Real Estate Stack · Chapter 01 of 10
Foundation: identity, accounts and the office file
Before you touch a CRM or a CMA, get four things right: your brokerage identity is stated correctly everywhere, your email will not land in spam, your phone number matches the market you sell in, and there is a single file that tells Claude, or any new assistant, exactly who you are. Get these wrong and every later chapter inherits the mistake.
Why this chapter
Most agents skip straight to picking a CRM, then spend a year fixing identity problems one at a time: an ad that got flagged for missing the brokerage name, a marketing email that never arrives, a lead who hangs up because the caller ID reads a state they've never heard of. This chapter front-loads the boring identity work so nothing downstream has to be re-done. It also builds the one artifact every other chapter depends on: the office file, a plain-text summary of your business that becomes the first document in every Claude Project you create.
Brokerage identity rules: the pattern
Every state requires your advertising to identify your employing brokerage, but the exact wording, placement, and size rules differ. The pattern is the same everywhere: the brokerage's full legal or registered dba name has to be as clear as your own name, and a team or personal brand can never replace it.
| State | Rule | What it means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| Arizona, A.A.C. R4-28-502 | All advertising must identify "in a clear and prominent manner the employing broker's legal name or the d.b.a. name or names contained on the employing broker's license certificate" (subsection E). Since December 13, 2025 the rule names AI outright: using an electronic medium "such as the Internet, Artificial Intelligence, or web site technology" to target Arizona residents is advertising, and an online ad must satisfy every requirement of the rule "without the need to scroll" (subsection J). The designated broker is responsible for all of it (subsection G). verified [10] | Your email signature, your listing flyers, your team's Instagram bio, and your website header all need the brokerage's real name, not just your team name or a nickname. |
| Arizona team names | ADRE guidance requires the brokerage name to appear in all team advertising, including team-branded materials. report [2] | "The Coleman Group" on a sign still needs the brokerage's name next to it, every time. |
| Texas, TREC Rule 535.154 | Alternate, team and assumed business names must be registered with TREC before they appear in any ad. A team name must end in "team" or "group" and may not imply the team offers brokerage services on its own. Rule 535.155 adds that every ad carries the broker's name at least half the size of the largest contact information in it. Texas does not require a license number in ads. verified [11] | If you run a Texas team, register the team name with TREC before you print anything with it on there. |
| Florida | The licensed brokerage name must appear in all ads, prominently, not in fine print. A team or group name's print size may not exceed the brokerage name's print size. report [4] | If your team logo is bigger than the brokerage logo on a flyer, that flyer needs a redesign. |
Whichever state you're in, treat this as a checklist item for every new ad surface, not a one-time fix: email signature, business cards, yard signs, every social profile bio, your Claude-drafted listing descriptions, and any landing page a text message links to.
Email domain and authentication
If your marketing email dies in spam folders, nothing downstream matters. Set this up once, correctly, before you send anything at volume.
- Send marketing email from a dedicated subdomain, not your root domain, for example mail.yourdomain.com instead of yourdomain.com. This protects your root domain's reputation for personal and transactional mail. operator [5]
- Set SPF on that subdomain with a ~all or stricter qualifier, and DKIM at 2048-bit. operator [5]
- Set DMARC starting at p=none with an rua= aggregate-report address so you can see what's failing, then move to p=quarantine after two to four clean weeks. operator [5]
- Warm up any new sending domain slowly. Twenty to fifty sends a day, most recent contacts first, with a hard stop if complaints exceed 0.1 percent. operator [5]
This is the same pattern used across every property in the deliverability playbook this guide draws from: dedicated subdomain, SPF plus DKIM plus DMARC, warm-up discipline, one-click unsubscribe. Do this even at the solo tier, using whatever CRM or email tool you start with; retrofitting it after a domain's reputation is already burned costs far more time than doing it on day one.
A business phone number in your market
Get a phone number with an area code from the market you actually sell in, before you publish it anywhere. A number from a market you don't work in is a credibility problem the moment a lead notices it: one real Arizona campaign published a Charlotte, North Carolina area code on a page selling Phoenix-area new construction, and every recipient who checked the area code got a small but real reason to distrust the rest of the page. operator [6]
Buy a local number through whatever phone system your CRM or brand engine uses (a VoIP line, a GoHighLevel or CRM-provided number, or your carrier), forward it to your cell, and record a voicemail that states your name and brokerage. Keep this number visible on every page and card, not gated behind a form.
Calendar, scheduling, and storage
Three more accounts, none of them glamorous, all of them load-bearing:
- A scheduling link (Calendly or your CRM's built-in scheduler) that a lead can book directly, so "let's find a time" never turns into three back-and-forth texts.
- A shared calendar your team or brokerage can see, with showings and closings on it, so a covering agent isn't guessing.
- A cloud storage folder structure for transactions: one root folder per client, with subfolders for contracts, disclosures, inspection reports, and closing documents. Name client folders consistently (last name, first name, address) so a search actually finds the file six months later.
Password manager and a separate browser profile for AI
Use a password manager for every login in this stack: your CRM, your MLS, SkySlope, your email admin panel. Shared or reused passwords across MLS accounts specifically violate most MLS rulebooks around credential sharing.
When you use Claude in Chrome to work inside a signed-in site like SkySlope or your MLS, Claude can see everything visible on the page, including personal data, sensitive documents, and private information. Anthropic's own guidance recommends a separate browser profile that does not have your sensitive personal accounts (banking, personal email) signed in, so an AI browsing session never has access to more than the work at hand. verified [7]
Set up that second Chrome profile now, sign in only your work tools inside it (MLS, SkySlope, your CRM), and use it every time you hand Claude a browser-driven task. Keep your personal browsing in your main profile.
The office file
This is the single most useful artifact in this entire guide. It is a one-page, plain-text file that answers every question a new assistant, a new team member, or Claude would otherwise have to ask you one at a time. Every Claude Project you build in chapter 08 starts by uploading this file first.
Fill in the template below with your real information, save it as a plain text or markdown file, and keep it updated whenever a fact changes (a new price band, a new disclosure, a brand color update).
OFFICE FILE Name: Brokerage (full legal/dba name): License number: Phone (local market number): Email: Primary market(s): Typical price band: Buyer value statement (one paragraph, what you do for a buyer client): Seller value statement (one paragraph, what you do for a seller client): Brand colors (hex codes, if you have a brand): Standard disclosures you must include in ads: - Brokerage name and dba State advertising rule that applies to you: Standard commission structure: Notes for AI assistants: - Never send anything to a client or lead without my review. - Never sign anything on my behalf. - Never write to my MLS or CRM without me confirming first. - Always use my full brokerage name in anything written for publication.
Keep it under one page. The point is speed: a new Claude Project, a new assistant, or you six months from now should be able to read this file in thirty seconds and know exactly who you are, what you sell, and what the assistant is never allowed to do.
Write the office file with Claude
Trigger: you're starting from a blank office file, or updating an old one after a brokerage change, a new price band, or a new brand.
What Claude prepares: paste your current bio, your brokerage's "about" page, and any old marketing copy into Claude, ask it to draft the office file template above using only facts it was given, and to flag any field it could not fill in from your material.
What the human checks and does: read every line against reality. Confirm the brokerage name matches your actual license record exactly, confirm the license number, confirm the state rule cited actually applies to you, and fill in anything Claude flagged as missing. Save the final file yourself.
What is never automated: Claude never invents a license number, a brand color, or a value statement you did not give it. If a field is unknown, it stays blank until you fill it in, not guessed.
Set up a Claude Project for your business
Trigger: your office file is finished and you're ready to give Claude persistent context instead of re-explaining your business every conversation.
What Claude prepares: nothing automatically. Projects are "self-contained workspaces with their own chat histories and knowledge bases," available on all plans, with paid plans getting expanded knowledge capacity as a Project's files approach the context limit. verified [8]
What the human checks and does: in claude.ai, create a new Project named for your business, upload the office file as the first document, then add any recurring reference material: your brokerage's forms library index, your standard disclosures, past listing descriptions you liked. Every future conversation about your business starts from inside this Project so Claude already has your identity, market, and rules loaded.
What is never automated: account creation and plan selection are yours. Free accounts are capped at five Projects and one custom connector, so decide early whether Pro is worth it for your volume. verified [9]
What stays human
- Confirming your brokerage's exact legal name and every state rule that governs your ads. Claude can draft the office file, but you are the one who signs off that it's accurate.
- Buying and verifying the local phone number, the domain, and every account credential. AI never holds your passwords or your DNS access.
- Deciding which browser profile is signed into which accounts, and never letting an AI browsing session run inside your personal, banking, or unrelated-client accounts.
Do this today
- Check your email signature, one social bio, and one recent ad against your state's brokerage-identity rule from the table above, and fix anything missing.
- Fill in the office file template with your real information and save it somewhere you'll actually find it again.
- Create a second Chrome profile for AI browsing, and sign only your work tools into it.
Sources
- Arizona A.A.C. R4-28-502, corroborated via regulations.justia.com and AAR practice notes (direct regulation text fetch returned HTTP 403), retrieved 2026-09-03.
- Arizona Association of REALTORS, "Brokerage name must be included in all advertising, even by teams," aaronline.com, retrieved 2026-09-03.
- Texas Real Estate Commission, Rule 535.154, trec.texas.gov, retrieved 2026-09-03.
- Florida REALTORS, advertising rules summary, floridarealtors.org/law-ethics/library/realtor-advertising-rules-florida, retrieved 2026-09-03.
- Tim Coleman's email deliverability playbook, subdomain sending and SPF/DKIM/DMARC procedure, from a working Arizona buyer's agent's own working procedure, 2026-09-03.
- New Home Finds AZ phone-number lesson (Charlotte area code publishing on a Phoenix-market page), from a working Arizona buyer's agent's own working procedure, 2026-09-03.
- Anthropic, Claude in Chrome support article on signed-in sites and separate browser profiles, support.claude.com/en/articles/12902428, retrieved 2026-09-03.
- Anthropic, Projects support article, support.claude.com/en/articles/9517075, retrieved 2026-09-03.
- Anthropic, Claude connectors support article, support.claude.com/en/articles/11176164, retrieved 2026-09-03.
- Arizona Administrative Code, 4 A.A.C. 28, R4-28-502 Advertising by a Licensee, Supp. 25-4 (amended effective December 13, 2025), apps.azsos.gov/public_services/Title_04/4-28.pdf, retrieved 2026-09-04
- 22 TAC 535.154 (txrules.elaws.us rendering, effective May 15, 2018, amended March 4, 2020) and TREC, "TREC's Advertising Rules: What You Need To Know" on Rule 535.155, trec.texas.gov, retrieved 2026-09-04
Starting from zero? Use the field manuals first.
02 · BEFORE YOU BUY SOFTWARE
If you're still choosing the buyer, offer, stack, agents, content, customers, and delivery, don't start with a tool: start with the manuals. These create local worksheets only: no checkout, outreach, or account setup.
Find the first manual
Not sure which guide to open first? Start from your stuck point and let the finder recommend the next manual and the first worksheet question. No personal data is collected: it just points you at the right starting move.
Work the starter pack
Move through buyer, offer, stack, agents, content, customers, and delivery as a sequence of short local worksheet sessions. One artifact at a time, in order, so you build the business instead of browsing for it.
See what "done" looks like
Read a fully worked field manual before writing your own version, so the output feels concrete: a real, numbered workflow with the risky steps gated, not a fake proof claim.