Offering clients a real estate chatbot is quickly becoming the norm. In fact, the real estate industry has one of the highest adoption rates of AI chatbots.
Some of the benefits and use cases are obvious: they’re multilingual. They’re available 24/7. They can answer client queries. But there are plenty of other ways to use a real estate chatbot.
If you’re considering deploying an AI chatbot for real estate, look no further. In this article, I’ll explain the ins and outs of real estate chatbots, including how they can serve clients, how they can help real estate agents, and the best chatbots for your specific use case.
What’s a real estate AI chatbot?
A real estate AI chatbot is a software designed to assist with a wide variety of tasks involved in real estate services, like answering customer questions, conducting property searches, scheduling tours, and qualifying leads.
How to Use a Chatbot for Real Estate
There are a variety of ways to use a real estate chatbot, and just as many options for how to build or buy one.
We’ll explain how to deploy (i.e. set up and set loose) a real estate chatbot below. First, we’ll dive into the most common ways you can use a chatbot to serve your clients and your firm.
Manage client relationships
One of the best real estate chatbot features is its ability to maintain useful, personalized conversations with prospective buyers.
Every client is different. Customer preferences may vary widely, but a social media chatbot or website chatbots are capable of starting off the necessary relationship building. By understanding client preferences and providing property recommendations tailored to their needs, real estate chatbots ensure a customized experience.
While human interaction will always remain a necessity, a chatbot solution is able to start the agent-client relationship off on a strong foot. Meaningful conversations can happen with a virtual agent, too.
A chatbot can also provide documentation assistance, keeping track of client and realtor paperwork throughout the process. Instead of spending time organizing files – or teaching clients how to use Google Drive – a chatbot is an all-in-one communication tool that prevents the endless search for needed documents.
Real estate AI chatbots can also manage the rental listing process, ensuring that every query is addressed promptly, and guiding potential buyers or renters through property tours – for multiple buyers at a time.
Answer customer and agent queries
The obvious use case for chatbots for real estate is the conventional customer service use case. This is essentially the frequently asked questions use case whereby a potential customer can ask questions to the agent.
The questions asked by the customer can be with regards to a specific property or with regard to the process. They may want to know which hours an agent is available for property visits, or request specific property details after some research.
If website visitors have questions that can’t be answered by the chatbot – if they’re very specific, or brand-new – the conversation can be escalated to a human agent. If you choose a quality chatbot platform, these kinds of integrations will be built-in – so no extra development costs.
Streamline property transactions
In the competitive real estate market, timely and accurate information is king. Clients want up-to-date information, and they want the process to run smoothly and quickly. A chatbot offers both.
Informed decisions require timely information. Real estate chatbots can offer property valuation and market trends insights for both real estate professionals and clients.
Since AI agents can book meetings and schedule property visits, they also provide a more efficient route to property viewings, both virtual and in-person. A chatbot can handle a client transaction up until a live property visit, taking property preferences into account, and presenting options to the client.
Manage sales pipelines
Using AI for sales is on the rise, and real estate is no exception. Chatbots are a necessity to maxing out the efficiency of your AI sales funnel, by automating the lead generation process and capturing visitor contact details.
Your real estate bot can qualify leads by asking preliminary questions to understand their needs, budget, and readiness to move forward, helping a real estate agent focus on serious prospects. No more need to waste time on potential buyers who aren’t a good fit.
How Realtors Use Chatbots
While you might picture a real estate chatbot engaging with prospective buyers, be sure not to limit their use to customer interactions alone.
Research and preparation
Real estate agents themselves can benefit from chatbots, especially when they’re not in the office. Chatbots are good at providing ad hoc information, like when driving. A chatbot can convey who the agent is meeting, when they’re meeting, and information about the property and neighborhood.
A chatbot can provide real-time answers to spur of the moment questions. A client might ask, “What would be the monthly repayments for a 20-year mortgage on this property with an interest rate of 5%?” Or “Show me a map of the area,” or “Are there other houses in the area for below my budget?”
They’re also an opportunity to get specific market insights before meetings or viewings. If you typically look for insights on a search engine, you can do the same with your chatbot – you can even configure it to draw from certain journals, newspapers, or other resources that you trust.
Coaching real estate agents
A chatbot can also act as a coach for selling. They can remind a real estate agent – perhaps on the way to a client meeting – about professional customer engagement and sales techniques.
Imagine a built-in researcher and coach by your side – it’s able to provide real-time updates, create lists of neighborhood highlights, and provide background information about clients. Being well-informed and prepared is a necessity. A chatbot makes it easy.
IT support
Chatbots are traditionally used in IT support. Just because you don’t have an IT business doesn’t mean you don’t have IT needs.
This is especially useful for larger firms that need to coordinate services between departments and across offices.
Human resources
A chatbot can provide many of the typical services that accompany HR tasks. Expense submission, holiday requests, and communicating company policies are simple to set up on a chatbot builder. And they streamline your firm’s human resource efforts.
If you employ a chatbot for real estate, you might as well get your money’s worth – make it an HR chatbot, too.
For senior managers, for example, they could play a business intelligence role, whereby managers could ask specific questions about the business and the chatbot would provide them with immediate relevant answers / analytics.
Best Practices for Real Estate Chatbots
Integrate with CRM systems and marketing tools
Real estate businesses can also benefit from the seamless integration of AI chatbots with CRM systems.
A popular capability of chatbots is their ability to generate leads through outreach, through social media, email, or campaigns (like Facebook marketing campaigns).
This integration ensures that all client interactions are recorded and analyzed, providing strong insights for future marketing campaigns and client engagement strategies.
For example, custom chatbot pages and independent landing pages can be created for specific property listings, enhancing the visibility and appeal of these properties.
Integrate with social media
Social media channels have become essential platforms for real estate marketing and customer engagement. Integrating a real estate chatbot with these channels is a surefire way to streamline communication with clients.
A real estate chatbot can connect to social media platforms like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Instagram to reach out to prospective clients or answer their questions. It can even take the conversation from text to action – the bot can schedule viewings directly from Facebook Messenger, or book a virtual tour directly on WhatsApp.
It can also qualify leads, syncing the data with your CRM. It’s common for a chatbot to engage in back-and-forth questioning with a user, which means they can ask your key qualification questions: how much a client is looking to spend, their geographical region, and how soon they’re ready to move.
The social media approach will become more and more popular as firms look to meet clients where they are.
5 Best Chatbots for Real Estate Agents
Since a real estate chatbot will be used in high stakes interactions with potential clients, you’ll need a professional chatbot.
If you want the bot to be customized to your specific firm – your property listings, communication standards, and real estate website – you’ll want to build a custom chatbot on a flexible chatbot platform.
Using a platform allows you to safeguard your chatbot, so it won’t pull information from undesirable sources, provide unhelpful answers, or stray off-topic.
The more control you have over your LLM-powered AI agent, the better it is for your business.
So here are a few of the best chatbot platforms for building real estate bots.
1. Botpress
Botpress is a chatbot platform designed for building chatbots with high customization capabilities, making it a strong contender for real estate applications.
Its modular architecture allows developers to create and integrate specific functionalities tailored to real estate needs, such as property search, scheduling tours, and answering FAQs. The platform supports natural language understanding (NLU), enabling bots to comprehend and process user queries accurately.
Botpress also offers robust analytics and reporting tools, allowing real estate firms to monitor bot performance and improve interactions based on user data. Additionally, Botpress's integration capabilities with CRMs and other real estate tools streamline lead management and follow-up processes, enhancing overall efficiency.
If you're interested in deploying a secure chatbot with a fast turnaround time, you can contact their sales team.
2. Dialogflow
Dialogflow, a product by Google, is a powerful chatbot development platform that excels in natural language processing (NLP).
It is particularly effective for real estate chatbots due to its ability to understand and process complex queries. Dialogflow supports multiple languages and can be integrated with various communication channels, including websites, mobile apps, and social media platforms.
For real estate applications, it can handle tasks such as property searches, appointment scheduling, and providing market information. Dialogflow's integration with Google Cloud services allows for scalable and secure deployment, while its machine learning capabilities ensure continuous improvement in understanding user intents, making it a reliable choice for real estate firms.
3. Yellow.ai
Yellow.ai is an AI-powered platform known for its versatility and automation capabilities, making it ideal for developing real estate chatbots.
The platform supports omnichannel deployment, allowing chatbots to engage with clients across various channels like websites, mobile apps, and social media. Yellow.ai's bots can handle a wide range of real estate tasks, from lead qualification and property recommendations to scheduling viewings and providing market insights.
Its robust analytics and reporting tools help real estate firms understand user behavior and improve bot performance. Additionally, Yellow.ai's integration with CRM systems and other real estate tools ensures seamless lead management and enhances customer engagement.
4. UChat
UChat is a user-friendly chatbot development platform that supports building chatbots for real estate without requiring extensive coding knowledge.
It offers drag-and-drop functionality and pre-built templates, making it accessible for real estate professionals who may not have technical expertise. UChat supports integration with various communication channels, including websites, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp.
For real estate applications, UChat can manage tasks such as property listings, scheduling appointments, and answering common inquiries. Its automation capabilities help streamline lead management processes, and the platform's analytics tools provide insights into bot interactions, allowing for continuous improvement in customer service.
5. IBM watsonx Assistant
IBM watsonx Assistant is a sophisticated AI-powered chatbot platform known for its advanced natural language understanding (NLU) and machine learning capabilities.
For real estate applications, watsonx Assistant can manage a wide array of tasks, including property search, lead qualification, and appointment scheduling. The platform supports integration with various channels like websites, mobile apps, and social media, ensuring consistent customer engagement.
watsonx Assistant's ability to handle complex queries and provide personalized responses makes it a valuable tool for real estate firms. Additionally, its robust analytics and reporting tools offer insights into user interactions, helping firms optimize their chatbot performance and improve customer satisfaction.
Benefits of Chatbots for Real Estate
There are endless benefits to a real estate chatbot. Here are a few of the most impactful:
- Multilingual
- 24/7 access
- Conduct virtual tours
- Automatically qualify leads
- Documentation management
- Offer up-to-date research and insights
- Scale operations at no cost or low cost
- Prepare ad coach agents before viewings
- Automatically schedule viewings and book tours
- Personalized interactions and recommendations
- Integrate with your CRM, marketing tools, and social media channels
- Free up time for human agents to work on complex, high-value tasks
The biggest benefit of a chatbot for real estate is its ability to scale your operations at a low cost. Chatbots work around the clock, handling multiple interactions at a time, all the time. They allow your agents to spend their time on what matters most – the high impact, person-to-person interactions.
A real estate agent should spend their time when buyers are in key stages of the process, not at the top of funnel interactions. They should be there to help a buyer explore properties, not when they’re being qualified as a lead.
How will chatbots change the real estate industry?
The real estate industry has been traditionally driven by face-to-face interactions and manual processes. But it’s on the cusp of a digital revolution.
Using a chatbot for real estate is beginning to redefine how agents and firms operate – they bring unprecedented efficiency and customer engagement to the sector.
These changes are coming for agents and clients alike. Even simple tasks, like providing valuable insights to a real agent on their way to a viewing, or qualifying buyers before they book time with an agent, have major impacts on the quality and efficiency of a firm’s performance.
By handling initial inquiries and qualifying leads through intelligent conversations, chatbots enable agents to focus on high-priority clients, effectively increasing conversion rates. Imagine a potential buyer browsing a property listing at midnight and getting instant responses to their questions, all without human intervention. This 24/7 availability is transforming customer service – never again is a lead missed due to time constraints.
They provide tailored property recommendations based on user preferences, answer detailed questions about listings, and even schedule viewings, all through seamless conversations. The user experience is automatically elevated – it’s personal, efficient, and low-stress.
And we shouldn’t underestimate the power of routine tasks like follow-ups and documentation. This not only saves time, it minimizes human error.
Chatbots are set to make the real estate industry more agile, responsive, and customer-centric than it’s ever been. If your firm hasn’t explored a chatbot for real estate yet, the time is ripe for deployment.
The Future of Real Estate Chatbots
Real estate AI chatbots are already transforming the real estate industry – they offer innovative solutions for handling client engagement, lead generation, and property transactions. Most of all, they allow a real estate business to scale their operations for low or no cost.
The real estate market is competitive, and real estate chatbots are quickly becoming the way to get ahead. It’s like having a high-powered employee to handle website visitors, provide research and valuable insights, help your sales teams, promote lead generation, and schedule a property viewing.
These AI agents provide instant customer support, streamline the rental listing process, and enhance the overall efficiency of a real estate business. They can conduct a client interaction more professionally than a new associate, and act as a lead capture by collecting contact details from website visitors.
As the best real estate chatbots continue to evolve, they will play an increasingly vital role in shaping the future of the real estate industry.
Embracing this technology allows real estate professionals to stay ahead of market trends, deliver exceptional customer experiences, and – at the end of the day – help clients find their dream home.
Deploy a Chatbot Next Month
Setting you up to build secure, on-brand chatbots is what we do best. If you don't have a developer, we can match you with one of our professional partners.
If you’re interested in setting up a chatbot for real estate, contact our sales team here.
And if you want to build one yourself, you can start building today. It’s free.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do real estate businesses need a chatbot?
Real estate businesses certainly benefit from a real estate chatbot: it can schedule property viewings
Should I use a chatbot for real estate?
The real estate industry is quickly adopting AI chatbots to scale their operations. Their popularity comes from their efficiency, low-cost, and professionalism.
What is a chatbot for real estate?
A chatbot for real estate is a software application that interacts with buys, provides valuable insights and information, handles scheduling and documentation, along with other real estate sector tasks.
Can a chatbot for real estate conduct property viewings?
A chatbot for real estate can easily schedule property viewings by interacting with potential buyers (on a website, social media account, or messaging channel) and booking meetings. You can even use it as a virtual agent to conduct a viewing, if you wish to do so.
Can a chatbot for real estate help with lead generation?
Real estate chatbots can contribute to efficient lead management by integrating with your CRM, sourcing leads, qualifying leads, and conducting outreach campaigns.
What’s the best real estate chatbot template?
The best real estate chatbot template will vary depending on your needs. Try starting with a chatbot platform that allows for customized integrations to your existing platforms and tools.
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