by Christy Murdock | Apr 12, 2025 | Industry, News Feed
Zillow’s answer to the rising tide of private listing networks has been met with both praise and pushback from industry leaders.
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Each week on The Download, Inman’s Christy Murdock takes a deeper look at the top-read stories of the week to give you what you’ll need to meet Monday head-on. This week: Zillow’s answer to the rising tide of private listing networks has been met with both praise and pushback from industry leaders.
What started as a debate over pocket listings has become a full-blown policy shakeup. From its inception, the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) Clear Cooperation Policy, designed to protect fair housing and level the playing field for buyers and brokerages alike, sparked controversy among agents who leaned on pre-MLS marketing to build buzz.
For the past several months, the policy has been ground zero in an ongoing back-and-forth debate among industry leaders — some of whom think it works and some of whom want to bulldoze it to make way for private listing networks.
READ: The industry’s biggest names are weighing in on CCP: The Download
The ripples reached farther when NAR’s new Delayed Marketing Exempt Listings policy clarified what agents can (and can’t) do when a seller wants privacy or needs time to prep. Perhaps more surprising is Zillow’s latest move: Effective in May, the portal will not carry listings that don’t conform to the original terms of CCP, and some brokerages are hopping on board.
Beginning next month, listings that are not listed on the MLS within 24 hours of the start of public marketing will not be published on Zillow “for the life of the listing.”
This policy follows NAR’s decision last month to amend its Clear Cooperation Policy to allow Delayed Marketing Exempt Listings and allow MLSs to decide how long listings can be seen by other MLS members without being publicly listed.
“A listing marketed to any buyer must be available to every buyer,” Zillow said in its announcement on Thursday. The new standards will go into effect on both Zillow and Trulia and are designed to support and protect “a more open and competitive housing market,” the portal said.
Zillow specified that social media blasts, emails and yard signs would all constitute public marketing and prompt the need to list on the MLS within 24 hours under the new paradigm.
Zillow’s announcement was met with mixed reactions, ranging from those who see it as a courageous salvo in the fight against private listing networks to those who see it as unwarranted interference in the way Realtors work. Almost immediately, industry voices were raised in response and published in the digital pages of Inman. Notably, eXp Realty was the first brokerage to commit to the new policy.
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by Drew Thompson | Apr 12, 2025 | Industry, News Feed
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Let’s be brutally honest — listings are eating your week alive.
You’re drowning in running comps, hand-holding sellers, crafting social posts that don’t suck and trying to write listing descriptions that actually stand out from the beige parade.
Meanwhile, your lead gen is gathering dust because, well, listings don’t magically market themselves, and clients get antsy.
Sound familiar?
But what if you had a silent partner, a machine that worked tirelessly behind the scenes, 24/7, freeing you up to actually run your business?
I’m talking about ChatGPT. And no, this isn’t some airy-fairy “AI is the future” spiel. This is about reclaiming a solid six to eight hours per listing, starting right now.
Here’s how top-producing agents are quietly leveraging ChatGPT to streamline the nine most soul-crushing parts of their listing workflow — before the sign goes in the yard, while it’s active, and even after the closing bell.
Before the listing goes live
1. Craft killer listing descriptions in seconds (no more generic)
Forget those yawn-inducing descriptions that all blur together. You can actually train ChatGPT with your specific tone, your deep market insights and that unique selling proposition you bring to the table.
Create a version for your luxury properties and another for your first-time buyer gems — boom, done. Just drop in the property specifics, and out pops a compelling, on-brand description that’s MLS-ready and perfect for all your marketing.
2. Build a CMA that actually tells a story
Pricing isn’t just about numbers; it’s about painting a picture of value. While ChatGPT can’t pull MLS data (yet!), it’s a powerhouse for analysis and explanation. Upload your comps and your notes, and it will help you weave a narrative that your sellers will not only understand but truly trust.
Bonus Tip: Record a quick, personalized CMA breakdown using NotebookLM, and send it to your client as their own private market podcast. Talk about high-touch!
3. Get instant staging insights (and say goodbye to staging delays)
AI has eyes now! Upload photos of any room, and ChatGPT (especially when paired with multimodal tools) will deliver design and staging ideas instantly. No more endless email chains with a stager or second-guessing your gut. It’s like having a seasoned designer on speed dial, right in your pocket.
While the listing is live
4. Generate engaging marketing and social media content that stops the scroll
Stop staring at a blank screen wondering what to post. ChatGPT can analyze current trends, brainstorm attention-grabbing hooks, and even draft entire carousel captions or video scripts that sound authentically you — not some robotic imitation. Think of it as your always-on marketing assistant, minus the need for constant direction (or coffee breaks).
5. Master buyer objections before they even arise
Feeling a little shaky about that potentially tough buyer conversation? Practice it with ChatGPT. You can simulate a range of objections, rehearse your responses, and sharpen your negotiation skills before you ever pick up the phone or meet face-to-face. Confidence: unlocked.
6. Keep sellers in the loop (without sounding like a broken record)
Imagine training ChatGPT on your past communication style with a particular seller. It can then draft personalized updates, summarize feedback from showings and even remind you when a follow-up is due — all without you having to dig through endless emails or scattered notes. High-touch service, delivered with a fraction of the effort.
After the listing sells
7. Keep your brand top-of-mind with fresh, engaging content
Just because the deal closed doesn’t mean the marketing stops. Use ChatGPT to analyze the performance data of your sold listing and generate new headline ideas or content angles that keep your brand visible and attract future sellers who are watching your every move.
8. Create compelling video scripts in a flash
Want to shoot a quick “Just Sold” video that actually grabs attention? Give ChatGPT the key highlights of the listing and tell it to write the script in the style of a witty late-night host or a sophisticated luxury agent — whatever aligns with your brand. It’ll deliver multiple engaging hooks in seconds.
9. Turn one sold listing into a pipeline of new leads
Take the leads you generated from that listing, drop them into ChatGPT, and let it help you qualify who’s genuinely interested, who’s just browsing, and what your next conversation should be. You set the criteria; it does the heavy lifting of sorting and suggesting. More deals, less CRM chaos.
Ready to reclaim your time?
Here’s your immediate action step:
Open ChatGPT (make sure you’re using the Advanced Reasoning model) and type this in:
“Here’s a brief overview of my current listing process: [Insert a quick summary of your steps]. How can I make this simpler, faster, and more scalable using the tools available to me?”
Start there. Pick one area to focus on and build one system at a time. This is precisely how overwhelmed agents transform into the consistently overbooked.
AI won’t replace the heart and expertise of a great real estate agent — but great agents who strategically leverage AI? They’ll be operating on a whole other level, leaving the competition wondering what happened.
Drew Thompson is the head of agent performance and head coach at Real. Connect with him on Instagram and LinkedIn.
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by Matt Carter | Apr 11, 2025 | Industry, News Feed
Bigger. Better. Bolder. Inman Connect is heading to San Diego. Join thousands of real estate pros, connect with the power of the Inman Community, and gain insights from hundreds of leading minds shaping the industry. If you’re ready to grow your business and invest in yourself, this is where you need to be. Go BIG in San Diego!
Fears of a tariff-fueled trade war are dragging consumer sentiment down to near all-time lows, while inflation worries continue to drive up mortgage rates as investors who back most home loans demand higher yields.
The University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment fell 11 percent from March to April and is down 31 percent from December, according to preliminary data released Friday.
At 50.8 in April, the Index of Consumer Sentiment is in territory not seen since the height of the pandemic, when it hit an all-time low of 50 in June 2022.
“Consumers report multiple warning signs that raise the risk of recession,” survey Director Joanne Hsu said in a statement. Consumer expectations for business conditions, personal finances, incomes, inflation and labor markets “all continued to deteriorate this month.”
Consumer sentiment near all-time low
The index — benchmarked at 100 back in 1966 — is now lower than at any point during the Great Recession of 2007-2009, when it dropped into the mid-50s. Before that, the Index of Consumer Sentiment’s lowest reading was 51.7, registered in 1980 when the nation was in the grips of a recession and grappling with double-digit inflation.
“Consumers have spiraled from anxious to petrified,” Pantheon Macroeconomics Chief U.S. Economist Samuel Tombs said in a note to clients.
Samuel Tombs
But many real-time indicators of consumers’ spending show no sign of a slowdown, Tombs said, and forecasters at Pantheon Macroeconomics “remain comfortable with our base case that households’ real spending stagnates in Q2 and Q3, rather than drops outright.”
Consumers surveyed by the University of Michigan between March 25 and April 8 said they expect inflation will climb to 6.7 percent in the year ahead — the highest reading since 1981.
“People probably are even more downbeat now,” Tombs said, given that some responses were collected before the April 2 tariff announcement and the plunge in stock prices that followed.
While Democrats are more pessimistic than Republicans about the economy and the prospect of higher inflation, sentiment among all three political groups (Democrats, Republicans and Independents) has deteriorated this year.
Joanne Hsu
That demonstrates declines in national estimates “are not being driven by disproportionate declines among Democrats alone following the election of a Republican president,” Hsu said in a separate report.
Consumer Price Index data released Thursday showed inflation dropped closer to the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target for the second month in a row in March.
But tariff-driven price increases aren’t likely to show up in the data until May, and Federal Reserve policymakers say they expect tariffs implemented by the Trump administration so far could have an inflationary impact on prices while also slowing economic growth.
John Williams
New York Fed President John Williams said Friday that he expects the combination of reduced immigration, tariffs and uncertainty will slow annual U.S. economic growth to less than 1 percent and drive unemployment up from 4.2 percent to as high as 5 percent over the next year.
“I expect increased tariffs to boost inflation this year to somewhere between 3-1/2 and 4 percent,” Williams said in prepared remarks to the Puerto Rico Chamber of Commerce.
Alberto Musalem
Addressing the Arkansas Bankers Association on Friday, St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem said declining consumer confidence, higher prices and lower real incomes associated with tariffs, and diminished wealth resulting from lower equity prices are all “notable actual or potential headwinds.”
Musalem noted that even before the recent tariff announcements, “surveys indicated consumer confidence had declined, which poses downside risk to household spending and the overall pace of economic activity going forward.”
Susan Collins
Susan Collins, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, told Yahoo Finance she expects tariffs will slow economic growth and push inflation well above 3 percent this year, which might mean the Fed waits longer to cut interest rates this year.
Williams, Musalem and Collins are all voting members of the Fed’s rate-setting policy team, the Federal Open Market Committee, which meets next on May 6-7. Futures markets tracked by the CME FedWatch tool show investors don’t expect the Fed to cut rates until June and that the odds of a June rate cut have dropped from 94 percent on April 4 to 76 percent Friday.
Worries about the impacts of tariffs have hammered the stock market, which initially helped bring mortgage rates and yields on government bonds down as investors moved money out of stocks and into bonds in a flight to safety.
But in recent days, bond yields and mortgage rates have been headed back up, as the Trump administration moved forward with a 145 percent tariff on goods from China and a 10 percent baseline tariff that applied to most other U.S. trading partners.
China — America’s third-largest trading partner — has vowed to fight tariffs “until the end,” initially ratcheting up retaliatory duties on U.S. goods to 84 percent and then to 125 percent on Friday.
Mortgage rates bounce back
After retreating to a 2025 low of 6.48 percent on April 8, rates on 30-year fixed-rate conforming mortgages bounced back to 6.82 percent this week, according to rate lock data tracked by Optimal Blue. Rates on jumbo mortgages exceeding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s $806,500 conforming loan limit in most markets hit 6.93 percent Wednesday.
Yields on 10-year Treasurys — a barometer for mortgage rates that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said is also a key metric for the Trump administration — have also climbed from a 2025 low of 3.89 percent on April 4 to 4.49 percent a week later.
In announcing a 90-day pause on country-specific “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of U.S. trading partners on April 9, Trump indicated that he’d been watching bond yields rise, noting “people were getting a little queasy.”
“The Treasury market freaked everyone out this week,” when yields climbed even as the stock market tanked — the opposite of the usual flight to safety reaction, Wall Street Journal columnist Jon Sindreu noted Friday.
Sindreu explored several theories that have been floated for the lack of demand for government bonds that’s been pushing rates up.
A leading theory is that hedge funds that buy bonds and sell futures contracts against them have been forced to unwind such “Treasury cash-futures basis trades” by selling government bonds — an issue that sent rates soaring in March 2020.
Others have speculated that China has been paring down its $800 billion in U.S. debt holdings — a move “that would have caused far more havoc than actually occurred,” Sindreau concluded.
To Sindreau, the simplest explanation is that investors are worried that a trade war will upend global trade, which is making them “less confident in holding U.S. financial assets. The ultimate outlet for this is the dollar, which keeps plummeting against major developed currencies, and may have much lower to go.”
Optimal Blue data lags by a day, but rates tracked by Mortgage News Daily (MND) showed rates on 30-year fixed-rate conforming mortgages climbing again Friday by 10 basis points. Most U.S. home loans are funded by mortgage-backed securities (MBS) that are viewed by investors as comparable to 10-year Treasury notes.
“As with much of this week’s drama, today’s move didn’t have one distinct motivation,” MND Chief Operating Officer Matthew Graham wrote. “The weakness speaks to a broad shift in the outlook for U.S. Treasury demand. Digging any deeper would require esoteric explanations of underlying market structures. The bottom line is that investors are rattled by rapid changes in policy, as well as uncertainty about how those changes will ultimately settle and impact the market.”
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by Richelle Hammiel | Apr 11, 2025 | Industry, News Feed
The Amazon founder has sold his luxurious estate in Hunts Point, just outside of Seattle, for $63 million — setting a a new state record, the “Puget Sound Business Journal” reported Thursday. It’s the second time that this particular property has made history.
Bigger. Better. Bolder. Inman Connect is heading to San Diego. Join thousands of real estate pros, connect with the Inman Community and gain insights from hundreds of leading minds shaping the industry. If you’re ready to grow your business and invest in yourself, this is where you need to be. Go BIG in San Diego!
Jeff Bezos has once again set a real estate record.
The Amazon founder has sold his luxurious estate in Hunts Point, Washington, just outside of Seattle, for $63 million — setting a new state record, the Puget Sound Business Journal reported Thursday. It’s the second time that this particular property has made history.
Bezos originally purchased the 9,420-square-foot waterfront mansion back in 2019 for $37.5 million, which at the time was the most ever paid for a home in the state. That record stood until 2020, when Sunny Singh paid $60 million for a nearby property.
Now, Bezos has reclaimed the title.
More than just a high-priced property, the estate also comes with a notable history. It was once the home to late art collector Barney Ebsworth, and it sits in one of Seattle’s most elite neighborhoods. According to GeekWire, Hunts Point has been home to several other business titans, including former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Costco co-founder James Sinegal.
The buyer this time around is Detroit-based Cayan Investments, LLC, which now owns the three-bedroom, 4.5-bathroom residence. Nestled on 3.2 acres, the property boasts 300 feet of Lake Washington waterfront and even includes a 2,200-square-foot dock built for boats and seaplanes.
Located at 4053 Hunts Point Road, the home was originally built in 2003 and designed by Seattle architect Jim Olson of Olson Kundig. Olson Kundig’s website describes the residence as an “understated house on the shore of Lake Washington” that “weaves art and nature together, creating a comfortable place to live.”
Even with this major sale, Bezos still holds a significant presence in the Seattle-area real estate market. His portfolio includes two nearby properties in Hunts Point and Medina — a 30,000-square-foot mansion known as the La Haye estate, which he bought in 2010 for $45 million, and an adjacent property he acquired in 1998 for $10 million.
Outside of the Pacific Northwest, Bezos has been busy buying up property in Miami’s exclusive Indian Creek Village — often dubbed the “Billionaire Bunker.” He purchased a $68 million estate there in 2023, followed by a neighboring $79 million mansion. Then, in 2024, he added a third property for $90 million.
The $79 million deal stirred up some legal controversy. The seller — Brazilian toy magnate Leo Kryss — sued real estate firm Douglas Elliman, claiming he wasn’t informed that the buyer was Bezos and accepted an offer $6 million below the asking price.
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by Dani Vanderboegh | Apr 11, 2025 | Industry, News Feed
Turn up the volume on your real estate success at Inman On Tour: Nashville! Connect with industry trailblazers and top-tier speakers to gain powerful insights, cutting-edge strategies, and invaluable connections. Elevate your business and achieve your boldest goals — all with Music City magic. Register now.
Every Friday, Inman Service Editor Dani Vanderboegh rounds up the most popular, most read, most critical stories of the week to give you a quick catchup on the big headlines you might have missed in the hustle and bustle of the workweek. Here’s this week’s Top 5 as chosen by our readers.
P.S. Don’t miss The Download, our weekly column that breaks down one of the week’s top stories and equips you with what you’ll need to meet next Monday head-on.
The new policy, which eXp Realty became the first brokerage to commit to, takes effect in May and comes after a decision by NAR to amend its Clear Cooperation Policy, executives said Thursday.
Ray Lopez, left, Joseph Firmin, center, and Veronica Figueroa, right.
Three Orlando, Florida, area franchisees claim Figueroa benefited when Joseph Firmin, her director of growth with The Fig Team at eXp Realty, allegedly broke a non-solicitation agreement.
Success is inevitable, Jimmy Burgess writes, when you’re coming from a place of service and value-added client care.
The way agents succeed is undergoing a profound transformation, broker Nick Schlekeway writes. Are you adapting and adopting new tools fast enough to keep up?
AJ Canaria and Canva
Douglas Elliman and Corcoran have quietly announced private listing networks within their brokerages as the conversation about private exclusives continues to heat up across the industry.
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by Dani Vanderboegh | Apr 11, 2025 | Industry, News Feed
Turn up the volume on your real estate success at Inman On Tour: Nashville! Connect with industry trailblazers and top-tier speakers to gain powerful insights, cutting-edge strategies, and invaluable connections. Elevate your business and achieve your boldest goals — all with Music City magic. Register now.
Every Friday, Inman Service Editor Dani Vanderboegh rounds up the most popular, most read, most critical stories of the week to give you a quick catchup on the big headlines you might have missed in the hustle and bustle of the workweek. Here’s this week’s Top 5 as chosen by our readers.
P.S. Don’t miss The Download, our weekly column that breaks down one of the week’s top stories and equips you with what you’ll need to meet next Monday head-on.
The new policy, which eXp Realty became the first brokerage to commit to, takes effect in May and comes after a decision by NAR to amend its Clear Cooperation Policy, executives said Thursday.
Ray Lopez, left, Joseph Firmin, center, and Veronica Figueroa, right.
Three Orlando, Florida, area franchisees claim Figueroa benefited when Joseph Firmin, her director of growth with The Fig Team at eXp Realty, allegedly broke a non-solicitation agreement.
Success is inevitable, Jimmy Burgess writes, when you’re coming from a place of service and value-added client care.
The way agents succeed is undergoing a profound transformation, broker Nick Schlekeway writes. Are you adapting and adopting new tools fast enough to keep up?
AJ Canaria and Canva
Douglas Elliman and Corcoran have quietly announced private listing networks within their brokerages as the conversation about private exclusives continues to heat up across the industry.
Email Editorial
This post was originally published on this site
