Why Rates Spiked, Why Texas Isn't Frozen, and How to Set Up AI Right

Three weeks ago the 30 year mortgage was at 6.89.Today it's 7.58.The biggest three week move that we've seen in years.And I bet most of you hadn't heard a straight answer as to why.Everybody's going to tell you it's oil, it's the war.Well, oil dropped 4% today and rates went up anyway.So if you want to know what's actually moving your rate and who this so called strong economy is actually strong for, stick around.Welcome back to the Texas Real Estate and Finance Podcast.This is the show where we look at what's actually happening in the market.Rates, housing, the economy, and then we figure out how to use AI to run our business better.My name is Mike Mills and I'm a mortgage banker here in North Texas.And I've been doing this for almost two decades.And I spend most of my week with agents, buyers and sellers trying to make sense of a market that hasn't made sense in quite a while.Somewhere along the way, I got a little obsessed with AI.Not because it's trendy, because I started using it on my own business and it gave me hours back that I didn't have.So I started teaching it.And these days I teach continuing education to Texas agents on this type of stuff.And I've shown over a hundred agents how to use AI in their business.Now, I'm not here as the expert who's got it all figured out.I'm about two steps ahead of most of you and some weeks I'm two steps behind.This stuff changes so fast that anybody claiming to have mastered it is lying to you.I'm just going through it the same as you are, and I tell you what's working and what isn't, as I find out.And that's all this show is, one more resource in your corner.You've got a lot of places that you could spend your time and you've picked this.So.So thank you.All right, here's what we've got today.So rates jumped hard.The 30 year went from 6.89 to over seven and a half in just three weeks.I'll tell you what actually caused that and it's not what you're being told.And I'll explain how your mortgage rate gets built in the first place.Then we're going to get into buying because the payment on that house that you love is almost certainly not the payment that Zillow showed you.And I'll tell you why.The gap is bigger in Texas than Anywhere.And then we'll look at the Texas housing market.Not the national one.The national story is that nobody's buying or selling, and that is flat out not what's happening here in Texas.And if you're selling into this market, someone's already told you to cut your price.I'm going to give you a better way to spend that exact same money.Then it's on to Mike's mind, which is where I open up my brain and let it all fall out on the table.We've got a hurricane, a bond market that's lost its mind, and a hole being drilled in a mountain in Turkey.And for my agents out there, I've got a way to turn the useless two sentence showing feedback.You get into something that you can actually put in front of your seller and.And then the big one at the end.We are building a project.The thing that stops you from explaining your entire business to an AI every single morning.I'll walk you through the six pieces that you need to build this and the four that you should build now.All right, real quick, before we get into all of it, if you're getting something out of this, hit subscribe.And if you're feeling generous, leave a review.Cost you nothing but a click.And it helps me more than you would think.And look, the podcast is the fun part of my week.The mortgage business is the part that pays for it.So if you're buying, selling, or you have a client who needs someone to actually read the whole file and tell them the truth, give me a call.That's the day job, and I'm pretty good at it.All right, commercial over.So let's get to the question that every Realtor and every client asks me every single week.Hey, Mike, what are the rates?Well, buckle up.According to the Mortgage News Daily index, as of September 29th, the 30 year fixed conventional sits at around 7.58%.The 15 year fixed conventional sits at around seven point two percent, the 30 year FHA sits at about 7.24%, the 30 year VA sits at about 7.25%, and the 30 year jumbo is around 7.60%.Now, these are market averages provided by Mortgage News Daily.Not a quote.Your actual rate depends on your credit, your loan type, your down payment, and a handful of other factors.So talk to a licensed mortgage professional like me to find out what your actual rate looks like.Compliance nerd.Satisfied?Okay, so let's talk about what just happened.So, on September 8, the 30 year was sitting right around 6.89%.Three weeks later it's at 7.58.That's about 7, 10 of a percent in three weeks, up 4, 10 in just the last week alone.That is the highest the 30 year has been since April of 2024.And it's the top of the 52 week average.A year ago this thing was under 6.4%.And just so you know where we are historically, the last peak back in late 2023 was around 7.8%.So we are knocking on that door really quick.So why is this happening?Well, the easy answer that everybody's giving right now is oil and the war.And that is real.The war in Iran started back in February.Oil ran over 100 bucks a barrel.And August inflation came in at 3.4%.Most of that related to energy.But here's a little wrinkle.Oil dropped about 4% today.It was $108 last Thursday and right now it's around $89 a barrel.And rates went up anyway.Matthew Graham at Mortgage News Daily said it this week.You can't explain this move with oil.What's actually driving it is economic data coming in strong, the expectation it keeps coming in strong, and the mountain of government debt that somebody has to buy.Now let's let that first part sit for just a second.Strong economic data, but strong for who?Because when you look at where the growth actually is, it's AI, it's data centers, it's a handful of enormous tech companies that now make up about a third of the entire stock market by themselves.That's, that is the growth.And it is real growth.It's just not growth that shows up in your life very often.Nobody buying a house this month got a raise because someone built a server farm.No agent got more listings out of it.And that number that shows up as economic data on a trader screen is the same number that makes your buyer's payment go up.So the market sees strength prices in more Fed hikes and your rate goes with it.Meanwhile, what the actual person cares about is what gas costs and what groceries cost.And that's years of Fed policy plus oil plus a war, which is exactly where we started.Strong economy, but expensive money.And it doesn't feel strong to most people that I talked to.So let me explain again where your mortgage rate comes from, because this is the piece that most people don't fully understand.Your rate is not set by your lender and it's not set by the Fed either.It's actually built off the 10 year Treasury.So here's the logic.If you've got money to lend, you can lend it to the US Government and get paid risk free because the government can just print money.And right now that printed money pays about 5.25%.That's the 10 year Treasury.Or you can lend it to a person buying a house and that person can't print money.So you can charge more for taking that risk.And that extra amount you charge is called the spread.And it's been running right around 2%.And here's the number that proves it.From late February to the middle of September, the 30 year rate went up about 9,700 of a point.And in that same period, the 10 year treasury went up about 97/00 of a point.Exactly the same to the basis point.So when someone asks why rates are high, the real answer is the government is borrowing enormous amounts of money and, and has to pay more to get people to lend it.And your mortgage rate just rides right on top of that.So where are we actually headed now?Well, the bond market right now is pricing in more Fed rate hikes, not cuts hikes.And nine months ago everybody expected cuts this year and that's how fast this flipped.So if the 10 year treasury keeps climbing, mortgage rates are going to follow it.That's just the math.And the thing that turns this around isn't the Fed.It's the government needing to borrow less or the war settling down or inflation actually cooling off a little bit.And I'm not going to sit here and tell you I know which one's going to happen first.Because anybody who tells you that is just selling you something.What I will tell you is this.Rates are the 1 number in this whole business that you can't control and can't predict.So stop trying to time it.Buy the house that works at today's payment and if it gets better later, then we'll fix it then.All right, moving on to our buyer.Tip of the week.So here's the conversation that I don't ever want to have with somebody.They found the house, it is the perfect one and they're already picturing where that Christmas tree is going to go in December or maybe November.These days people put up Christmas decorations pretty early and then they actually see the payment and it's $400 a month more than what they thought.Now that's not a loan problem, that's an expectation problem.And it starts the day they open Zillow.And look at that little payment estimate under the listing, because that number is almost never right.The taxes are usually pulled from whatever the last owner paid.And in Texas, they can be wildly different from what the new buyer is going to have to pay.Somebody could have had a homestead exemption.Someone was over 65 and had their taxes frozen.And a buyer unfortunately doesn't always get all that.And the insurance number often is just a guess.And the guess is always low.This is Texas, where we have hail.Real premiums out here do not look anything like what a national calculator plugs in.And mortgage insurance, if there is any, depends on the loan, the down payment and the credit score.And a calculator doesn't know any of that.And if you stack those three up, you're easily a few hundred dollars a month off, sometimes even more.So before a buyer falls in love with anything, get with a lender and get fully pre approved.And if a buyer has a complicated situation, then get the file fully underwritten.So when you write that contract, you know that the loan is closing and closing on time.And two things are going to come out of that.You get a real payment on on a real house in a real county with real insurance.Quote, now you're shopping for a house that actually fits your budget.And you also have a buyer who can close that loan.In a market where sellers are nervous about whether that deal is going to hold together.That's worth more at the negotiating table and can get a buyer an even better deal sometimes.So being pre approved tells you how much house you can get and comes with a real payment estimate.Being fully underwritten tells you that your loan is closing no matter what, before you fall in love with the house.All right, let's move on to our housing data.So let's talk about what's actually happening in the Texas market right now.Not the national one, ours.Because if you've been listening to national real estate coverage, you got a picture in your head that doesn't much match the state that you live in.And the story kind of goes like this.Nobody's buying and nobody's selling.The whole market is frozen.Sellers aren't going to give up their 3% mortgage.Buyers won't pay today's rates.So everybody just sits there and waits.That's a real thing.It's just not exactly what's happening here in Texas.Texas closed sales have been running ahead of last year for months.The Real Estate Research center at Texas A and M says the first half of 2026 actually gained momentum.People are buying and selling in this state right now.And, and that part of the national story is not our story because here's what's true.Statewide, median sale price is sitting right around 343,000, and that's about 4, 10 of a percent below where it was just a year ago.And prices have been softening for 13 months straight now.But I want to be careful with that because 13 months of falling prices sounds like a headline, but it actually isn't because really what we're talking about is a market that's basically flat with a kind of a slow dip.And inventory is up around five and a half months.And four to five months is what the research center calls a balanced market.So in reality, we are just past balance and into buyer territory for the first time since the pandemic.And the typical seller who cuts their price is cutting about $12,000, call it 3% off of what they listed it at.And right now homes are taking about 62 days to sell, which is just two days slower than last year.Two days, that's it.So more homes to choose from, sellers actually willing to negotiate, and prices that have kind of quit climbing.Now here's the part that I really want you to hear, because it's the question that I get more than any other right now.Is this 2008 all over again?Well, let me tell you what happened in Texas in 2008.Peak to trough, Dallas home prices fell 10 and a half percent and Austin fell 8.5%.However, during that same time, Las Vegas fell 64%, Phoenix 56% and Miami 52%.Same crisis, same country, same years.Now going into that crash, Dallas home prices were about 3% above what the fundamentals supported.Houston was 5% above and Austin was actually undervalued.So we never really inflated, so we didn't really have much to give back.And Texas was even slow to allow home equity lending.Had a state recession from 2001 to 2003 that kept prices from running up before everybody's party started.And we had land, lots of it, and not a lot of red tape to build on it.So supply could actually answer demand when it was needed.So boring lending laws and cheap dirt, well, that is the whole Texas advantage and it is still true today.So put those two things together.We have a state that structurally doesn't crash and a market right now where sellers are cutting 12 grand and there are about five and a half months of homes sitting there waiting.So as a buyer, that's not a market to be afraid of.That's a market where you have options that you haven't had in six years.And most people are standing on the sidelines waiting for something to happen.And the deals right now are where all the crowds aren't.Nobody's competing for the house that's been sitting 66 days.And that seller probably already cut their price once and would probably rather talk to you than wait another month.So why not see what's out there?You never know what you might find.All right, moving on to our seller.Tip of the week.So if your house is sitting on the market right now, somebody's already told you to drop the price.But before you do it, run the math on what that actually buys you.So let's say you're at $400,000 as a price, and you just cut 10.You just gave up $10,000.The buyer's payment on that price just got better by 60 bucks a month.60.And it would take that buyer almost 14 years of saving $60 a month before it ever adds up to the 10 grand that you just handed.Guess what?They're not doing that math anyway.They're looking at a house that sat, then dropped and wondering what's wrong with it.So do something else with that same $10,000.Leave your price where it is and offer it as a credit toward the buyer's closing costs.Because it's the same money out of your pocket at closing, but now it's $10,000 in the buyer's hands on the day that they actually need it.Because what's stopping most buyers right now is the cash they needed to buy the house, not $60 a month.And guess what?If they'd rather use that credit to buy down their rate, then they can.But that's their call with their lender.You gave them the money.Let them spend it where it helps them the most.One thing to check, though.How much credit a seller can give is capped, and the cap changes with the loan type and how much the buyer is putting down.So before you advertise a number, have your agent confirm with their preferred lender how much you can actually offer.And meanwhile, through all this, you still kept your actual sales price, which matters for the appraisal.It matters for your neighbors and matters for what shows up on the last sale on the street.So be sure to say it right, because price reduced tells a buyer that you're desperate.$10,000 Towards your closing costs tells them that you're there to solve their problem.And put it in the listing description.Put in the agent remarks.And if writing that line isn't your thing, then ask AI to do it.Give it the price, the credit amount, and who you think your buyer is and have it write five different versions and pick the one that sounds like a person wrote it.Because 10 grand is worth getting the wording.All right, moving on.So this is the part of the show where I just kind of open up my brain and let it all fall out on the table.Fair warning though, it is not organized in here and it never really has been.I read a lot, watch a lot of videos, and most of it has nothing to do with mortgages and about a third of it I probably shouldn't admit out loud, but it's all rattling around up here anyway, so you're getting it.And here is what's been living rent free in my head this week.So let's start with the fact that we might all be underwater by Friday.See what's left of Hurricane Polo came across the Baja and is shoving a fire hose of tropical moisture through Mexico and straight at us in south central Texas.Could be right in the middle of it.Some spots could see a foot of rain this week.It is the biggest rain event a Pacific hurricane has ever caused in the continental U.S. so that's fun.Speaking of things going sideways, Governor Abbott declared a statewide disaster this week.Not for the weather, but for diesel fuel because right now it's 586A gallon.So he opened up dye diesel, raised truck weight limits and suspended some emission rules.Now he did leave the state's 20 cent tax right where it was, which you know, of course he did.But when the governor declares a disaster over the price of fuel, that's not really about the fuel most times.Which gets me to the thing that I actually can't stop thinking about.Household incomes in 1990 was about 78 ounces of gold.Today it's about 19 ounces of gold.Same work, same income, more or less a quarter of the gold in value.So people didn't get poorer.The thing we get paid in just got smaller and you see it everywhere once you start looking.A three year old used car just hit a record of $32,461 and that's up almost 10 grand since 2020.10 To $15,000 used to buy a five year old car with about 58,000 miles on it.Now that same money gets you a nine year old car with about 98,000 miles on it.Used cars, we're talking about used cars being a luxury item.Now here's the one that surprised me.And I'll admit I had to read it twice.Rent is actually fine.The national median is about 1390, which is almost exactly where it would have been if rent had just kept doing its boring pre pandemic thing.2.7% A year since 2017.So rent is behaving itself, but everything else seems to have lost its mind.And the reason I care about all this, well, it's the asset side of this that's doing great.Because Texas's median home price is around $350,000 right now.And average homeowners are sitting somewhere between 180,000 and and $220,000 of equity.So some 40% are equity rich and almost nobody's underwater.So if you own a house, you are in good shape.If you're trying to buy the house, you're doing it with dollars that don't go as far as they used to.Same house, weaker dollar and the payment reflects it.Which brings me to the part that actually keeps me up at night.The bond market is now pricing in four more rate hikes by June of 2027.Nine months ago, everybody expected cuts.100 Basis points of cuts.That is a 225 basis point swing in what the market thinks is coming in under a year.And the 10 year treasury is up seven 70 basis points in the last 30 days.It's the highest it's been since 2002.And the treasury did try to step in and help, but it didn't work.And now they are just quiet.Now, I don't know what all that means yet, and I'm not going to pretend I do, but it's the loudest thing on my screen right now.And speaking of money, looking for somewhere to go.Bitcoin is up 43% this quarter and it's its best quarter it's had since the end of 2024.Two and a half billion into ETFs in a single week.So money's running somewhere.And it always tells you something when it starts running.Now here's one that actually bugs me.So data centers are basically the only thing getting built in this country right now.And the way our financial system is set up, it actively works against building new housing.So right now we are pouring concrete for robots and not for people.Meanwhile, 40 to 45 AI companies now make up about half of the S&P 500.The Magnificent Seven alone is 32% of the entire US stock market.So when someone tells you the market's doing great, ask them which seven companies they're talking about.And one more, because this one kind of stopped me cold.People 65 and older now outnumber kids under five worldwide.And it's the first time in recorded history that that is the case.So fewer homes are getting built and fewer people are getting born.Make of that what you will.Okay, this is actually the last one and it is completely unrelated, zero financial relevance.I just think it's kind of cool.So they started core drilling today at that boat shaped formation in eastern Turkey, you know, the one that they're calling Noah's Ark.So they've got real permits from the Turkish government, actual archaeologists, and a professor from Sivas University running it.And they're sending a drone inside later this week.And this is the first time that anybody's been allowed to properly study this formation.Now, I don't know what they're going to find, but I do know that they know for that it isn't a natural formation.What is it exactly?I don't know.But I am going to be checking on it all week.Like it's a playoff game.That, folks, is what it's like here in my jumbled brain.Sorry about that.All right, moving on to our agent.Tip of the week.You've got a listing that's been sitting 12 showings, no offers, and your seller is starting to wonder what exactly that you've been doing.And it's a fair question, honestly.So you go ask for feedback on these showings and you get what every agent gets.It showed, fine.Buyers weren't feeling it.Thanks for the opportunity.Two sentences or more and nothing that you can really use.But here is a small fix for you.Stop treating feedback like a form to file and start treating it like evidence that you're building in a case after Every showing.Take 60 seconds and get it all down.Whatever the other agent told you, what they didn't say, what you noticed yourself.It's the stuff that you can't put into a form.And the easiest way to do it, your phone is right there because every one of these AI apps has a voice button.Now you press it and you talk to it like you do Alexa and it types it all out for you.So it's 60 seconds in the car before you pull out of the driveway.Do that 12 times and go look at what you've got.Because one agent telling you the kitchen is dated is somebody's opinion.But nine agents telling you the kitchen is dated is a number that you can put in front of your seller and that changes the whole conversation.You're not asking them to drop the price anymore.You're showing them what 12 buyers said in a row.So it's just 60 seconds of showing.That's what turns you from the agent making excuses into the agent with proof.And all you got to do is record the data.All right, moving on to our final segment of the show.So most people that are using AI right now are having the same conversations over and over.You open it up, you explain who you are, you explain what you do and the market that you're in and how you like things written.Then you get your answer, you close the tab, and tomorrow you do the entire thing all over again from scratch.So that's not the tool being dumb.That's you hiring somebody and never telling them what job that they're actually doing.Let's fix that.Today we're setting one up for a specific job one time, so you never have to explain yourself again.They're called projects, and every one of the big AI tools has them now.Chat, GPT calls them projects, Claude calls them Projects, Gemini calls them gems, just because they can.Same idea, different name.And it's free on most of them.And all it is is a save setup for a job, because everything that job needs is already loaded into your project, your information, your preferences, and your files.And so when you open it up, it already knows what you're working on and where you left off.It's not complicated and it is not technical, but I think that's exactly why most people don't think to use it.So there are six pieces to each one of these, and I'm going to tell you what each one is right now, and then we're going to walk through some actual examples once you already know what we're talking about.So, number one, the title, that's the job in about two words.Listing, prep, buyer, questions, whatever.And if you can't say the job in two words, then you haven't really picked a job.But don't get too caught up in the name, because you're the only one that's going to see that.Just don't build one with a general name like real estate, because then that becomes the junk drawer for all things real estate.And you want these things to be specific to attack.Number two, the description.One sentence on why you open this thing in the first place.It sounds kind of pointless, but it really isn't, because that one line is what keeps this setup from slowly turning into all of your work.Instead of just One piece of it.Number three, custom instructions.This is the standing direction, how you want the AI to behave on this job every single time without saying it over and over again.Who you work with, how you like things written, what you never want it to do.And oh, by the way, you can build all of this as you go.You don't need to do it right out of the gate.The first time you actually use this project is when you actually figured out what it should say.Number four, context documents.This is your material.You upload it, or you point it at a folder in a Google Drive or on your project files, or even on your computer, and it reads that file before it answers you or your questions.You can also keep your presentation, your past work, and your numbers in that same file.Number five, the standard operating procedure, or sop.And this part is the actual step by step for actually doing the job, or even multiple jobs all in the same folder.And this one's going to be a little different from the rest because this is the one that AI can actually write to and update, but more on that in a second because that's the part that really matters the most.And number six, connectors, what your AI is actually allowed to reach into.And those could be your Google Drive, your calendar, your email, your computer websites.I would start with just a drive on your computer or on Google Drive and nothing else until you're comfortable with the rest.So those are the six things that you need for a project.Title description, instruction documents, SOP and connectors.Six ingredients that turn a repeatable task into a full time employee.So the next part is, is how do you get all this stuff without just staring at a blank cursor box on your screen and trying to figure out what the heck you're doing?Because if I just told you to go write custom instructions for a project, most of you would just open it up and look that empty box and then close your laptop and move on with your day.So the tip is, don't write them.Make the AI write them for you.Tell it what job you're setting up and have it interview you one question at a time.You can have it go search the web for how other people run that particular job and what they include.Then just hand it three or four things that you've already produced, like old listing descriptions, old emails, whatever, and tell it to find the pattern in how you work.So with this flow, you are editing, not writing.That's a completely different job.And it takes about 20 minutes.Now here's the biggest and most important part of all of this, because you'll do it every time you set up a new project or task.And it's what separates a setup that gets better from one that just sits there.So the thing is, is you don't just sit down and write a procedure.So the next time you actually sit down to do a job, like the next listing that you take, you do it with your AI model open, step by step, working through it together.And when you're done, you tell it, write down everything that we just did in order as a procedure, and save it to my project docs.And oh, by the way, that is just version one, but it took no extra time because you were doing the work anyway.Then on your next listing, you'll find a better way to do it.This time, you'll catch a step in the wrong order, and then you'll tell it to go update the file.And that's why most people's AI setup actually gets worse over time, because nothing ever gets written down, and every good idea that they have evaporates the second that they close the tab.Whereas this one gets sharper every time you use it.And the same goes for the instruction and the documents.When something works better, just change it.You aren't perfect, and neither is AI.You learn and grow.It learns, it grows.And you can do this together.So each iteration gets better than the last.And it's the only version of this we're doing the work, actually builds the thing.So let's see how this works for a real task.Let's take your listing prep.So title listing prep, two words, not real estate, not seller stuff.Then your description could be something like, I use this from the minute a seller calls me till the day that their house closes.That one sentence is what keeps your buyer work from leaking into this one.Then your custom instructions tell your AI model who you list for how you price a home.And if you're like me, you price it for what's happening today, not what the neighbor got in 2022.Also tell it how blunt you want to be with the seller and that maybe you always want the number and the reasoning behind that number, never just the number.And then once you've given it all that data, you tell it to produce some custom instructions for your project.You write that once, and it stops asking.So what about your context documents for this?Well, you're going to need a folder that the drive reads every time it responds to you.And in that drive, you can have things like your listing presentation.Three or four listing descriptions that you actually wrote so it learns how you sound instead of how the Internet sounds.You might want to also include your seller communication schedule and your market numbers, which you pull yourself from the mls.And just to be clear on that last one, I would recommend that you pull your numbers and you hand them over, because then it works from what you gave it, not what they found on the Internet.Because if you let it go find its own data, you'll end up at a kitchen table quoting something that isn't probably real.So check your data and use the tools that you already have, like the mls.And then on your sop, when you go in for your next listing, run the process with your AI tool open.Then have it write down what you said and save it.And that is your first version.And as far as connectors, for a project like this, all you really need is a drive.So what does all this get you?Well, it gets the pricing story that you tell at the table, the listing description that sounds like you, a weekly seller update that doesn't read like a form letter, and the price reduction conversation that you run through once before you have to do it for real.And what stays out of this?Interest rates, because they move client financial information and anything that could go stale in about a week.And one more thing, just to be consistent with it, swap your market numbers out about once a month, takes about 10 minutes.And you can set it up on a schedule because if you don't, by March you're going to be quoting something confidently that occurred last fall.Now, here's another quick one.Buyers title it, Buyers give it.The description of this is from the first conversation with the buyer all the way through closing.And for your instructions, have it carry a certain posture or tone with it.Give the straight answer, never the pitch.And it should assume it's talking to you, the agent, and not the client, unless you request it.And the documents you include are things that you shouldn't be hunting for.Every single time you need your contract, your Trek forms, your timelines, your emails to send at each step.And the SOP gets recorded the next time you take a buyer from the first showing to under contract and closing, you walk through the process and it writes it all down.And then you add your drive as a connector so all your docs can be read.And here's the good news on this one.I actually already built this for agents here in Texas.It knows the Trek rules and the contract.It knows what's due, when, and what happens if you miss it.Your buyer asks you about the option period or financing deadlines, you drop it into your AI model and you get an answer back to text your client.And you can automate all that too.And inside it, it's also got email templates for every step of the process, so you're not rewriting the same Update for the 14th time.This project is built for an agent running a transaction.You don't have to build it, you just have to get it.And I'll tell you where at the end.You can also do one of these for content.Just call it content.Anything that leaves your desk and go on the public, on the Internet, social sites, blogs, YouTube, whatever lane that you're producing content in and for your instruction.Just make sure that it holds your voice in the things that you never say and on the documents you give it.It could be your best post that you've made on social media.Your colors, your captions, your target audiences, whatever you want.And the SOP is the actual chain itself.A buyer asks you something, that becomes a reply, then that becomes a post, and then that becomes a short YouTube video which turns into an article that you put on your website.And I've talked about this chain before on the show, but here's what I really want you to remember.Before all of this, I was just rebuilding this stuff every single time I went to go post something.But because I wrote it all down and put it into my project, it turned into something that wasn't just a neat trick, but actually something that ran every week automatically.And finally, this project is probably something every self employed person or anybody that runs a business should do.Set up your business command center.And in this project you're going to tell it what you do, who you work for, how you get paid, and how you run your business.Heck, you can even have it help you identify expenses and file your taxes.As a self employed realtor, you just tell it what your goals are, your commission split, what a good month looks like for you and what a bad month looks like.You can give it your database, your closed volume, your pipeline, and the SOP is your Monday morning review.And almost nobody really builds this one.I get why there's no client on the other end of it, so it never feels really urgent.But it is the one that tells you which of the other three is actually making you money.Are you making money with buyers?You're making money with sellers, Are you producing good content?It's hard to say unless something's evaluating your entire business.Now before you run off and build all four of these.One thing I owe you before you go do this.None of this makes your AI smarter.It makes it more informed.And there is a difference.And the difference is that a well set up assistant or with your bad pricing logic loaded into it will now give you bad pricing logic faster and with more confidence.And it still can't tell you what rates are doing today for your specific client loan.And it still doesn't know what closed on the street last week unless you told it.And it doesn't replace you at the kitchen table because you're the one that the seller is looking at when you tell them the number that they don't want to hear.So where do you start?Well, pick one, not four.Pick the job that you do every single week and the one that you could describe in your sleep and set that one up.Or you could pick the one that gets you started on all the rest, like your business managing project.Either way, give it a title, description, instructions, documents and connectors.All it takes is about 20 minutes and you can let it interview you for most of it.So it's just like having a conversation with your friendly AI model.Then when it's set up, you do the job and when you're finished, you tell it to write down what you did.That is the part that most people don't think to do.And it's also the part that compounds the most.And there you go.That's how you turn a monotonous task you burn brain power on every week into a repeatable process that can run automatically.And remember, on the buyer one, I built that whole thing out and it's free.Message me and I'll send it your way.All right, guys, that is the show.Rates are up.And they're up because of what's happening to government debt, not just what's happening in the Middle East.Texas market is not the frozen market that you keep hearing about.If you're selling, there are better moves than just cutting your price.And if you're using AI, spend 20 minutes setting up one project and stop starting over every single morning.And thanks for spending a part of your week with me.Seriously, if it was useful, send it to somebody who gets something out of it.But until next time, be good.Humans.Just keep grinding.Life is what you make it, so make it great.See you soon.