How CTBRE guides are written

CTBRE guides answer the questions Manhattan buyers, sellers, owners and renters ask, using public market data. Here is exactly how they are made.

AI drafts; Charles Botensten approves

Each guide is drafted with AI assistance (Anthropic’s Claude) from a fixed set of sources. Charles Botensten, a licensed New York real estate broker and the owner of Botensten Properties International, reviews and approves every guide. A guide awaiting his review says so under its headline and is not offered to search engines until he approves it.

Every claim has a source

• Numbers come only from the StreetEasy Data Dashboard, NYC Department of Finance recorded sales, the Zillow Home Value Index and the firm’s own StreetEasy listing record. A draft containing any dollar figure, percentage or count that is not in that data is rejected automatically.
• Rules, taxes and fees are stated only when they match a reference list tied to the official source (NYC Department of Finance, NYS Department of Taxation and Finance, NY Department of State, the statute itself). Each guide links the official sources it relies on.
• Other factual statements — how a listing site behaves, a ranking such as “largest” or “most expensive”, how boards or buyers usually act — must trace to the data or the reference list. A second, independent check reads every draft against its sources, and any statement they don’t support is rewritten or removed.
• Charles Botensten’s own views appear in his words only, quoted from recorded interviews. Otherwise guides are written in the third person; nothing is put in his mouth.

What guides never contain

Invented statistics, quotes, clients, deals, reviews or testimonials; guarantees of any outcome; or descriptions of who lives in a neighborhood or who a place is “for”. Neighborhood descriptions cover places, buildings, prices and transit, in line with fair housing law (see our fair housing statement).

One guide per question

Each question gets one citywide guide, with every neighborhood’s current numbers in a table that updates whenever its sources publish; the data updates daily. New guides publish about twice a week.

Corrections

Market data updates itself. If you see an error in a guide, tell Charles and it will be corrected; a guide’s “Updated” date changes only when its facts change.

Guides are general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. See also data and methodology.