AI for real estate. Every enquiry answered.

The follow up after an open home, the enquiry that arrives at ten at night, the owner update nobody has time to write, and the first draft of listing copy that starts from the property rather than from nothing.

AI for real estate is the follow up nobody has a free hour for, rather than anything that touches an appraisal.

Two different things get called AI, and only one of them matters here. The first is automation, which means a job that starts on its own: somebody signs in at an open home, so a message goes to them that evening. The second reads what they wrote back and answers in the agency's words, which is what stops a follow up reading like a mailout.

What it takes off you first

• The open home list.

  Everybody who signed in hears from the agency the same evening, with something about the property rather than a form letter.

• The enquiry that arrives out of hours.

  An answer inside minutes at any hour, and a real one in the morning, so nobody is left waiting overnight.

• The owner update.

  A weekly note on the enquiries, the inspections and where the campaign is up to, assembled without anybody building it by hand.

• The listing copy first draft.

  It starts from the property details and the photographs, so nobody writes a description from a blank page.

All of that is work an agency already knows should happen. It happens on the Saturday night, instead of on the Wednesday when somebody finally gets to it.

It costs listings. A buyer who hears nothing for four days has been to two other open homes, and an owner who hears nothing all week starts wondering what they are paying for.

Watch what happens to an open home enquiry. Somebody signs in on Saturday, genuinely interested. Nobody rings on Sunday because it is Sunday. Monday is appraisals, Tuesday is contracts, and by Wednesday that person has been through three more properties and remembers none of the agents.

The same thing happens on the owner side. The campaign is going fine and nobody has told them so. Silence reads as nothing happening, and it is the single most common reason an owner takes a listing somewhere else at the end of an agreement.

What that costs you

• Buyers who went cold.

  Not because the property was wrong. Because four days passed and somebody else called first.

• Listings that did not renew.

  An owner who heard nothing for a fortnight assumes nothing happened, whatever was actually happening.

• Appraisals that never got a second call.

  The appraisal is done, the number is given, and nobody rings again until the property appears on somebody else's board.

The Real Estate Institute of Australia has been saying for years that responsiveness is what buyers notice in a market where the properties are the same, and this is the cheapest way to be responsive.

Nothing here asks you to change systems. The work happens in the CRM and the portals your agency already pays for, and the value is in the handoffs between them rather than inside any one of them.

Agentbox, VaultRE or Rex holds the contacts and the campaigns. realestate.com.au and Domain hold the listings. PropertyMe or Console holds the property management side, and the sign-in app holds the open home list. What none of that technology does is write to those people on your behalf, which is why it still lands on an agent at nine at night.

Where the handoffs are

• Between the open home and the CRM.

  The sign-in list gets typed in, and the messages get written one at a time or not at all.

• Between the enquiry and the agent.

  A portal enquiry lands in an inbox, and the buyer waits on somebody seeing it.

• Between the campaign and the owner.

  The numbers exist in the CRM and the owner update still gets written from memory.

• Between the appraisal and the listing.

  The appraisal is recorded and nothing happens again unless an agent remembers to ring.

• Between property management and the owner.

  A maintenance request, an arrears notice, a lease expiry. The data is in the property management platform and somebody still writes every message.

Individually each of those takes a few minutes. Across a weekend of open homes they are the reason Sunday night is admin. The audit maps them in your own CRM and puts a number beside each one before anything is built.

Property management is the half of the industry where this pays back fastest, because the message volume is higher and almost none of it needs judgement. A portfolio of two hundred properties generates arrears reminders, routine inspection notices, lease expiry warnings and maintenance updates on a schedule you can read off the data. Sales is the half where speed matters more than volume: a buyer enquiry answered in two minutes rather than two hours is the whole difference.

Integration is the boring part and it is where most of this either works or does not. Every platform above can already tell another system when something happened. Nothing is replaced, nothing is migrated, and no listing data leaves the systems you already pay for.

It will not appraise a property, it will not quote a price, and it will not tell a buyer or an owner anything about value. Anything somebody would rely on stops and waits for an agent.

This matters here because property advertising is regulated and because a number said casually becomes a number somebody heard. The line gets drawn before anything is built rather than after somebody complains.

Where it stops, deliberately

• Anything about price or value.

  It never appraises and it never estimates. It arranges the conversation where an agent gives the number.

• Any claim about a property.

  Descriptions are a first draft from the real details, and an agent reads and approves every one before it goes anywhere.

• Anything a buyer would rely on.

  Inspection times, contract questions and conditions all go to a person.

Where the work is genuinely repeatable and written down, it runs. Where it is not, it stops and waits, and every message it sent can be read afterwards.

The follow ups that only happen when somebody remembers go on a list, and the one costing the most listings comes off it first. The wording gets approved before anything is built, and it runs watched before it runs alone.

The first one is the open home follow up, because that is where the most people go cold in the shortest time. The next starts once that one is running.

1. The follow up gets written down properly

Half a morning. What goes out after an open home, when, and what happens when somebody replies asking a question. Most agencies have never had this written down.

2. The job costing the most listings goes first

A rough number goes beside each one. The open home list usually wins, because it is the largest group of interested people the agency will touch all week.

3. An agent approves the wording before anybody builds anything

Every message goes out in the agency's name, so it gets written the way the agency talks and signed off before it exists as anything but words on a page.

4. It connects to the CRM you already run

Most agency CRMs can already tell another system when a contact is added or a campaign changes. Nothing gets replaced and nothing gets migrated.

5. It runs watched before it runs alone

For a fortnight, with a person approving each message before it sends. That fortnight finds the buyers and owners nobody predicted, before one of them meets it.

6. The next one starts once the first is boring

A job is finished when nobody in the office is thinking about it any more. That is the signal to start the next one, rather than a date on a plan.

Writing down how the follow up actually happens takes longer than building it. The first job runs watched inside a fortnight, and each one after it is shorter because the connections already exist.

The order it happens in

• The writing down comes first.

  What goes out after an open home today, including the parts nobody has put on paper. This is the slow half.

• Then it gets built and watched.

  It runs with a person approving each message, long enough to meet the buyers nobody predicted.

• Then it runs on its own.

  You hear about it monthly: what ran, what it replied to, and anything that failed and stopped.

The first thing an agency notices is that Sunday night stops being admin. What follows is a campaign where the owner has heard from you every week without anybody having written the update by hand.

Ask whose CRM it runs in, who owns the contact list, what it is forbidden to say about price, and what you keep if you stop paying. Those four answers separate a build you own from a subscription you rent.

These are worth asking of anybody, including this one, so the answers given here sit under each question.

• Whose CRM and whose contacts are they?

  The agency's, in accounts in the agency's name. The contact list is the business, so settle that in writing first.

• What is it forbidden to say?

  Anything about price or value. Ask for that in writing too, because it is the answer that keeps you out of trouble.

• What happens when it breaks?

  A portal changes or a feed drops and a job stops. Ask who finds out first, how fast, and whether a half finished message can reach a buyer.

• What do I keep if I stop paying?

  A build keeps running afterwards. A subscription stops on the day the paying stops, and you start again from nothing.

• Am I locked into a contract?

  Not here, it runs month to month. Any arrangement you cannot leave at the end of a month is worth a second look.

Ask about pricing in the same breath. One monthly fee covering the building, the support and the monitoring is a different thing from a per agent licence, and the second one grows every time you hire. It should not cost more to answer a buyer because the sales team got bigger.

All of this can also be built in house, and plenty of agencies do it well. The six steps above are the same either way.