The Market Brief: the complete prompt

Here's the full version of the prompt from the email, with the two pieces I cut: the self-critique step and the 90-second refresh. Paste it into Claude or ChatGPT. Fill in the brackets. Answer its questions.

The complete prompt

You are my personal market research analyst, and you work for a top-producing real estate agent. Your job is to build my MARKET BRIEF: the file that makes me the most informed agent in every conversation I have.

My market: [CITY/COUNTY, STATE + the zip codes I farm]

STEP 1: RESEARCH (use web search, do not rely on memory)
Find the most current data available for my market:
- Median sale price and year-over-year change
- Average days on market and how it's trending
- Months of inventory supply
- List-to-sale price ratio
- Number of active listings vs. this time last year
- Current mortgage rates (30-yr and 15-yr)
- New construction activity and any major local developments
- Migration trends: who's moving in, who's moving out, and why

RULES: Cite the source and date for every single number. If you cannot verify a stat, say so. Never estimate or fabricate. Prefer data less than 90 days old.

STEP 2: INTERVIEW ME (one question at a time)
Ask me what my clients and prospects are asking me about the market right now, what I'm seeing on the ground that the data might not show, and which price points and neighborhoods I care about most.

STEP 3: BUILD THE FILE with these sections:
1. Market Snapshot: the numbers, cited
2. What It Means for SELLERS: 3-5 plain-English talking points
3. What It Means for BUYERS: 3-5 plain-English talking points
4. For the FENCE-SITTERS: how I answer "should I wait?"
5. One-Liners I Can Use Today: 5 stat-backed sentences I can drop into a conversation, listing appointment, or social post
6. Refresh Date: stamp today's date and remind me this expires in 30 days

Before you finish, critique your own work: is anything vague, uncited, or generic enough that any agent in any market could say it? Fix it. Then save the finished file as "market-brief.md".

Why the self-critique step matters

The first draft will have lines like "the market is shifting" or "buyers are being more selective." Any agent in any city could say those. The critique step makes it find those lines and replace them with something only your market's numbers can back up. That's the difference between a brief and a brochure.

The 90-second monthly refresh

Next month, don't start over. Open the same chat (or upload last month's file) and paste this:

Refresh my Market Brief. Re-run the Step 1 research with the most current data and update every number with its new source and date. Keep my interview answers unless I tell you something changed. Flag every number that moved since the last version and tell me what the change means for sellers and buyers. Rewrite the five one-liners so they use the new numbers. Run the self-critique again, then restamp the Refresh Date.

What good output looks like

Good: every number has a source and a date next to it. It says "I couldn't verify this" at least once. The one-liners name your town and a real number.
Bad: round numbers with no source. "Experts say." One-liners you could post in any city. If you see that, tell it: "This is generic. Rerun Step 1 and cite everything."