How can a real estate agency respond to every portal enquiry within minutes?
An Australian real estate agency can respond to every portal enquiry within minutes, day and night, by letting an AI agent send the first reply, answer the listing questions it already has answers to, book the inspection, and hand the buyer to the agent with the full conversation. The agent keeps pricing, offers and negotiation. The AI takes the speed problem off the team.
This guide covers why speed matters on portal enquiries, what a good first reply looks like, how to set up an AI agent to send it, and where a person must stay involved.
Why the first reply decides so much
A buyer who enquires on realestate.com.au or Domain rarely enquires on one property. They send several enquiries in one sitting, often at night or on the weekend, and then talk to whichever agents reply first with something useful. By Monday morning, the agent who replies at 9am is competing with agents who replied on Saturday night.
Most agencies know this. The problem is capacity. Enquiries arrive while agents are running opens, at appraisals, or off for the evening, and the reply waits until someone is free. We cover the wider research on response time in real estate lead response time.
What a good first reply contains
- The answer to what they asked. If they asked about parking, the strata levies or the inspection times, answer it from the listing information.
- The next inspection, with a way to book. Offer the open home times and, where your process allows, a private inspection.
- One qualifying question. For example, whether they are buying to live in or invest, or whether they have a property to sell. Keep it to one.
- A clear way to reach the agent. Name the agent and say when they will be in touch.
How to set up an AI agent to reply
- Connect the enquiry source. Portal enquiries usually arrive by email and into your CRM. The AI agent reads them from there.
- Give it the listing facts. Inspection times, features, strata or rates information you are happy to share, and the agent's availability.
- Set the rules. What it can answer, what it must hand over, which channels it uses (SMS and email first, WhatsApp where the buyer prefers), and the hours it replies in.
- Log everything. Every message and booking is recorded against the contact in AgentBox, Rex or VaultRE, so the agent sees the full history before calling.
- Follow up. If the buyer goes quiet, a short, useful follow-up after the inspection keeps them warm. Our open home follow-up automation shows how that runs.
Where a person stays in charge
Price guidance, offers, negotiation and anything sensitive stay with the agent. The AI agent should hand over the moment a buyer asks about price, says they want to make an offer, or raises something it has not been given an answer for. A clean handover includes the conversation so far and the buyer's answers to the qualifying question.
How Briick does it
At Briick, the Capture and Convert AI employees handle this work for real estate agencies: they reply to portal and website enquiries across SMS, email and WhatsApp, book inspections, follow up after opens and update AgentBox, Rex or VaultRE as they go. Briicky, the AI Chief of Staff, coordinates them and routes anything that needs a person to the right agent. A typical build takes 4 to 6 weeks.
FAQ
How fast should a real estate agency reply to a portal enquiry?
As fast as you can, ideally within minutes. A buyer who enquires on realestate.com.au or Domain has usually enquired on several listings at once, and the first agent to reply with something useful tends to get the inspection. A same-day reply is the minimum; a reply in minutes, at any hour, is the standard to aim for.
Can AI reply to realestate.com.au and Domain enquiries?
Yes. Portal enquiries arrive as emails or leads in your CRM. An AI agent can read each one, reply by SMS or email with the property details and inspection times, answer common questions from your listing information, book a private inspection, and log the conversation against the contact in AgentBox, Rex or VaultRE.
Will buyers know they are talking to AI?
They should. Tell buyers they are messaging an assistant for the agent, keep the tone plain, and hand the conversation to the agent as soon as the buyer asks for something that needs judgement, such as price guidance or an offer.
What should stay with the agent?
Pricing advice, offers, negotiation, and any conversation that is sensitive or unclear. The AI agent handles the first reply, the facts, the booking and the follow-up, and passes everything else to the agent with the conversation history attached.
TLDR Summary
- Reply to portal enquiries within minutes, at any hour: buyers enquire on several listings at once and talk to whoever replies first with something useful.
- A good first reply answers the question asked, offers the next inspection with a way to book, asks one qualifying question and names the agent.
- An AI agent can send that reply by SMS or email, book the inspection, follow up after the open and log everything in AgentBox, Rex or VaultRE.
- Pricing advice, offers and negotiation stay with the agent, with the conversation handed over in full.
- Briick's Capture and Convert AI employees run this for real estate agencies, coordinated by Briicky, the AI Chief of Staff.
