Ten on a Saturday morning. You're at the door of an open home handing out cards and your phone buzzes four times: three portal enquiries, one message asking if the place is still available, and a missed call.
You're looking after the dozen or so groups in front of you. By the time you're back in the car at midday, two and a half hours have gone.
The top of the funnel in this job was never about whether buyers exist. It's whether you were reachable in the ten minutes one of them put their hand up.
Jobs that don't need a person
From the first enquiry through to after settlement, the whole chain. The first line is now, the second is after it's installed.
01The weekend flood of enquiries
NowPortals, messaging apps, the form on your site, Google messages. Four inboxes spread across two phones. The weekend is peak inspection time and it's also when you have the least chance of looking at any of them.
Once it's inEvery enquiry gets a decent first reply within minutes: the property is still available, here's when the next open home is, and while we're here how many bedrooms do you need and which suburbs are you looking at. When you finish up and get in the car, there's a sorted list on your phone.
02Private inspections and last minute changes
NowSetting a private inspection takes five messages back and forth. On Saturday morning you can't remember yourself how many groups are coming.
Once it's inTime slots, confirmations and the reminder the day before all arrive as drafts, you press send. Saturday morning you get one list: how many groups, what time, who is new. Someone moves their time and the message is already written.
03Getting the buyer questions asked up front
NowYou meet them and find out they haven't spoken to a broker yet, or their budget is well short of this place. Your time went to the wrong person.
Once it's inThe questions that matter get asked in the first conversation: budget range, whether they have pre-approval, when they want to be in, owner occupier or investment, how many bedrooms, which suburbs. It asks and it records. It doesn't decide for you who is worth your time.
04Listing copy and vendor feedback
NowYou write the same property several times over: the portal version, the social version, the short one, then again in another language. The vendor rings on Sunday night and you give them a rough answer from memory.
Once it's inOne base draft turns into several versions, in both languages, with the price wording following the rule you set. How many groups came through the open home and what they asked most is written up as a weekly report you can send the vendor as it stands.
05Follow up that holds
NowThe buyer who came through three months ago, the one whose offer missed out, the owner still thinking about selling. All of it lives in your head and a pile of chat history. The only people you really stay on top of are this week's.
Once it's inA small batch of follow up drafts each week, every one with a real reason behind it: the place they looked at has sold, there's a new open home in the suburb they watch. If the reason is weak it doesn't send. Anyone who says stop contacting me comes off the list for good.
06The line after settlement
NowSettlement goes through and the relationship stops. People buy and sell years apart, so referrals are what actually keeps the work coming, and nobody has the energy to look after someone who has already paid.
Once it's inA message a few weeks after settlement asking how they're settling in, a request for a review, another hello a year later. All of it laid out by date with drafts waiting for you to send. Referrals only come from people who still remember you.
What AI can't do
The line here is harder than in most trades. Half of what you say out loud is already regulated.
Price, appraisals and whether to buy.What this one is worth, whether it will go up next year, whether now is a good time. A machine isn't allowed to give a single number, and not a range either. An appraisal is a judgement a licensed person makes from comparable sales.
Lending, tax and legal.How much they can borrow, how stamp duty works, contract clauses and the rules that differ state by state belong to a broker, an accountant and a conveyancer. The machine writes the question down word for word and passes it to the right person.
Offers, negotiation and how price is advertised.What you put forward, on what terms, whether to push once more, sits between you and the vendor. How price is worded in public falls under your licence and the advertising rules, so a person signs off on it.
The moment you're face to face.The feel of the room at an auction, the half second a vendor hesitates, the buyer who names a limit but has more in them. Only a person reads that. Handing over the other jobs is how you keep your head clear for this one.
What owners ask most
My clients message through the portals and ring me. Can it handle that?
For calls there's a number that picks up around the clock, so something answers while you're at an inspection or an auction. For portals and messaging apps, the job is pulling scattered questions into one record with one way of answering them. You set the rule for when it hands over to you.
Will an instant reply look lazy, like an obvious bot?
The first reply isn't there to close anyone. It's there to keep them warm: yes the property is still available, here's when the next inspection is. You still make the real call. Nobody ever complained about being answered too fast. They complain about being ignored.
Can it answer what this place is worth?
No, and don't let it try. That isn't about what it can do, it's about the rules of this trade. What it should do is flag the question and push it to you, so you answer with comparable sales in hand.
I run a buyer agency on my own. Is it worth installing?
On your own is when it's worth the most. Your ceiling is that you can only be in one place at a time, and in this job everyone puts their hand up at once.
Will it fight with the agency CRM? And is client data safe?
It doesn't fight with it. It fills the part of the CRM nobody updates and nobody follows up. Where the data sits, how long it's kept and whether it gets used for training are questions to ask before you install anything. Treat those as a hard requirement when you pick a provider.