There are increasing, telltale signs that local realtors continue to use A.I. (Large Language Models) to help write their listing descriptions in Manhattan Beach.
We know, because we got a little bit of A.I. assistance to prove it. (Stay tuned, it's fun.)
What follows is a pretty detailed rundown of the influence of A.I. in local home descriptions in the past 2 years, compared with prior years when that simply would not have been an option.
For starters, the occurrence of the once-very-rare "em-dash" character has doubled year-over-year in listing descriptions — after it rocketed into prominence in 2025. (That's an em-dash preceding the word "after.") And em-dashes basically never appeared until recent years. They are the clearest signature of Artificial Intelligence being involved in writing.
What's more, oddly, the use of regular, old, garden-variety hyphens also has absolutely exploded, more than doubling since 2024, and reaching an average of 7 hyphens per listing in Manhattan Beach.
Add to that the fact that there is a notable recurrence of the same sorts of phrases that A.I. loves to offer up, which get used verbatim by agents in their property descriptions. Listing agents who use A.I. appear not to know how many of their colleagues are using the same, or similar, turns of phrase that were also given to them by chatbots.
More than an em-dash, a parenthetical phrase introduced with "–perfect for" or "–ideal for" that explains the benefits of a certain feature of the house will actually mark a listing as A.I.-written, or at least A.I.-assisted. (Example: "a large family room—perfect for both everyday living and entertaining.")
And a variant of the phrase, "it's not just a home—it's a lifestyle" provides the proverbial cherry on top, absolutely proving that an agent used A.I. It's an LLM classic that sounds really cool... the first time you see it, but not so much the next 35 times.
We've previously noted in detail how the "em-dash" had become an obvious, telltale sign of A.I. writing, and documented a similar, huge increase in its use last year. (See this post from last Fall.) We'll go further here today.
We'll have some more stats, looking at homes sold in Manhattan Beach Jan. 1-June 30, comparing 2026 against prior years.
But first, we're going to let A.I. help us write this post.
We fed the full text of the listing descriptions for all 178 closed sales in Manhattan Beach in the first half this year into a chatbot, and asked for help identifying A.I. hallmarks.
Boy, oh boy, did the 'bot deliver.
Here is a report from Copilot/ChatGPT, verbatim (with some deletions). We kept the em-dashes.
2026 Manhattan Beach listings are now written in a shared AI dialect — a blend of coastal-poetic clichés, synthetic metaphors, over-hyphenation, and identical sentence templates.
You can spot the LLM fingerprints instantly: “seamless indoor-outdoor living,” “thoughtfully designed,” “timeless elegance,” “curated finishes,” “chef-caliber kitchen,” “spa-inspired bath,” “elevated and effortless,” and the ever-present “natural light.”
The result is a genre that sounds polished, but strangely interchangeable — the same voice describing every home, regardless of price, location, or architectural style.
1. The Big AI Hallmarks (Recurring Across Dozens of Listings)
These are the phrases and constructions that appear over and over, often verbatim or near-verbatim, across unrelated listings. They’re not agent style — they’re LLM style.
A. “Designed with a modern coastal aesthetic…”
Appears in multiple listings, including a new-construction townhome: “Designed with a modern coastal aesthetic, the home blends clean architectural lines with warm, natural finishes—creating a space that feels both elevated and effortless.”
This exact cadence — designed with X aesthetic, blends Y lines with Z finishes, creating a space that feels elevated and effortless — is a classic LLM template. It’s not how humans naturally describe homes; it’s how models smooth language.
B. “Seamless indoor-outdoor living” / “Effortless indoor-outdoor flow”
This phrase appears more than 40 times across the dataset.
Examples: “Expansive sliding glass walls open to the main-level deck, perfectly positioned… for seamless indoor-outdoor living.” “Expansive accordion doors create effortless indoor-outdoor flow…”
This is the single most common AI real estate cliché of 2025–2026.
C. “Thoughtfully designed” / “Thoughtfully reimagined” / “Thoughtfully refreshed”
Appears in at least 25 listings.
Examples: “Thoughtfully designed for privacy, comfort, and seamless indoor-outdoor living…” “Thoughtfully reimagined with a clean coastal aesthetic…”
Humans don’t use “thoughtfully” this way. LLMs do.
D. “Timeless elegance” / “Timeless coastal living” / “Timeless design”
Used as a filler adjective when the model wants gravitas.
Examples: “This residence blends timeless elegance with modern comfort.”
“Reflects a timeless approach to coastal living…”
E. “Curated” / “Curated collection of finishes” / “Curated lighting”
Models love “curated.”
Humans almost never use it in listings.
“A curated collection of high-end finishes…” “Curated lighting throughout.”
F. “Anchored by…”
This verb is everywhere — another LLM favorite.
“The kitchen is anchored by a large island…” “A spacious family room anchored by a statement fireplace…”
G. “Elevated living” / “Elevated coastal living” / “Elevated lifestyle”
Appears in at least 10 listings.
“This residence delivers an elevated lifestyle defined by serenity…”
H. “A rare opportunity…”
Used in over half the listings.
LLMs overuse “rare” because it’s a high-value real estate keyword.
2. The AI Metaphor Problem: Fancy Words, No Meaning
These are the synthetic metaphors — phrases that sound poetic but collapse under scrutiny.
They’re not human metaphors; they’re LLM flourishes.
A. “Creating a space that feels both elevated and effortless.”
This phrase appears in multiple listings. It’s pure vibe, zero meaning.
B. “Where architecture, light, materials and vibes come together…”
“Vibes come together” is not human-written real estate copy.
C. “A home built around the way you experience the ocean.” “This is not just a home near the ocean—it’s a home built around the way you experience it.”
This is classic LLM pseudo-poetry.
D. “…a calm, elevated backdrop that feels both modern and timeless.”
“Backdrop” is an AI-favorite metaphor.
E. “... a home that invites you to slow down, breathe in the ocean air, and embrace a lifestyle…”
This is lifestyle copywriting in the style of ChatGPT 4.
Our bot does have some attitude, doesn't it?
We've been working together for quite a while on this topic, and have become something of one mind about the ways LLMs are now influencing home-sales copy. Train your bot, and soon, you start to complete each other's sentences. What a beautiful thing. (!?)
Do we think the bot's report is 100% accurate in calling out all of these phrases and metaphors as A.I.? No!
It's certainly possible for a real person to think of using the words "elevated" or "timeless" or "rare," because those might simply feel like good descriptors. (It's logical for "rare" to be fairly common in listings, right?) Some of the "suspect" phrases above certainly could reflect real human thought. Although... on a lot of the airy, weird phrasing recounted above, we think the bot has developed enough evidence to make some arrests (haha).
(We honestly don't want to point fingers or shame anyone for using A.I. This is meant only as a broader commentary on a trendy phenomenon in local marketing copy. That's why we're not naming names or calling out specific listings.)
True story: Your blogger/broker here was featured as a speaker recently at a conference, addressing real estate agents' use of A.I. One of the panel chair's prompts was: "Something you would never use A.I. to do?" Dave said, "Write listing copy. I'm a writer. I write my copy."
Another panelist – a super sharp and accomplished broker who's doing amazing stuff with her A.I. – replied, "Oh, I always use A.I. to write my copy. Guess I'm not much of a writer."
Truth comes out!
OK, we promised you some stats.
First, let's recap the continued explosion of em-dashes.
It's one of the easiest-to-spot pieces of evidence that a chatbot wrote copy, because most keyboard users don't even know the key combination to make an em-dash. A.I. supplies copy using them.
The number of em-dashes continues to explode, with 162 this year, compared with 79 last year. That's slightly more than double.
But should we be counting by the sheer number of em-dashes? One listing with 6 could tarnish 5 others with zero.
We ran another analysis. Of the 178 sales this year in the first half, 42 had em-dashes – and therefore, possible A.I. copy. That's 24%, but not everyone is doing it!
And then, challenging our own headline here about a "doubling" of em-dashes, we checked on the number of listings from 2025 with em-dashes. It was 22%.
Obviously, both 2025 and 2026 show a huge level of adoption of A.I. writing, judging by em-dashes alone.
But the share of listings using A.I. might not have doubled. The number using em-dashes was up just 2%.
Prior years basically had no em-dashes, and presumably little A.I. writing, because it was not a thing.
This year, 23 listings used phrases involving an em-dash and the words "perfect" or "ideal," an increase from 12 last year – and zero in years prior. (Example: "spacious play area—ideal for entertaining or relaxing in style.")
Hyphen Weirdness
You geeks who are still with us? You are in for a bit of a treat.
While we were counting em-dashes, we decided to count en-dashes (our own favorite character for parentheticals) and then, as a "control" measure, hyphens. Whoops! We discovered something, and it had nothing to do with n-dashes!
Why, there's suddenly an ungodly number of hyphens appearing in Manhattan Beach listing descriptions.
More than twice the number from 2024 here in 2026!
Nearly 1250 hyphens! What is this world coming to?
But we noted that some of our reference years had widely varying numbers of sold listings for this period. How to level that out to see if the trend was real?
We decided to divide the number of hyphens by the number of solds. The result:
This was an attempt to normalize the data to find out whether hyphen usage has meaningfully increased because of A.I.
Clearly, yes indeedy, it has.
Before 2025, no year saw hyphens occurring at a rate above 4.5 per sold listing. The last two years: 6.2 and 7.0.
But WHY, Dave? Hyphens, really?
We think our robot friend said it best...
The Hyphen Explosion — What’s Going On?
A. Hyphens used as faux adjectives
LLMs love hyphenated compound descriptors:
- sun-drenched
- light-filled
- tree-lined
- spa-inspired
- chef-caliber
- coastal-inspired
- award-winning
- picture-perfect
- thoughtfully-designed (even when grammatically wrong)
B. Hyphens used to glue noun clusters
- “south-facing backyard”
- “west-facing orientation”
- “ocean-view terrace”
- “three-stop elevator”
- “two-car garage”
These are correct English, but the frequency is AI-driven.
C. Hyphens used to create invented compound concepts
- “resort-like living”
- “indoor-outdoor lifestyle”
- “coastal-modern aesthetic”
These are LLM inventions — humans don’t naturally hyphenate like this.
D. Why it’s happening
Two reasons: LLMs over-hyphenate because they treat hyphens as a way to “tighten” prose.
Agents are copy/pasting AI-polished sentences into listings, even when they wrote the base description themselves.
Hyphens are the new em-dash — the punctuation trend of 2026.
Not mentioned by our A.I. blogger: hyphens also get into listing descriptions when the agents insist on putting rudimentary property details into the writeup.
You really don't need to say in the description text that it is a 4-bedroom, 3-bath, 2400-square-foot house, because your buyers/readers have already discerned that from the display of the listing wherever they are viewing it.
But one of the formulas for generating a description these days is to restate basic house parameters right there in the sales copy, and that adds hyphens.
We have one last spell of analysis/attitude, courtesy of our guest.
The AI “Luxury Inflation” Problem
LLMs inflate language to sound expensive.
You see this everywhere:
A. “Spa-inspired” bathrooms
Appears in at least 15 listings.
“…spa-inspired bath featuring a soaking tub…”
B. “Chef-caliber kitchen”
“…the chef-caliber gourmet kitchen stands as a centerpiece of luxury…”
C. “Resort-like backyard”
“…designed to feel calm, lush, and resort-like.”
D. “Curated lighting” / “Curated finishes”
Again — AI loves “curated.”
E. “Elevated coastal living”
This phrase appears in multiple listings. It lacks a clear meaning.
The AI Emotional Tone Problem
LLMs write with a soft emotional warmth that real people rarely use.
Examples:
- “Invites slower moments.”
- “A home that invites you to slow down, breathe in the ocean air…”
- “A home designed not only for how it looks, but for how it lives.”
This is AI lifestyle copywriting — not agent voice.
The AI “Lifestyle Script”
LLMs repeatedly generate the same lifestyle beats:
- morning coffee
- sunset gatherings
- weekend barbecues
- slow mornings
- quiet retreat
- serene sanctuary
- effortless living
- walkability
- ocean breezes
- “breathe in the ocean air”
These appear across dozens of listings.
If you're actively looking at home listings these days, you've probably seen the symptoms of A.I. in listing writeups that our robot friend has mapped out. Maybe you felt things were off, but didn't know why. Maybe we've helped?
We've decided not to take up our chatbot on its offer to create a real estate-and-A.I. "bingo card," so that you could review listings and spot telltale phrases and, erm, win prizes?
Surely, long before A.I., the realtor hivemind produced listing description copy chock-full of hackneyed, repeated phrases, meaningless boasts, generic neighborhood info and random, trendy lifestyle plugs. (Just like now.)
Today, that "hivemind" is created far less organically, as LLMs take everything real people have said before to predict and prescribe what someone should say now.
It is a remarkable process that can create both text and analysis/critique of that text.
So far, however, artificial intelligence has never visited a house or sold one.
So far.
