"Is this still available?" If you work in an estate agency, you have probably read that sentence more times than any other. It arrives on portal listings, website enquiry forms and emails, often from the same buyer about several properties in one evening.
It is a perfectly reasonable question. It is also a question your team answers dozens of times a week, usually with information already on your website. This post looks at the property availability questions and other listing enquiries worth automating, with example conversations for each.
The questions that fill the inbox
Most agencies find their listing enquiries fall into a handful of groups:
- Availability: still on the market, under offer, or sold.
- Viewings: when can I see it, is there an open house.
- Property facts: tenure, council tax band, parking, garden, service charge.
- Process: how do I make an offer, do I need a mortgage in principle.
- Fees and chain: is it chain free, how long has it been on.
These are exactly the repeat listing questions a website assistant handles well, because the answers are factual and usually written down.
Script 1: availability
Visitor: Is the two-bed flat on Harbour Street still available? Assistant: Yes, it's still available and not under offer at the moment. Would you like to arrange a viewing? If you share your preferred days, the team will confirm a time with you.
Short, accurate and moving toward a next step. If the listing says under offer, the answer should say so and offer to register the buyer for similar properties instead.
Script 2: property facts
Visitor: What's the council tax band and is there parking? Assistant: It's council tax band C, and there's one allocated parking space plus visitor parking. The service charge is listed on the property page if you'd like the details.
The assistant only answers what the listing states. If parking is not mentioned, it should say it will check with the team, not guess.
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Script 3: viewing requests
Visitor: Can I view it this weekend? Assistant: I can pass your request to the team. Which days and times suit you best, and what's the best number or email to confirm?
This captures a viewing request with the details your team needs. It does not confirm a slot in the diary, which is a job for a person who can see the calendar.
Script 4: qualifying without interrogating
Once the buyer's question is answered, a couple of light questions help your team prioritise:
Assistant: To help the team, are you buying with a mortgage, and do you have an agreement in principle yet? And do you have a property to sell?
Asked after a helpful answer, most buyers are happy to share. Asked before, it feels like a checkpoint. Three questions are plenty for a first contact; anything more can wait for a conversation with a negotiator.
What should stay with your team
Some questions should always go to a person:
- "Would they accept an offer of..." Negotiation is your job, not an assistant's.
- Questions about the seller's circumstances, which can be sensitive.
- Complaints or anything emotionally charged.
- Legal and financial advice.
A good assistant recognises these and hands them over with the conversation attached. The buyer gets a clear "I'll pass this to the negotiator," not a vague non-answer.
Why this matters after hours
Many of these questions arrive in the evening and at weekends, when buyers browse listings properly. As we explain in buyer enquiries that arrive on Sunday night, a Monday morning reply often loses to an agent who answered on Sunday.
Automating the availability and property-fact questions means those buyers get an answer immediately and a viewing request is captured, even when the office is closed. That speed has a price tag attached, which we worked through in what a missed property enquiry costs an agency.
Keeping the answers accurate
Automation is only as good as your listings. Before relying on it:
- Update availability promptly when properties go under offer.
- Add the facts buyers always ask about to each listing.
- Write your viewing process and response times on the website.
SpideyChat for real estate answers from your listings and property pages, so every improvement you make to those pages improves its answers too. Questions it cannot answer are logged, which shows you exactly what your listings are missing.
Try it with your own listings
Take the last twenty enquiries your agency received and sort them into the groups above. Most agencies find that more than half are availability, viewing or property-fact questions.
Then see how those questions get answered from your own site. You can build a free assistant from your website address and put the same questions to it, or read about everything else it can do, such as capturing buyer details for your team.