The Chris List™

Try this before you read another word.

Scroll your own Instagram feed for ten seconds. How many faces have the same flawless skin, the same glossy lighting, and the same suspiciously smooth hands? (Extra fingers sold separately.)

Tomorrow, Eric Simon (@thebrokeagent), Andrew Bayon, and I are going live to show you how to stand out on Instagram when everyone else is posting AI slop.

​Save your seat here

Now, here's what is in this week's Chris List:

📝 [C]ontent: The "safe" jobs might go away too
​ 🛠 [H]ow-To: Kelly Clarkson is a bully
🔬 [R]esearch: The second opinion your seller got from AI
🎨 [I]nspiration: 33% off women campaign goes viral
💡 [S]wipes: Median home sale over $10M in this city

Robots can't replace blue-collar workers (never mind) 🔧

A San Francisco private chef named Aliser Demir cooked a three-course dinner (burrata salad, baked salmon, tiramisu) with a camera strapped to his baseball cap.

The startup Shift paid his usual $100 to $150 per person in exchange for the footage. His take: "Now I am also feeding AI."

Shift pays 35,000+ people across 15+ countries to film themselves doing physical work, from cooking to repairing jet engines in a garage in Turkey.

Another company, Human Archive, is partnering with plumbing and electrical businesses in India to capture the same kind of footage.

The goal: teach robots to do the work. Demand for this training data is roughly 10x what it was a year ago, and robotics companies raised $33.4 billion in the first half of 2026 alone.

Here's the part that matters. For years, the safe-career advice has been "go blue collar." AI can write an email, but it can't fix your AC. The chef believes it too: machines "cannot feel or smell."

Meanwhile, another startup, Mecka, is building sensor gloves that record the force it takes to grip a glass or crack an egg. Feel is exactly what they're trying to capture.

Is your plumber about to be replaced? No.

Experts in the story are clear that nobody knows the timeline. A UC Berkeley roboticist said it "might take five years or 50," and he isn't sure the approach works at all.

But the people building this are betting big, and they're collecting data from the exact jobs we call "safe." Disrupted later is still disrupted.

Why this matters for agents:

We tell ourselves the same story. "Real estate is a relationship business. You can't replace the human."

Probably true for the 9pm panic call. Less true for the CMA, the paperwork, and the follow-up texts. Safe is a feeling, not a plan.

The lesson: don't bet your business on being un-automatable. Bet on being the person clients would choose even if a robot could do the task.

That's trust, judgment, and showing up when it gets messy.

How to handle a public blowup (before it handles you) 🔥

Kelly Clarkson walked into a Brooklyn toy shop called Art of Play, asked about a singing animatronic bird named Molly, and walked out furious. Within minutes she posted that she'd been treated "like Julia Roberts character in Pretty Woman."

The store fired back. Molly wasn't for sale, they said. She's "permanently attached to the wall." Clarkson doubled down on X, pointing out the $15,000 price tag on display.

Then investigative podcaster Pablo Torre dropped the security footage on YouTube.

Here's what it shows. Clarkson browses, flags down an associate, and points at the bird. They talk for a few moments. She puts her items back on the shelf, heads for the exit, and exchanges heated words with a second employee at the register.

Another customer looks around in disbelief.

Here's what it doesn't show: what anyone actually said. There's no audio. Four days of internet court, and the tape settled nothing.

That's the lesson. Both sides had a version of the truth, and neither could prove it. So the story ran on tone, and the store's tone was "technically, you're wrong."

Now the co-owner is telling Curbed the shop has faced harassment and that Clarkson "put us in danger."

Why this matters for agents:

You will get a nasty review. Maybe from a seller who wanted a higher price, or a buyer who blames you for the inspection. Treat every public reply like it's the footage.

1. Don't lead with "technically, you're wrong." Even when it's accurate, a correction reads as defensive when the other person feels disrespected.
2. Respond once, then stop. Two statements plus a press cycle kept this alive for days. Every reply is a new headline.
3. Acknowledge the feeling before the facts. Try: "I'm sorry your experience felt dismissive. That's not how we want anyone treated. Can you call me at [number]?"
4. Move the details offline. Your public reply is for the next 50 people reading, not the reviewer. Keep it short and kind, then take the real conversation to a call.
5. Assume there's a camera, and no audio. Your side of the story only survives if your public tone is already the proof. People will fill in the silence with whatever you sounded like online.
6. Fix the root cause. A visible price tag on an item that isn't for sale is a confusing setup. If one client felt dismissed, how many others felt it and just didn't post?

Do this today:

Save a reply template you can adapt in under two minutes:

No excuses, no "however," no arguing the facts.

You can be right or you can be hired. Choose wisely.

Your client is asking ChatGPT if your list price is right 🤖

Here's a stat that should change how you walk into your next listing appointment: 78% of agents say their clients have used AI to research pricing, listings, or the transaction in the past year. 39% say it happens "very often."

Only 6% say never.

That's from the Q3 2026 Zoodealio-ResiClub Agent Survey, which polled 208 agents between August 17th and September 29th. (44% of them have been in the business 15+ years, so these aren't rookies guessing.)

Here's what clients are doing with it:

• 53% use AI to research neighborhoods, schools, or comps
• 42% use it to interpret contracts or disclosures
• 23% have used it to challenge their agent's pricing or valuation
• 12% have used it to question their agent's commission and fees

Read those last two again. Roughly one in four agents has had a client walk in with a robot's opinion on the price. One in eight has had their fee questioned by a chatbot.

And agents aren't exactly innocent here. 90% use AI themselves, mostly for listing descriptions (72%), pricing insights (49%), and client communication (46%).

So everyone's using the same tools. The edge isn't access anymore.

The Realtor takeaway:

Stop being surprised when the seller says "ChatGPT says my house is worth more." Expect it. Get ahead of it.

Ask early: "Have you run any numbers through AI?" Then walk through what it got right, and what it can't see: the busted fence, the dead-end street, the buyer who toured yesterday and ghosted.

Same for commission. Have your "here's exactly what you get" answer ready before the question shows up.

The agents who win aren't the ones who dodge the AI conversation. They're the ones who say "great, let's compare notes."

Bottom line: 53% of agents think AI will make them more valuable. 30% think it'll replace some of them.

Your clients' AI habit is going to decide which group you land in.

A charity slapped "33% OFF" stickers on women 🏷️

​Pregnant Then Screwed, a UK charity fighting discrimination against mothers, just put giant neon "33% OFF" starbursts on hundreds of women.

The campaign is called "Thanks for your service*" and it runs on billboards in seven UK cities.

The point: women's pensions average 33% less than men's. Career breaks, reduced hours, caring for kids. The system quietly marks women down, and nobody sees it happen.

So they made it visible. Clearance sticker, neon, impossible to ignore.

They took a boring, far-off financial number and turned it into an image that makes your stomach drop.

Why this matters for agents:

Single women are now 25% of first-time buyers, versus just 10% for single men.

They're about 21% of all buyers, second only to married couples.

And 41% made real financial sacrifices to get there: cutting spending, canceling vacations, picking up extra work.

For first-time buyers, single women now report a higher median income ($73,000 vs. $66,400) than single men. First time ever.

She's buying alone, on one income, after sacrificing for it. For a lot of these buyers, the house is the biggest asset they'll ever build. Treat it that way.

Steal the move:

✅ Make the invisible number visible. Don't tell her about "long-term equity." Show her a one-page graphic of what the equity could look like in 5 and 10 years.

✅ Skip the "talk to your partner" energy. She IS the decision maker. Talk to her like it.

✅ Respect the sacrifice. She skipped the vacations. Lead with the wealth she's building, not just the paint colors.

✅ Be loud about it. The charity put neon on billboards. Your "I help women buy their first home alone" post doesn't need to be quiet either.

Bold isn't a budget. It's a decision.

The most expensive zip code in America just hit $10.7 million 🤑

Atherton, California (94027) just became the first zip code in U.S. history with an eight-figure median sale price: $10,725,000.

That's a 29% jump in one year, and the 9th time in 11 years it's held the #1 spot.

Meanwhile, Florida's Fisher Island (33109) dropped 24%, from $9.5M to $7.22M, and fell to #3.

Same country. Same year. Same mortgage rates. Totally opposite results.

A few more numbers worth stealing:

• 9 zip codes have a median above $5M, and 52 are above $3M
• It now takes $2.22M just to make the list, up 69% from 2016
• 72 of the 122 zips are within 5 miles of the coast, and only 5 are more than 25 miles from the ocean
• 11 of 15 ranked states hit record prices

The Realtor takeaway:

National headlines are useless to your clients. The top of the market is setting records while plenty of agents are telling sellers it's a buyer's market.

Both are true, depending on the zip code.

Your clients don't live in "the market." They live on a street. The agent who can say what happened in their zip wins the conversation.

Swipe: the hyperlocal text for your sphere

Swipe: the social caption

Then post your own zip's median price, days on market, and sale-to-list ratio. Three numbers, one graphic.