, precision, and genuine expertise. Buyers are more informed, more selective, and less reactive than they have been in years. That means marketing built on urgency and volume is losing ground, while marketing built on insight and trust is gaining it.
That is good news if you are willing to do the work. It means the agents who understand their market deeply and communicate it clearly have a real, durable advantage over the ones just posting listings.
Data is only powerful when someone translates it into a story a client can act on. That translation is the actual job, and it is the heart of effective luxury real estate marketing.
Let’s Talk About Your Marketing
If you are a Real Estate Agent trying to figure out how to turn market insights like these into marketing that fits your brand and your market, I would genuinely love to help.
We can look at what you are currently doing, find the gaps, and build something practical you will actually keep up with.
Google Business Profile for Real Estate Agents: Your Step-by-Step Optimization Guide
Google Business Profile for Real Estate Agents: Your Step-by-Step Optimization Guide
If you’ve claimed your Google Business Profile but haven’t touched it since, you’re leaving one of the most powerful (and completely free) digital marketing tools sitting idle. As a Field Marketing Specialist at Coldwell Banker, I work one-on-one with agents across my region, and the Google Business Profile is one of the first things I look at. More often than not, it’s incomplete, under-utilized, or both.
The good news? Fixing it doesn’t take long, and the payoff is real. A well-optimized Google Business Profile helps you show up in local search, get discovered by AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity, and build the kind of credibility that converts strangers into clients.
Here’s exactly what to do — step by step.
Why Your Google Business Profile Matters More Than Ever
When someone searches “real estate agent near me” or “trusted agent in [your town],” Google doesn’t just pull up websites, it surfaces Business Profiles. These appear in the local map pack, in knowledge panels, and increasingly, they feed the AI tools your potential clients are already using to find recommendations.
I worked with an agent in Southern New Jersey who had zero social media presence — no Instagram, no Facebook, nothing — but had accumulated over 55 five-star Google reviews filled with keyword-rich language like “trusted real estate agent” and “knowledgeable about the local market.” A buyer searching for a trusted agent in that area found them through an AI tool. That’s what a strong, active Google Business Profile can do.
This isn’t about vanity metrics. It’s about making sure you exist where your future clients are looking.
Step 1 — Write a Keyword-Rich Business Description
What the Description Field Actually Does
Your Google Business Profile description is prime real estate (pun intended) for search optimization. This short block of text tells Google, and AI search tools, exactly who you are, who you serve, and where you work. If you leave it blank, you’re letting Google guess.
How to Write a Description That Works
Use AI to write it — seriously. Open ChatGPT, Claude, or whatever AI tool you’re comfortable with and say something like:
“Write me an SEO-optimized description for my Google Business Profile. I’m a real estate agent specializing in [your market]. I work with [luxury buyers / first-time buyers / relocating families — whatever fits you]. My key service areas are [list your towns].”
The keywords you want woven into that description are:
- Your primary location(s): The specific towns and neighborhoods where you close deals
- Your specialty: Luxury, first-time buyers, waterfront, investment properties, relocations, etc.
- Credentials: If you hold a designation (Global Luxury Certified, Buyer Specialist, etc.), include it
- Who you help: Be specific — “helping families find their forever home in Westchester” lands differently than “real estate services”
Once you have a draft you like, paste it into the description field in your profile editor. It doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to be there.
Step 2 — Add Your Website and Social Media Profiles
Your Website Link
This one is straightforward but often missing. Go into your profile editor, scroll to the website field, and add your agent website URL. Google uses this to cross-reference your online presence and verify that your business is legitimate and active.
Your Social Media Links (And Why LinkedIn Matters Most for AI)
Google Business Profile lets you add links to your social accounts — Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and others. Add every platform where you have an active presence.
Here’s something most agents don’t realize: LinkedIn is one of the most heavily indexed platforms by AI tools. When AI search engines are pulling information about a professional, LinkedIn data surfaces frequently. If your LinkedIn is connected to your Google Business Profile, you’re increasing the chance that AI recommends you when someone asks for a trusted agent in your market.
To find your social URLs, simply open each platform in a new browser tab, navigate to your profile page, and copy the full URL from the address bar. Paste each one into your Google Business Profile under “Social Profiles.”
Step 3 — Add Photos Consistently (Once a Week Is Enough)
What Photos Signal to Google
You don’t need a professional photoshoot every week. The goal of regular photo uploads isn’t to impress your visitors — it’s to signal to Google that your business is active.
Think of it this way: Google is constantly asking, “Is this business still operating?” Every photo you upload is your answer: “Yes. Still here. Still working.”
What to Post
- A photo of a new listing
- A photo of yourself at a closing
- A snapshot from an open house
- A shot of your market area or a neighborhood you love
- A headshot or personal photo that shows your face
It doesn’t need to be groundbreaking content. One photo per week is enough to keep your account looking alive and relevant. Over time, those photos cycle through your profile and keep refreshing your visual presence in Google search.
Step 4 — Use Google Posts to Feed the Algorithm
What Google Posts Are (And Who Actually Sees Them)
Here’s a truth I tell every agent I work with: I have never once, in my life, read a Google Business post for any business. And neither have most people. But that’s not the point.
Google Posts are not for your human audience. They’re for Google’s algorithm. Every time you write a post, you’re feeding the system a fresh batch of keywords and signals that say: “This is who I am, this is what I do, and this is the market I serve.”
How to Use the Posts Feature
In your Google Business Profile dashboard, you’ll see a “Posts” tab. Click “Add Post” and you’ll have a few options:
- Update posts: General content about your business or market — great for a quick market insight or a neighborhood spotlight
- Event posts: Open houses, client events, workshops — add the date, time, and details, and Google will display it as a time-sensitive event
- Offer posts: Useful for promotions or free consultations
Add a photo, write a short description (use AI to write it — just say: “Write a short Google Business post about [topic] for a real estate agent in [your market]”), and either publish it or schedule it out.
The Scheduling Trick That Saves You Hours
You can schedule posts in advance inside the platform. Set aside 20 minutes, write four posts at once, and schedule one per week for the next month. You’re done for 30 days.
Aim for at least one post or one photo per week. That’s your floor. If you do more, great — but the minimum is one touch per week to keep your profile healthy.
Step 5 — Build Your Google Reviews Strategy
Why Reviews Are Your Secret AI Weapon
Reviews are where Google Business Profiles get powerful. When a buyer asks an AI tool, “Who is a trusted real estate agent in [town]?” — those AI systems look at reviews. They read them. They pull language from them.
If your reviews consistently use phrases like “trusted agent,” “knowledgeable about the local market,” “made the process stress-free,” or “great communicator” — you are training AI to describe you in exactly those terms. That’s not an accident. That’s strategy.
How to Get Your Review Link
In your Google Business Profile dashboard, you’ll see an “Ask for Reviews” button. Click it and you’ll get a direct link that, when clicked, takes someone straight to your review form — no searching required. Copy that link and save it somewhere accessible.
How to Ask for Reviews (Without Being Awkward)
The best time to ask is right after a closing or any positive touchpoint — a successful showing, a referral, a helpful phone call. Send a quick text or email:
“It was such a pleasure working with you! If you have a moment, I’d love if you could share your experience — it means the world and helps other buyers/sellers find the right support. Here’s a direct link: [your review link]”
A few things to keep in mind:
- Anyone with a Google account can leave a review, which gives you a lot of options for who to reach out to
- Be selective. Google reviews are very difficult to have removed. Only send the link to people you’re confident will have something positive to say
- Consistency beats volume. A few new reviews per month is better than 20 at once and then nothing for a year
The Mindset Shift That Makes All of This Easier
The biggest blocker I see with agents isn’t lack of time or lack of knowledge — it’s overthinking. They worry that their photo isn’t polished enough, their post isn’t clever enough, their video isn’t produced enough.
Here’s the reframe I come back to over and over: You’re not performing for a massive audience. You’re speaking to one person and feeding a computer system.
When you post on Google or on social media, imagine you’re talking directly to one future client — and at the same time, you’re teaching a search engine who you are. That’s it. That’s all it is. The moment you internalize that, it stops feeling like a performance and starts feeling like part of running your business.
Your Google Business Profile is a living document. It is never “done.” It grows stronger the more consistently you update it. Start today, stay consistent, and watch your visibility — in search and in AI — begin to build over time.
Frequently Asked Questions About Google Business Profile for Real Estate Agents
Do I need a physical office address to have a Google Business Profile?
No. You can set up a service-area business and list the geographic areas you serve without displaying a specific address. This is a common setup for real estate agents who operate throughout a region. If you’ve been struggling to “Get Verified” this is the best option for you.
How often should I update my Google Business Profile?
At minimum, aim for one update per week — either a photo or a post. The goal is to signal to Google that your business is active and current.
Do Google Business Profile posts help with SEO?
Yes. While posts may not rank the same way website content does, they contribute to your overall Google presence and help feed keyword signals to the algorithm. Think of them as low-effort, high-frequency content inputs.
How important are Google reviews for real estate agents?
Extremely important — and increasingly so as AI tools are used more frequently for finding service providers. Reviews that naturally include location names, specialty phrases, and descriptive language about your service quality can help AI systems surface your name in recommendations.
Can I use AI to help write my Google Business Profile content?
Absolutely. AI is well-suited for writing optimized descriptions, post copy, and review request messages. Give it your specific details — name, market area, specialty, credentials — and ask it to write keyword-friendly content.
What’s the difference between Google photos and Google posts?
Both serve a similar purpose — keeping your profile active and feeding content to Google. Photos show up in your profile’s image gallery and help with visual representation. Posts appear in search results and allow you to include more text, events, and calls to action. Ideally, you use both.
Ready to Take Your Online Presence to the Next Level?
Your Google Business Profile is one piece of a larger visibility strategy. As a Field Marketing Specialist at Coldwell Banker, I help agents build a presence that gets found — in traditional search, in AI tools, and in the communities they serve. If you want to walk through your own profile, talk about your social media strategy, or build out a content plan that actually works for your schedule, I’d love to connect.
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SEO/AEO framework
Coldwell Banker Social Media Mastermind Recap: Platform Changes, Strategy Shifts, and What’s Actually Working
Coldwell Banker Social Media Mastermind Recap: The 2026 Mid-Year Update Every Agent Needs to See
Every month, the Coldwell Banker social media team brings in a special guest agent to talk shop. This month was different…and in a good way. Instead of a guest, June’s session was a 2026 mid-year update, with the CB social media team (Ariana Berta, Tiffany Giles, and Nicole Gladstone, with national manager Emma Ramirez out on maternity leave welcoming twin girls — congratulations, Emma!) walking agents through everything that’s changed on the platforms so far this year, what strategies are actually working, and a live Q&A that ended up being just as valuable as the prepared content.
As a Field Marketing Specialist at Coldwell Banker, I sit in on these sessions every month, and I have to say, this one was packed with practical, immediately usable information. If you weren’t able to attend live, here’s everything you need to know.
Part One: What’s New on Instagram
The platform changes that dropped over the first half of 2026 are significant, and most agents haven’t caught up with all of them yet.
You Can Now Edit Your Comments
A small but welcome change. You no longer need to delete and retype a comment if you made a typo or want to revise it. Edit it in place.
Reels Can Now Be Linked Into Series
This is a meaningful one for agents who create recurring content. If you have a format like “Monday Market Updates,” you can now link your reels together into a series, so when someone finishes watching one, the next episode in your series plays automatically. It’s a built-in way to keep viewers engaged with your content instead of losing them to someone else’s.
Instant Sharing Experience
Instagram rolled out a “Be Real”-style instant sharing feature where photos disappear and the experience is meant to feel spontaneous and in-the-moment. The CB social media team’s take: it’s fun to explore, but not something they’re currently recommending as a core strategy for real estate agents. Worth knowing it exists — not worth building your strategy around yet.
You Can Reorganize Your Grid
This is a feature every agent should be using. You’ve always been able to pin three posts to the top of your profile, but now you can drag and reorganize your first six to nine posts to put your strongest content front and center. The posts that make the best first impression when someone lands on your profile for the first time.
Carousel Reordering and Individual Captions
Two big upgrades to carousel posts:
- You can now reorder the photos within a carousel after the fact. Posted a listing and wish you’d led with a stronger photo? Fix it.
- You can add an individual caption to each photo in a carousel. This is a meaningful SEO and AEO opportunity. Describe the front of the house in photo one, dive into interior features in photo two, and so on. More specific, keyword-rich captions per image means more searchable content per post.
And here’s the engagement math that matters: every single swipe through a carousel counts as a separate view. A six-photo carousel that someone swipes all the way through registers six views. This directly boosts how the algorithm treats your post. This is exactly why carousels have become one of the most effective formats on the platform right now.
New DM Features
Instagram added the ability to schedule outgoing messages and translate incoming messages in different languages. Both useful if you’re managing client communication across time zones or language barriers. There are also new AI editing tools for stories, including background swaps and AI-generated effects.
Part Two: What’s Actually Working in 2026 — Strategy Breakdown
Tiffany Giles walked through three major strategic shifts the CB social media team has been seeing take hold.
1. Social Media Is Now a Search Engine
This is one of the most important things every agent needs to understand right now: Instagram is indexed with Google. That means your Instagram posts can show up directly in a Google search, and people are increasingly using Instagram and Facebook as search engines instead of starting with Google at all.
What this means practically: the words you use, in your captions, and even the text overlay on the post itself, now function as searchable keywords. A caption that reads “content I’d post if I was a brand new agent” isn’t just a caption anymore; it’s a phrase someone might literally type into a search bar.
As a real estate marketing specialist, I can’t stress this enough: keyword strategy is no longer just a website or blog concern. It applies directly to your social captions and on-image text now too.
2. Carousels Are Closing the Gap with Reels
Carousels aren’t outperforming reels yet, but they’re close. And they offer a major advantage for agents who don’t love being on camera. The mechanism is simple: the longer someone spends swiping through your post, the more engagement signal you send to the algorithm, which is the same principle that makes video perform well. If you’re carousel-averse, this is your sign to start.
3. Show the Process, Not Just the Result
The team highlighted a great example from agent Grant, whose video showed him literally cleaning gutters at a listing. Not a polished “just sold” graphic, but the unglamorous behind-the-scenes work that goes into getting a home ready and sold. The takeaway: audiences don’t just want to see that you closed a deal. They want to see what it actually took to get there. That’s what builds trust and differentiates you from every other agent posting the same “Just Sold!” graphic.
Part Three: The July Content Challenge
To make this actionable, Nicole Gladstone rolled out a five-part content challenge agents can use throughout July when they’re not sure what to post:
- Current Listing Spotlight — feature what you have on the market right now.
- Weekend Recommendations — local events, farmers markets, restaurants. Bonus: tag and collaborate with the business, and you’ll often gain exposure to their followers too.
- Client Love Story — share a testimonial, thank-you note, or recent win. Stories (the 24-hour kind) are perfect for this — low lift, high impact, keeps you top of mind.
- Behind the Scenes — the nitty-gritty work most clients never see.
- Market Minute — a quick stat or insight your clients should know right now. Keep it short, keep it simple, and if you’re stuck on the caption, ask ChatGPT to help frame it.
One tip worth repeating from the session: Google yourself. The team encourages every agent to regularly search their own name and see what comes up. If your Instagram or social profile isn’t appearing in the top five results, that’s a sign your social presence is underutilized as a free tool that should be helping you rank.
Part Four: Live Q&A Highlights
The back half of the session opened up to agent questions, and the answers were some of the most useful content of the whole call.
Does Mentioning You’re a “New Agent” Tag Your Whole Account That Way?
No. Keywords and context are evaluated at the individual post level, not your entire account. If you write “this is a luxury condo in South Florida,” that post becomes searchable for people looking for luxury condos in South Florida. It does not relabel your whole profile. Closed captioning on videos is also pulled into this keyword indexing, so don’t skip captions.
The Listing Video Debate: Features vs. Lifestyle
This turned into one of the best discussions of the session. Agent Grant Evans raised the point that most listing videos default to the same formula. Walk through the features, end with “contact me for a private showing” — and proposed that agents should instead lean into showcasing the lifestyle of living in the home: the view from the patio, the neighborhood park, the feeling of the space rather than just its specs.
The team agreed enthusiastically, and Tiffany added two key principles:
- Don’t be afraid to be specific. You’re only selling the home to one buyer and one family. Being broadly appealing to everyone often means connecting deeply with no one. The more specific your messaging, the more precisely you attract the right buyer.
- Use a multi-content approach for every listing. Never just one video. A features video, a lifestyle-focused video, a carousel, standalone photos — covering a listing from multiple content angles does double duty: it gets more eyes on the property, and it demonstrates to future sellers that you have an actual marketing strategy, which is something you can speak to directly in listing appointments.
Kyle, who hosts CB’s video-focused workshops, added a production tip worth flagging to anyone working with a videographer: make sure your video deliverables are shot vertically and edited specifically for social media. Not just a cropped-down version of the horizontal MLS walkthrough video. A 15–30 second vertical clip performs far better than a chopped-down two-minute horizontal tour.
Another agent shared a great real-world example: she filmed casual jet-ski footage near a lakefront listing, added a simple “the lake is calling” text overlay, and posted it ahead of the property walkthrough. That single reel got 2,000 views compared to her usual 200. A direct result of leading with lifestyle and atmosphere instead of the listing itself.
Getting Started on LinkedIn
For agents looking to get serious about LinkedIn, the advice was to start with profile optimization. Treat it like a digital resume. Make sure your experience, bio, service areas, and specialties are complete and clear. From there, curate three featured posts that showcase credibility: an award, a notable listing, a market insight, or something that demonstrates community expertise. CB has a self-audit guide available to walk through this step by step.
How Much Time Should You Spend on Social Media Per Week?
The recommendation: time-block it. Pick one day a month, or one day every two weeks, dedicated specifically to creating and scheduling content. Trying to post reactively, day-to-day, means it competes with client fires and tends to fall to the bottom of your priority list. Batch-creating and scheduling ahead of time (Meta Business Suite is free and allows drafts and scheduling) keeps it consistent without becoming a daily burden.
How Often Should You Actually Be Posting?
The team’s realistic recommendation: two to three solid posts per week, plus stories two or more times a week if you can. Start with two, get comfortable, then build to three or four. Stories specifically are low-effort and a great way to open DMs and start conversations — ideally posted daily if you can manage it.
Reels vs. Carousels vs. Stories — What Matters Most?
In order of priority: reels are still the top-performing content type and get pushed by the algorithm for up to 75 days after posting. Carousels are close behind and closing the gap. Stories should be a daily habit — low effort, high return for starting conversations.
What About Trial Reels?
The team’s collective take: not particularly useful. Trial reels only push your content to non-followers Instagram thinks might be interested — they don’t post to your own feed or go out to your existing followers. The team hasn’t seen a meaningful difference in performance and generally doesn’t recommend leaning on this feature.
A Platform Worth Watching: Threads
If you used to enjoy Twitter, Threads (Instagram’s Twitter-style platform) is worth a look. The team reported strong organic engagement, minimal ad clutter so far, and a more conversational feel that can also drive traffic back to your Instagram profile.
Security: Be Careful Who Manages Your Account
A great caution for any agent considering outsourcing social media management: never hand over your actual login and password. Several agents have been locked out of their own accounts after a hired social media manager disappeared or stopped responding. If you bring in help, use Instagram’s admin/collaborator access features instead of sharing direct login credentials. And vet anyone you give account access to carefully.
Stuck on the Tech? Use a College Intern
One agent on the call shared a great resource tip: reach out to your local college’s career center. Posting a simple social media marketing role description (ChatGPT can help draft one) can connect you with a student intern looking for credit hours — often for free. The caveat: bringing in help with execution doesn’t replace having your own content strategy and game plan. The intern can help you produce — the vision still needs to be yours.
Resources Mentioned in the Session
- Weekly Social Media Newsletter — sign up at socialmediasignup.com for done-for-you weekly content and captions, plus a CBR social spotlight and an AI prompt of the week.
- Live Monthly Social Media Workshops — register at cbrmarketingworkshops.com.
- LinkedIn Self-Audit Guide — available through the CB social media team for optimizing your LinkedIn profile.
- Meta Class — covers Facebook and Instagram basics; best paired with following dedicated tutorial creators on the platform itself for hands-on learning.
Closing Thoughts
This mid-year update was a great reminder that the platforms, and the strategies that work on them, never stay still for long. Carousels closing the gap with reels, Instagram functioning as a literal search engine, lifestyle-driven listing content outperforming feature lists. These are real shifts, not minor tweaks, and they directly affect how agents should be showing up online right now.
As your Field Marketing Specialist, this is exactly the kind of insight I want every agent in my network plugged into. The agents asking the sharpest questions in that Q&A — about carousels, LinkedIn, time management, security — are the same agents who are going to be ahead of the curve in the back half of 2026.
If you weren’t able to join live, mark your calendar: these masterminds happen every last Wednesday of the month, typically with a guest agent. Don’t miss the next one.
📅 Want to Talk Through Your Social Media Strategy?
As a Field Marketing Specialist at Coldwell Banker, I help agents turn sessions like this into an actual plan — content calendars, platform strategy, and execution. Let’s set up time to talk through where you are and where you want to be.
GEO for Real Estate Agents: A Beginner’s Guide to Getting Recommended by AI
GEO for Real Estate Agents: A Beginner’s Guide to Getting Recommended by AI
By Phil Brown, Field Marketing Specialist, Coldwell Banker Realty
If you’ve started noticing buyers and sellers mention ChatGPT or asking AI tools “who’s a good agent near me?” instead of Googling it, you’re not imagining a trend…you’re watching the biggest shift in how clients find agents since the internet itself. There’s a name for the skill that determines whether AI mentions you in that moment: Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO.
I work as a Field Marketing Specialist at Coldwell Banker Realty, and a big part of my job is helping agents across North Jersey and Westchester understand exactly this kind of shift before it becomes “everyone’s doing it”. Back when getting ahead of it still means something. So let’s break GEO down in plain English: what it is, why it matters to you specifically, and how to start showing up when AI recommends an agent.
What Is GEO, Really? (No Jargon, Promise)
Generative Engine Optimization is the practice of structuring your online presence so that AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google’s AI Overviews, Gemini, Claude, name you when someone asks a question about real estate in your market.
Think about the old way search worked. Someone Googled “best realtor in [your town]” and got ten blue links to scroll through. They clicked a few, compared websites, maybe checked reviews, and eventually called someone.
That’s not how it works anymore. Increasingly, that same person opens ChatGPT or asks Google’s AI Overview and types something like, “Who’s a good buyer’s agent in my town?” Instead of ten links, they get one answer. Often naming one to three agents by name, with a sentence or two about why.
That’s the entire game now. You either make it into that answer, or you don’t exist in that conversation at all. There’s no page two. There’s no “scroll down further.” GEO is how you become one of the names the AI says out loud.
GEO vs. SEO vs. AEO — Quick Definitions
You’ll see all three terms thrown around, sometimes interchangeably. Here’s the simple version:
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization): Getting your website to rank high in a list of Google links.
- AEO (Answer Engine Optimization): Structuring content to directly answer specific questions (think featured snippets, FAQ sections).
- GEO (Generative Engine Optimization): Getting AI tools to cite, mention, or recommend you by name when they generate a conversational answer.
They overlap heavily, and the same groundwork (good content, strong reviews, consistent information) feeds all three. But GEO is the newest layer, and it’s the one most agents haven’t touched yet — which is exactly your opportunity.
Why This Matters for Your Business Right Now
This isn’t a “someday” trend. A few numbers worth sitting with:
- AI chatbot traffic has grown dramatically year over year, while traditional search traffic has been declining over that same window.
- Google’s AI Overviews now appear in roughly a quarter of all searches, meaning a large share of “blue link” queries are already being replaced by a single synthesized answer.
- Surveys show a majority of U.S. adults already use AI tools like ChatGPT regularly, and that number keeps climbing.
Here’s the part that should really get your attention: when someone asks an AI tool to recommend a real estate agent, they’re not getting a list to browse. They’re getting a direct, named recommendation, and they often act on it without ever visiting a website or comparing other options. If your name isn’t in that answer, you don’t just rank lower. You’re invisible to that buyer or seller entirely, and you’ll likely never even know the lead existed.
The good news? Almost none of your local competitors are thinking about this yet. The agents who build their digital presence intentionally over the next year will have a real head start, the same kind of advantage early adopters of strong Google Business Profiles or social media had a decade ago.
How AI Actually Decides Who to Recommend
AI tools aren’t picking names out of a hat. When ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google’s AI answers “who’s a good agent in [town],” it’s synthesizing information it has gathered from across the web…your website, your Google Business Profile, reviews, articles that mention you, your social media, and third-party directories like Zillow or Realtor.com.
A handful of signals consistently move the needle:
1. Consistency of Information
AI rewards agents whose name, brokerage, service area, and contact details appear the same way everywhere…your website, Google Business Profile, Zillow, Realtor.com, Facebook, LinkedIn. Inconsistent or outdated info (an old brokerage name, a wrong phone number) creates doubt that AI tools pick up on.
2. Depth and Structure of Content
AI tools favor content that’s easy to “lift” and trust. Clear headings, specific facts, local detail, and direct answers to real questions. A vague “Five Tips for Selling Your Home” post does less for you than a detailed, locally specific guide that actually answers something a buyer or seller in your market would ask.
3. Reviews and Reputation
AI doesn’t pull star ratings directly into an answer (yet), but it absorbs sentiment from everything it reads. If dozens of pages across the web describe you as responsive, knowledgeable, or a strong negotiator, that language can surface in an AI’s answer almost verbatim in spirit.
4. Third-Party Authority
Getting mentioned on “Top Agent” lists, in local news, on community blogs, or in podcast or video content builds the kind of cross-referenced authority AI tools trust more than a single self-published claim.
5. A Complete, Active Google Business Profile
This remains one of the single most important pieces, especially for local queries. Nearly every real estate question is local. Hours, services, photos, and recent reviews all matter.
Practical Ways Agents Can Start Using GEO Today
Here’s where this gets actionable. You don’t need a developer or a big budget…you need consistency and a handful of habits.
Audit Your Digital Footprint First
Before creating anything new, search your own name and “best agent in [your town]” in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google. See who comes up. If it’s not you, that’s your baseline — and a useful gut check on where the gaps are.
Write Locally Specific, Question-Based Content
Instead of generic posts, write content that mirrors how people actually ask AI things: “What should I know before buying a home in [neighborhood]?” or “Is now a good time to sell in [town]?” Question-and-answer formatting is one of the most consistently cited content structures because it matches exactly how people phrase prompts to AI tools.
Keep Every Profile Identical and Current
Go through your Google Business Profile, Zillow, Realtor.com, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Make sure your name, brokerage, headshot, and service areas match exactly. This sounds basic, but it’s one of the most overlooked fixes. And one of the fastest to make.
Build a Habit of Earning Third-Party Mentions
Pitch yourself for local “top agent” roundups, contribute a quote to a local news story, guest on a podcast, or get featured in a community newsletter. Each mention is another data point AI can draw from when forming an opinion about who’s credible in your market.
Actively Manage Reviews Everywhere — Not Just One Platform
Respond to reviews on Google, Zillow, and Facebook consistently. The language clients use to describe you in their reviews often becomes the language AI uses to describe you in its answers.
Test Yourself Monthly
Pick your top neighborhoods or towns and run the same prompts in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google every month: “Best buyer’s agent in [neighborhood].” Track whether you start appearing, and pay attention to which competitors do — and why.
A Quick Reality Check
GEO isn’t magic, and it isn’t a replacement for the fundamentals that already make you a strong agent — relationships, follow-up, negotiation skill, local knowledge. What it is is the layer that determines whether a prospective client ever gets the chance to discover you in the first place. AI isn’t going anywhere, and the agents willing to learn this now will simply have more chances to be chosen later.
If you want help thinking through what this looks like specifically for your business — your content, your profiles, your local positioning — that’s exactly the kind of conversation I have with agents regularly as a Field Marketing Specialist at Coldwell Banker Realty.
Ready to talk through your own GEO strategy? Schedule a time with me
