Guide
The market update video: sixty seconds a week as your town's economist
The market update is the highest-trust video an agent can make. Every other format sells a house or sells you. This one gives the viewer a number they can use, which is why buyers and sellers both watch it and remember who told them. This guide covers where the numbers come from, the five-part structure, and the translation rule that separates a useful update from a weather report.
- The whole format. Longer is a lecture
- 60 sec
- Weekly prep, with the MLS hot sheet open
- 10 min
- A finished one minute video, batch plus export
- 120 CR
- Lite: 1,250 credits, cancel in 1 click
- $19.99
Why the market update beats every other agent video
Listing videos expire with the listing. Personal-brand videos ask for attention. The market update pays the viewer, in numbers, and it is the only agent format with a built-in reason to come back next week.
It works on both sides of the market at once. A seller wondering about timing and a buyer wondering about offers are guessing at the same numbers. Whoever supplies them steadily becomes the default call.
It is also the hardest format to copy. Anyone can film a walkthrough anywhere. Only someone working your patch can say what happened on it this week and what it means.
The trade is consistency. One good update does nothing. The same slot, every week, for a quarter is where the trust comes from. Miss weeks and you restart.
Where the numbers come from: ten minutes, five figures
Everything you need is in your MLS and takes ten minutes on a Monday. Pull the same five figures every week, so the update has a spine and you have a routine.
- New listings this week, and how that compares with the last few.
- What went under contract, and the days on market of the fastest.
- Months of inventory: active listings divided by the monthly sales pace. The single best supply-and-demand number, and almost no agent explains it.
- The list-to-sale ratio on what closed. Over asking or under, and by how much.
- One street-level specific: a sale, a price change, or a listing that surprised you. The anecdote is what makes the update yours.
This is the whole editor
Highlight a phrase and a clip lands on those exact words. No timeline, no keyframes, no layers.
The five-part structure, with the clock running
Sixty seconds splits into five parts. Say them in the same order every week and the format carries you when the week is thin.
- 0 to 5: the hook, which is your most surprising number. Three homes in [town] went over asking this week. Not your name, not a greeting.
- 5 to 20: what happened. New listings, what went under contract, how fast.
- 20 to 35: the one number explained. This week months of inventory, next week the ratio. One per video, taught plainly.
- 35 to 50: what it means for one person. A seller on the fence, or a buyer writing offers. Pick one each week and speak to them.
- 50 to 60: the ask. Send me your street for what this means at your address. Small, specific, answerable.
Sixty seconds, five parts, in order
The hook is the shortest part and decides whether the rest gets watched.
- The hook: your most surprising number0 to 5 sec
- What happened this week5 to 20 sec
- One number, taught20 to 35 sec
- What it means for one person35 to 50 sec
- The ask50 to 60 sec
The translation rule: every number lands on one door
A stat becomes useful the moment it lands on one person's decision. Months of inventory at two means a seller who lists this month probably picks between offers. At six it means pricing sharp or waiting. Say the second half, not just the number.
The same discipline keeps you out of the national news. Rates and headlines describe the country. Your viewer lives on one street, and the country is not buying their house.
Say the bad number too, and say it first when it is the story. An agent who reports a slowing market before the viewer feels it is an agent who gets believed about everything after.
Skip predictions you would not put in writing. What happened is yours. What happens next is a guess, and a weekly format gives your guesses a public record.
Filming it so the habit survives
The car between showings is the studio. Phone on the dashboard mount, window light, sixty seconds, done. The setting says working agent better than any office backdrop.
Same day, same slot, every week. The audience learns the rhythm before they learn your name.
Batch the teaching part when the week is busy: the one-number lessons do not date fast, so two or three can be filmed ahead. The what-happened part has to be this week's, which is why the whole thing cannot be batched a month out.
Keep the numbers on screen. Captions carry the muted feed, and a figure the viewer can pause on gets screenshotted and sent to a spouse. That send is the whole marketing.
The edit, priced
A weekly habit lives or dies on the cost of the edit, and a market update is the exact shape software now edits well: one person, one take, numbers that belong on screen.
Cutroom transcribes the take, writes the hook, tightens dead air, drops the ums, and burns in captions in your pick of six styles. Highlight the phrase about the street that sold and a clip lands on exactly those words. The finished 9:16 MP4 is back in about a minute, and you direct on the transcript, never a timeline.
A one minute update comes to about 120 credits: a 100 credit batch plus export at 20 credits per finished minute. The first 3 are free in your first 7 days, no card, with a Cutroom mark across the middle. Lite is $19.99 a month for 1,250 credits, which covers a weekly update with plenty left over, nothing on the picture, cancel in one click.
The floor is real: a dashboard take posted raw with native captions costs nothing, and a consistent raw update beats a polished sporadic one. Editing buys retention, not permission to start.
Questions people ask
- What should a real estate market update video include?
- Five figures from your MLS: new listings, what went under contract, months of inventory, the list-to-sale ratio, and one street-level specific. Teach one number per week and say what it means for one kind of viewer. That is a full update in sixty seconds.
- How long should a market update video be?
- Sixty seconds. If you have more to say, that is next week's video. The weekly rhythm builds the trust, not any single week's depth, and a briefing that respects the viewer's minute gets watched again.
- Do market update videos generate leads?
- Slowly, and then durably. It is the slowest format to pay and the one that pays longest, because the viewer it wins is a seller who has watched you be right for months. Give it a quarter and count listing-appointment mentions, not likes.
- What if my market is slow and the news is bad?
- Report it first and plainly, then land it on one door: what a slower market means for pricing this month. Trust compounds fastest on bad news, because the viewer knows what the cheerful version sounds like.
- Can I batch market updates in advance?
- Half of it. The one-number teaching segments hold for weeks and can be filmed three at a time. The what-happened-this-week part cannot be faked ahead, and it is the part that makes the update yours. Ten minutes with the hot sheet, then one take.
- What does the edit cost?
- With Cutroom, about 120 credits per finished one minute update: a 100 credit batch plus export at 20 credits per finished minute. Lite is $19.99 a month for 1,250 credits, cancel in one click. The raw dashboard take with native captions costs nothing and is the honest starting point.
Five figures from the MLS, five parts in sixty seconds, one door for every number. A quarter of steady Mondays makes you the person your town checks the market with.