I started this channel in January 2025 with a tripod, one studio light, and no real idea whether any of it would work. This post is me opening YouTube Studio and showing you exactly what happened. No rounded-up numbers, no cropped screenshots, no "six figures from one video" nonsense. Just the actual data, the same numbers I look at every week.

If you're an agent thinking about starting a channel, or you started one a year and a half ago and you're wondering whether your numbers are normal, this is for you. I'm not selling anything in this post. I just think more agents would stick with content if they saw what "working" actually looks like at this stage, because it's smaller and messier than the highlight reels make it seem.

Key Takeaways

• My top video has pulled 64,737 views and 879,000 impressions at a 4.9% click-through rate, and it alone accounts for 76% of my top five videos' combined views.
• YouTube ad revenue currently sits around $30 to $50 a month. That is the honest number, not a highlight reel number.
• My highest-watch-time video (7:36 average view duration) is not my highest-viewed video. Mistake and tips-format content wins on watch time even with far fewer views.
• Shorts have been reactive clips from long-form so far, not a dedicated strategy. My best-performing Short still hit a 5.7% CTR, the highest of anything I've posted.

How Long Have I Actually Been Doing This?

Only about a quarter to a third of real estate agents currently use YouTube for lead generation, depending on which survey you read (Jamil Academy, 2026). I'm one of them, and I want to be precise about the timeline, because "18 months" gets thrown around loosely in this industry and I'd rather show my math than round in my own favor.

I started building this channel and the content system behind it in January 2025. This post goes up August 7, 2026. Count the months and that's 19, not 18. I'm calling it 18 in the title because it's close enough and easier to say, but I'd rather undersell the timeline by a month than pad it. The channel is Homes with Tristan | Edmonton, and everything below comes straight from YouTube Studio.

The workflow hasn't changed much in that time. I batch-film three long-form videos per session at the brokerage's content studio, post every Friday, and plan a month at a time so I'm never scrambling the week of upload. My editor handles basic text overlays on the long-form side, and I've stuck to that rhythm almost every week since January 2025.

That consistency is the part I'd point to first if another agent asked me what actually moved the needle. Not a viral hit, not a growth hack, just showing up on the same day every week long enough for the algorithm and the audience to both start expecting me. So what does a year and a half of consistent weekly uploads actually produce? Here's the video side first.

The Pattern Across My Top 5 Videos

My top five long-form videos, pulled directly from YouTube Studio, are led by one runaway result: "5 Surprising Facts About Living in Edmonton" at 64,737 views, followed by a July 2025 market update at 8,294, an Edmonton vs. Toronto vs. Vancouver comparison at 5,209, a "what can you actually afford" affordability video at 3,811, and a mistakes-newcomers-make video at 2,776. Here's what that looks like side by side.

One video, "5 Surprising Facts About Living in Edmonton," brought in 64,737 views and 879,000 impressions at a 4.9% click-through rate. That single video accounts for 76% of the combined views across my top five, meaning the other four together did barely a third of what one video did alone.

Zoom out and a pattern shows up fast. Relocation-comparison content, surprising or counter-intuitive facts, and market-reality-check framing produced every single video in that top five. Nothing in my archive that's purely a listing walkthrough or a generic "why choose me" video comes close. Viewers click on comparisons and surprises. They don't click on credentials.

My theory, and it's just a theory built off five data points, is that relocation content works because it answers a question the viewer is already asking on their own, with real numbers attached, before they've ever heard of me. A market update or a comparison video doesn't need me to be interesting. The topic already is. My job is just to not get in the way of it with a bad thumbnail or a slow opening.

Average organic YouTube CTR for most creators sits between 4.0% and 6.9%, with anything above 7% considered good (Focus Digital, 2025). My best video's 4.9% CTR is squarely average by that standard, not exceptional. It still did 64,737 views. That tells me the topic and the thumbnail got people curious, but it was 879,000 impressions from the algorithm that actually made the number possible. Consistency beat the perfect thumbnail here, not the other way around.

Views Don't Tell You Everything: What Average View Duration Showed Me

Average view duration across my top five videos ranges from 3:27 to 7:36, and the ranking flips almost completely once you sort by watch time instead of views. For videos in the five-to-fifteen-minute range, a healthy average percentage viewed sits between 40% and 55% (vidIQ, 2025). I don't have percentage-viewed pulled for every video yet, but the raw minutes already tell an interesting story on their own.

"5 Mistakes Newcomers Make When Moving Here" has the lowest view count of the five, just 2,776, but the highest average view duration by a wide margin at 7:36. It's the video people watch the longest even though it's the video the fewest people clicked on in the first place. That's not a contradiction, in my opinion it's the whole point: views measure curiosity, watch time measures whether you delivered on it.

Educational, tips-and-mistakes-format content isn't winning the click. It's winning the room once someone's already in it. If you're trying to build trust with an audience, not just rack up views, that distinction matters more than the total on the thumbnail.

The Ad Revenue Number Nobody Talks About

YouTube ad revenue on my channel runs in the $30 to $50 a month range, and June 2026 came in at $31.50. That's not a typo and I'm not embarrassed by it. At my subscriber and view count, that number is exactly where it should be, and any agent expecting AdSense to fund their business at 19 months in is solving the wrong problem.

I don't build this channel for ad revenue and I never have. The return isn't in the AdSense deposit, it's in who finds the channel while searching "moving to Edmonton from Ontario" and books a call three videos later. Ad revenue is a byproduct at this stage, worth mentioning because agents deserve to know it's small, not worth chasing on its own.

If you're an agent doing the math on whether YouTube "pays" yet, separate the two questions. Does it pay through AdSense? Not really, not at this size, and it won't for a while. Does it pay through the business the channel feeds? That's the number that actually matters, and it's the one I'd tell you to track from day one instead of watching the ad revenue counter.

Where Shorts Fit: Honestly, Not Very Well Yet

Every one of my top three Shorts is a clip pulled from a long-form video, not a purpose-built short. "5 SHOCKING Truths About Moving to Edmonton" leads at 2,150 views with a 0:42 average view duration, followed by "Edmonton Homes Are a STEAL Compared to Toronto" at 1,943 views, and "Semi Detached Homes: Why Everyone's Buying Them NOW!" at 1,542 views. That last one carries the highest click-through rate of anything I've posted, at 5.7%.

I'll be straight with you: Shorts are the weakest part of my content system right now, and I'm not going to dress that up. I don't have a dedicated Shorts strategy yet. Everything above was clipped after the fact from long-form footage, not filmed with a vertical-first plan in mind. Posting one Short a day, on purpose, with its own hook and structure, is the gap I still need to close. Property-specific content like the semi-detached video getting the best CTR is the one signal telling me where to start.

What These Numbers Actually Mean for the Business

Listings with video generate 403% more inquiries than listings without, and 73% of homeowners say they're more likely to list with an agent who uses video (Jamil Academy, 2026). That gap is exactly why I keep filming even when a given video only pulls a few thousand views.

The channel is my primary lead source, and it's especially strong for buyers relocating to Edmonton from Ontario or BC, which is my highest-converting segment by a clear margin. As of this post, 15 closed deals trace back directly to YouTube. What I can tell you honestly is that when someone books a call after finding me through a relocation video, they already trust me more than a cold lead does, because they've watched me explain something real before we ever talk.

Is that worth 19 months of Friday uploads for a $30 to $50 monthly AdSense check and a handful of videos with five-digit view counts? For me, yes, without hesitation. The channel isn't the business. It's the thing that makes the business easier to run.

If you're an agent starting a channel this month, here's what I'd actually tell you: pick one repeatable format, not five. Mine turned out to be relocation and comparison content, yours might be something else entirely, but you won't know until you've posted consistently for long enough to see which video types your specific audience keeps coming back to. Eighteen or nineteen months in, that's still the only real lesson I have.

Frequently Asked Questions

I'll post an update on this around the two-year mark. If the pattern holds, relocation and comparison content should keep leading, and I'd like to have an actual Shorts strategy to show you by then instead of another honest admission that I still don't have one.