In the old days, way back when iPhones would let you know there was a newer version by creating battery problems, I remember sitting in a training, forced on me by the sales manager, listening to Tom, Brian or Greg (if you know, you know) go on and on about email and relationship building. The sales manager truly believed in the coaches’ methods.
She had a template. She customized it. She tweaked the adjectives. She read it three times. Forty minutes for something 300 words long. She had a style that was all real estate all the time, and yet she still spent quite a bit of time “crafting” email.
I asked her once why she didn’t just dash off a reply; no one wants to read a novella when a sentence would suffice. (That’s what we used to say before we said, “This meeting could have been an email.”)
She looked at me like I’d suggested she juggle chainsaws; I was a reprobate. I wish I could say we agreed to disagree, but the line had been drawn, and I was exiled.
Real estate writing
Most agents waste two to three hours a day writing. Emails to buyers. Descriptions for listings. Social media posts. Market updates. Follow-ups. Objection responses. Scripts for calls you haven’t made yet. None of it requires your expertise. It requires time you don’t have and a willingness to sit with a blank page longer than makes sense. And most of it is terrible.
ChatGPT is a start
Getting started takes five minutes. Go to ChatGPT.com. Create a free account. Log in. Done. No credit card. No software. No learning curve that matters. It’s a text box that talks back.
The paid version (ChatGPT Plus, $20/month) gives faster responses and the ability to upload documents. Start free. If you use it daily for two weeks, the upgrade pays for itself in time saved.
3 AI prompts for real estate writing
Here are three prompts you can copy today. I mean copy exactly. Paste them into ChatGPT. Hit enter. Edit the output in 60 seconds. Done.
The buyer follow-up
You showed a property yesterday. The buyer was interested but didn’t commit. You need to follow up without being aggravating. Paste this:
“I’m a real estate agent. A buyer viewed my listing at [address] yesterday. It’s a [2 bed/1 bath/updated kitchen/whatever]. They seemed interested but didn’t make an offer. Write a warm follow-up email that reminds them what they loved about the property and gently invites them back. Three paragraphs. Sound like a real person, not a corporation. No exclamation points.”
ChatGPT writes it in 10 seconds. You spend 30 seconds making it sound like you. You send it. You move on.
Some agents spend 15 minutes on this email. (Some more, see above) You just saved 14.5.
The listing description
Your MLS description reads like a romance novel. It needs to sound like a home. Paste this:
“Turn this into a listing description that sells the lifestyle: [paste your MLS data]. Make it five sentences. Focus on what a buyer experiences when they walk through the door, not what the inspector measured. Make me want to live here.”
Sixty seconds later, you have something that actually sells instead of lots of adjectives. Edit it. Post it. Your description now competes with agents who spent an hour on theirs, except yours is better because you made it personal.
The social media post
You’re at an open house. You want to post something to Instagram. You have 90 seconds. Paste this:
“Write an Instagram caption for a property showing. [Describe the property in two sentences]. Include three hashtags. Keep it under 150 words. Make it conversational, not salesy. Sound like you’re talking to a friend.”
In two minutes, you’ve got a caption, uploaded the photo, and moved to the next thing.
AI is a start
AI doesn’t write your emails perfectly. It writes them OK, then you make them better. It doesn’t replace your knowledge or your relationships. It replaces the busy work that steals time.
I see agents using AI in one of two ways. Either they copy-paste and send it verbatim — and we all know when you do it — or they use it as a start and add themselves back in. The second group wins.
Try one prompt per day for the next week. Pay a little attention to what your day is like if you take these suggestions. Notice where you save 10 minutes here, 15 there. I use that extra time to go to the gym or to give me an extra 15 minutes in between appointments, so I can practice mindfulness (drinking coffee in my car while playing Wordle). Hope you find this helpful.
America Foy is Chief Real Estate and Development Officer at Where Ever, Inc. and broker associate at The Grubb Co. Connect with him on LinkedIn and Instagram.
