AI phone assistant for estate agency sales
Viewing requests come in bursts after a listing goes live. Tel-Agent answers them, qualifies the chain, and books the viewing back to you.
- Which property
- Chain position
- Viewing slots
Why estate agency sales calls arrive in bursts
Sales enquiries are tied to when a listing appears, not to office hours. The burst comes in the evening, from people who looked at the photos after work, and they are ringing three agencies before bed. The agency that answers is the one that gets the viewing.
How the AI receptionist handles a viewing enquiry
It answers in the evening, when most of these calls actually arrive.
It asks which property, by address or listing reference.
It asks about a chain and a mortgage in principle - the two questions that qualify.
It takes when they can view, which is usually an evening or a Saturday.
It proposes viewing times and confirms, or writes the enquiry to a review list.
What the agent is told to ask
Written by you, in your own words, as the assistant’s instructions.
What an estate agency phone assistant should and should not do
What it does
- Answers the evening and weekend burst
- Captures the property and the availability
- Qualifies with the chain and mortgage questions
- Proposes viewing times and confirms them
- Keeps applicant data on the agency's own machine
What it never does
- Write directly into a live viewings diary
- Negotiate on price or terms
- Say whether an offer has been accepted
- Give an opinion on value or on a survey
- Send applicant data to a third-party server
Questions
Why does it ask about a chain?
Because it separates somebody ready to move from somebody browsing, and that answer is on the note before an agent gives up a Saturday morning.
Can it confirm a viewing without an agent checking it?
It proposes times and confirms them, or writes to a review list. It does not write into a live diary - one wrong entry costs an agent a wasted journey and a client an empty house.
Does it answer in the evening?
That is most of the point. The eight o'clock call is somebody who looked at the photos after work, and it is the call an agency is least able to take.
What about vendors calling about their own property?
It takes the call and routes it. A vendor asking for feedback is a different conversation from an applicant asking for a viewing, and mixing them in one list wastes both.
Can it give a valuation?
No. A valuation is a professional opinion about a specific property, and an assistant offering one is a complaint waiting to be made.
Does the EU AI Act allow an AI to answer a viewing request?
Yes, under Article 50 of Regulation 2024/1689, which asks that the caller be told they are speaking to a machine - that line belongs in the greeting you configure. Nothing about this work falls under Annex III, the list of high-risk uses. The distinction the Act draws is between assisting and deciding, and this agent assists: it never screens, ranks or turns away an applicant. Austria's KI-Servicestelle at RTR publishes the same reading of the transparency duty.
Who is the data controller for what a caller to an estate agency says on the phone?
You are. A viewing request is ordinary personal data, though a tenancy enquiry carries more than the caller expects, and Tel-Agent is self-hosted with your own model keys, so the recording, the transcript and the record it writes stay on your server and never reach Dpro GmbH. There is no processor agreement to sign with us because we never receive the data, and the source is AGPL-3.0, so you can check that rather than take our word for it.
Can an estate agency run this in the United States?
There is no single federal AI statute to comply with, but a phone line carries older rules. Fair housing rules make automated screening a real risk, which is why the agent does none of it. Consent to record is set state by state, and California and Illinois among others want every party to agree. Running the software yourself makes you the caller of record, so the disclosure and the recording switch are yours to set.
Not usable yet. The day it answers a real call will be a release, not a newsletter.
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