Before you dive in, put this on your calendar.
Next week, we're hosting a free live webinar: The Ultimate Listing Presentation.
We'll walk through how to build a listing presentation that wins the appointment, from research and design to the pitch and follow-up.
You'll also get the first look at our new AI listing presentation builder, live. Everyone who registers gets the replay and a free trial.
Here's what's on this week's B.I.T.S. agenda:
🏆 [B]est in Class: Voiceovers on autopilot thanks to Muse
🧠 [I]deas That Work: What to do when you have zero showings
📈 [T]raffic & Attention: The most egregious use of AI yet
🔔 [S]eller Signals: The 3% rate challenge and script
Let's dive in 👇
🏆 [B]EST IN CLASS - Real campaigns by top listing agents
30 home tour voiceovers in 7 minutes. Here's how he set it up.
Narrated home tours get watched. Recording 30 of them yourself eats your week.
Robert Cedeno runs a 25-agent team in Southern California and posts 10 times a day across three Instagram accounts.
His team has 166 closed and pending deals worth about $112 million so far this year.
Writing 30 voiceovers used to take him more than an hour. Now it takes 6 to 7 minutes.
What he built
Two tools. ElevenLabs holds a copy of his voice. Meta's AI agent, Muse, writes the scripts and turns them into audio.
He trained the voice on about an hour and a half of his own recordings. He says the newer voiceovers sound better than his first ones.
The prompt
He told Muse: anytime I give you an address, write three different voiceovers. One opens with something like "This is what 850,000 gets you in this area."
Muse pulls the property details from Zillow and writes all three.
The workflow
He gives Muse about five addresses at a time.
Muse creates all the voiceovers through ElevenLabs.
The audio files download on their own into a folder.
His editors pull the files and add them to the home tours.
Why it works
"It's taken a lot less of me going out there and actually recording the content," Cedeno says.
A paid videographer films his LA County tours, so he doesn't have to be there for every one.
The steal:
Pick one task you repeat every week for your listings. Write the instructions once, the way Cedeno did.
Check every number and feature against the MLS before it posts. Scripts built from portal data can get facts wrong.
Then tell your seller what to expect:
"Every week you'll see your home in something new, with my voice on it."
The takeaway:
When your seller asks how their home gets in front of buyers this week, show them the narrated tour that went up, not a promise that one is coming.
🧠[I]DEAS THAT WORK - Strategies listing agents should use
No showings at all? Change who sees it before you change the price.
Your seller's listing has been up for months. Not one showing.
Their first question is going to be about price.
Aisha Coe, founder of White House Estate Agents in Australia, took over a 56-acre home that had sat listed for nine months without a single inspection (Australian for showing).
The seller's brief to Coe: work out what wasn't connecting and fix it.
What she found
Her market analysis turned up two problems.
The listing ran on portals that didn't reach acreage buyers. And the copy sold features, not the life.
Price first | What Coe did | |
|---|---|---|
First move | Cut the price | Diagnosed who was seeing it and what it said |
Who sees the listing | Same people as before | Acreage and lifestyle buyers |
Message | Same features, lower number | The life the buyer wants |
The play, built from her case
Her case study covers steps 2 to 4. Steps 1 and 5 are how we'd frame it for your seller.
Count first. Before you discuss price, pull every number: views, inquiries, showings, and where they came from. Zero showings means the wrong people are seeing it.
Name the real buyer. Coe on her buyers: "They weren't looking to become farmers. They wanted the lifestyle." Write one sentence on who buys your seller's home and what life they want.
Move the listing to where that buyer looks. She switched portals and ran geo-targeted social to people interested in animals, rural living, and lifestyle property.
Rewrite around the life, not the features. Views, sheds, room for animals.
Check price last. Her case study doesn't say whether price moved. Fix the audience and the message first, then see if price still needs to.
The article reports more inquiries came through social media than through realestate.com.au, Australia's version of Zillow.
It sold for A$1.9 million in under 100 days.
The steal: what to say before the price talk
"Before we talk price, let me show you who has actually seen your home, and who hasn't."
The short version for the kitchen table: "Wrong buyers, wrong message. Let's fix those, then look at price."
Then do the next two steps together. Name the real buyer out loud, and agree on the one channel you'll move the listing to this week.
Each week after that, open your update the same way: "Here's who saw your home this week, and where they came from."
Pair it with a Beacon seller report
A Beacon seller report puts the step 1 numbers in front of your seller before you say a word.
The channel talk starts with proof, not your opinion, and they see the work you're already doing.
The takeaway:
When a listing gets no showings, your first recommendation is a new audience and a new message. Price comes after, if it still needs to.
📈[T]RAFFIC & ATTENTION - Listings going viral (and why)
The real bedroom beside the AI bedroom
Your seller's house needs everything. The photos will scare off half your buyers.
John Fogarty listed exactly that house.
Four bedrooms, two baths, and a lifetime of stuff in every room.
The tension
AI renders could show buyers what the house could be. Renders alone would look like hiding the house.
So he ran both. Every pair was the real room beside an AI render, labeled: original on left, render on right.
What the honest pair did
Fogarty: "With pictures like this, people are more likely to share it with their friends and talk about it."
He says it was the most-viewed listing that week.
Real photo | AI render | Both, labeled | |
|---|---|---|---|
What the buyer sees | The work it needs | What it could be | Both, and that you're not hiding anything |
Risk | Scrolled past | Feels like a bait and switch at the showing | Low |
Shareable? | Rarely | Looks like every other render | Yes, people compare them |
Say it plainly: this was not a price win
It sold Sep 4th for $1.285 million, below the suburb median of $1.5 million, which is about what you'd expect for a full renovation.
Fogarty was upfront about the limits: "There's parts of the walls you may not be able to fully inspect."
And about price: "A home in this condition does have an impact on the price, but with enough public interest it creates competition between buyers."
The steal:
If you use a render, never post it alone. Put the real room beside it and label both.
Tell your seller before it posts:
"The render gets them curious. The real photo next to it gets them to trust us."
The takeaway:
On a house that needs work, honesty is the hook. Set your seller up to expect attention and competition, not a record price.
🔔[S]ELLER SIGNALS - Conversations agents are having with sellers right now
Your seller says "I can't give up my 3% rate" (here’s how to respond)
You’ll hear it at every kitchen table this fall.
Your seller loves their low mortgage rate. It feels like the reason to stay.
But fewer sellers are letting the rate decide. In Zillow's 2026 report, 35% of sellers said low mortgage rates influenced their decision to sell, down from 49% in 2025.
What your seller is probably feeling
Stuck. Freddie Mac's 30-year fixed averaged 7.40% on Oct 15th, so their mortgage rate looks like a Nobel Prize.
What they're probably missing
The rate on the mortgage isn't the rate they pay to live.
Mortgage lender JJ Mazzo of CrossCountry Mortgage calls it the "life rate." He says the homeowners he works with often carry other debt around 11%: credit cards, car loans, and HELOCs.
Mortgage rate only | Life rate | |
|---|---|---|
What it counts | The mortgage | Mortgage plus cards, car, HELOC |
What your seller sees | A 3% prize | Their real cost of debt |
Who calculates it | Already on the statement | Their lender, with the full picture |
How to have the talk
Ask what else they owe: car, cards, HELOC.
Have their lender run the blended rate.
Compare that number to today's 7.40%, plus the life change they told you about.
Don't argue with the 3%. Widen the question:
"Your mortgage is 3%. What's your rate on everything?"
The takeaway:
Make the blended rate part of your listing appointment prep. Your seller decides on the full number, not the one on the mortgage statement.
Upcoming Live Webinar: The Ultimate Listing Presentation
Your listing presentation is the first thing your seller judges you on.
Next week, we'll show you how to build one that wins the appointment, and how to follow up so the listing doesn't walk after you leave.
It's free, and you can bring your questions. We'll answer them live.
Thanks for reading the entire newsletter.
See you next week,
- Chris Smith and Jimmy Mackin
