Smart Replies: How AI Handles Every Tenant Enquiry So You Don't Have To
26 March 2026
11 min read
67% of rental enquiries go unanswered. Hauzed's Smart Replies agent responds in seconds, books viewings, and speaks your tenant's language β 24/7.
It's 9:47 PM on a Sunday. A tenant β employed, pre-approved, ready to move in two weeks β finds your listing on Daft.ie and sends a message: "Hi, is this still available? I'd love to arrange a viewing."
You're on the couch. You don't see the message until Monday morning. By then, she's already booked a viewing with another agent who replied at 9:48 PM.
This isn't a hypothetical. Research shows that 67% of rental enquiries never receive a response within 24 hours. And 52% of callers β especially Gen Z and millennial renters β won't try again if their first message goes unanswered. In Dublin's market, where 150+ people are competing for every listing, being slow doesn't just cost you a lead. It costs your landlord their ideal tenant.
This is the problem Hauzed's Smart Replies agent was built to solve.
The Enquiry Avalanche: Why Manual Replies Are Failing
The volume has changed. Dramatically.
UK letting agents are now receiving up to 10 times the number of daily calls compared to just a few years ago. According to Rightmove data, agents now get an average of 20 enquiries per listing β up from 6 in 2019. In Dublin, where the supply crisis has pushed vacancy below 1%, those numbers are even more extreme: a single Daft.ie listing can generate 150-200+ responses within 48 hours.
And it's not just the volume. It's when the messages arrive.
A study by Respage found that 73% of rental enquiries come outside regular business hours β evenings, weekends, bank holidays. These are the hours when prospective tenants are actually searching. They're browsing Daft on Saturday morning, sending enquiries on Sunday evening, comparing listings after dinner on a Wednesday night.
But your office is closed. Your phone is on silent. And every unanswered message is a potential placement walking out the door.
The maths is unforgiving. Multifamily professionals miss 49% of all calls to their properties. Property managers who respond in less than 60 seconds quadruple their chances of converting a lead. But the average real estate professional takes over 15 hours to respond.
Fifteen hours. In a market where 150 other people are messaging about the same property.
What Today's Tenants Actually Expect
This isn't just about speed. It's about how the next generation of renters communicates.
83% of Gen Z consider it unacceptable to leave a message unread. 74% of millennials rank text messaging as their most-used communication method. would choose their messaging app over their phone app if forced to pick one.
These aren't statistics about technology preferences. They're descriptions of how your future tenants think about communication itself. For them, a slow reply isn't just inconvenient β it's a signal that you don't care. That your agency isn't professional. That the property probably isn't worth the effort either.
And it goes beyond language. In Dublin, where 21% of the city's residents are non-Irish citizens and over 750,000 people across Ireland speak a language other than English at home, the communication challenge isn't only about speed. It's about being able to respond clearly and correctly in the language your tenant is using β whether that's English, Polish, Romanian, Spanish, Portuguese, or Ukrainian.
A letting agent in Phibsborough might need to respond to a Polish family asking about parking, a Brazilian student asking about lease terms in Portuguese, and an Irish professional asking about move-in dates β all within the same hour. In three different languages. At 8 PM on a Tuesday.
This is where manual communication doesn't just struggle. It breaks.
How Hauzed's Smart Replies Agent Works
The Smart Replies agent β part of Hauzed Autopilot β is an AI conversation handler that sits inside your Hauzed chat system. When a tenant sends a message about one of your properties, the agent reads it, understands the intent, and responds β in seconds, in the tenant's language, with your property details, and in your chosen voice.
Here's the step-by-step workflow:
Step 1: Monitor conversations
The agent continuously monitors all chat conversations for your activated properties. When a new tenant message arrives, it reads the full conversation history to understand context β not just the latest message, but the entire thread.
Step 2: Understand what the tenant needs
The agent classifies the tenant's intent. Is this a question about the property? A request to book a viewing? A follow-up on a previous conversation? A response to available dates?
This classification matters because different intents trigger different workflows. A question about pet policy gets an informative answer. A request for a viewing triggers the full scheduling workflow. A message where the tenant is clearly not a fit gets flagged for your attention rather than automated.
Step 3: Respond with accurate property information
For enquiry-type messages, the agent answers using the actual details of the property β rent, bedrooms, location, amenities, availability date. It doesn't make up information. It doesn't guess. It pulls directly from your listing data.
Crucially, it writes in the same language the tenant is using. If a tenant messages in Spanish, the reply comes back in Spanish. If they switch to English mid-conversation, the agent follows.
Step 4: Schedule viewings (the most critical workflow)
When a tenant expresses interest in seeing the property β whether they say "can I see it?", "me gustarΓa visitarlo", "when are you available?", or even just "this looks perfect, I'm very interested" β the agent initiates the viewing scheduling workflow:
Checks your available time slots for the next two weeks
Proposes dates that work for both parties
Creates the viewing in the system β this triggers calendar entries, email reminders, and push notifications for both you and the tenant
Confirms to the tenant with the exact date, time, and any instructions
This isn't just sending a message that says "let's meet Tuesday." It creates a real appointment in the system β with automated reminders that dramatically reduce no-shows. Research shows that automated scheduling systems reduce no-shows by up to 87% and save property managers 5-16 hours per week on scheduling tasks.
Step 5: Report back to you
After each run, you get a clear summary: how many conversations were reviewed, messages sent, viewings proposed, viewings confirmed, and anything that needs your manual attention. You stay informed without having to do the work.
Your Voice, Not a Robot's
Here's where most chatbots fail: they sound like chatbots. Generic. Stilted. Clearly automated. Tenants notice immediately, and it erodes trust.
Hauzed's Smart Replies agent takes a different approach. You choose your communication personality β and the agent adapts everything it says to match:
Professional: Formal, clear, business-like language. Structured responses with proper hierarchy. In Spanish, uses "usted" form.
"Good morning. Thank you for your interest in the property at 42 Rathgar Road. The property is a two-bedroom apartment available from April 1st at EUR 2,100 per month. Would you prefer a morning or afternoon viewing?"
Friendly: Warm, approachable, conversational. Light personal touches that make the tenant feel welcome. In Spanish, uses "tΓΊ" form.
"Hey! Great to hear from you! The apartment on Rathgar Road is lovely β two bedrooms, available from April 1st, EUR 2,100/month. We'd love to show you around! When works best for you?"
Concise: Minimal words. Direct and efficient. No filler, just actionable information.
"Available April 1st. 2-bed, EUR 2,100/month. Viewing slots open: Mon 10am, Wed 3pm. Which works?"
Each of these sounds completely different β and each is appropriate for a different type of agency. A boutique Ballsbridge agency with high-net-worth clients will want Professional. A student-focused agency near UCD might prefer Friendly. A high-volume agency processing dozens of enquiries daily will want Concise.
The point is: every reply, across every property, at every hour of the day, sounds like it came from your team. Not from a bot. Not from a template. From you.
The After-Hours Advantage
Let's return to where this matters most: the 73% of enquiries that arrive outside business hours.
When your Smart Replies agent is active, here's what happens to that 9:47 PM Sunday enquiry:
9:47 PM β Tenant sends "Is this still available?"
9:47 PM β Smart Replies reads the message, pulls property details, and responds: "Hi! Yes, the apartment is available from April 1st. It's a bright two-bed in Rathmines at EUR 2,200/month. Would you like to arrange a viewing?"
9:48 PM β Tenant replies: "Yes! What times work?"
9:48 PM β Agent checks your calendar, proposes three available slots
9:50 PM β Tenant confirms Tuesday at 11am
9:50 PM β Viewing created in system. Both parties receive confirmation. Automated reminders scheduled for Monday evening and Tuesday morning.
Total time: 3 minutes. Zero effort from you.
Monday morning, you open your dashboard to find: a confirmed viewing with a pre-qualified tenant, a conversation summary, and a calendar event already in your schedule.
Compare this to the alternative: reading the message 14 hours later, replying to a tenant who's already booked elsewhere, and trying to manually coordinate a viewing that might not happen.
The communities using AI chatbots see a 65% improvement in lead-to-lease conversion compared to those without. The operators handling 90% of leasing conversations automatically report 15-25% reductions in operating costs. And properties with AI active around the clock capture every single lead β not just the ones that arrive between 9 and 5.
Before and After: A Week in the Life
Monday Without Smart Replies
9:00 AM β Open inbox. 47 new messages across six properties from the weekend. Start reading.
10:30 AM β Responded to 12. Phone rings β viewing cancellation. Reschedule.
11:00 AM β Three tenants are asking about the same property in Polish. You don't speak Polish. Copy-paste into Google Translate, try to craft a reply, give up and send a template in English. Two of them never respond.
12:00 PM β 15 more messages have come in. You haven't eaten.
2:00 PM β Viewing at the Drumcondra property. No-show. Wait 20 minutes, leave.
3:00 PM β Back to messages. Realise you forgot to respond to a viewing request from Friday. Tenant has signed elsewhere.
5:30 PM β Leave office. 23 messages still unread. They'll wait until tomorrow. (They won't wait.)
Monday With Smart Replies Active
9:00 AM β Open Hauzed dashboard. Weekend summary: Smart Replies handled 47 conversations across 6 properties. 38 were answered automatically (questions about rent, availability, amenities). 6 viewings were scheduled β all confirmed with reminders. 3 conversations flagged for your personal attention (one complex lease question, one potential dispute, one tenant the agent wasn't sure about).
9:15 AM β Handle the 3 flagged items personally. Takes 20 minutes.
9:35 AM β Review the 6 confirmed viewings for the week. All pre-qualified tenants. All reminded automatically.
10:00 AM β Focus on what actually needs you: a lease negotiation, a landlord call, a property inspection.
2:00 PM β Three viewings, all tenants showed up (automated reminders sent this morning). Two want to proceed.
5:00 PM β Leave on time. The Smart Replies agent is still working β it'll handle tonight's enquiries while you're at home.
The Dublin Multilingual Edge
One aspect that deserves special attention: Dublin isn't a monolingual city.
The 2022 Census showed that 21% of Dublin City residents are non-Irish citizens. The city's rental market serves Polish families (123,968 Polish speakers nationwide), Romanian workers, Brazilian students, French professionals, Ukrainian refugees, Indian tech workers, and dozens of other communities.
Each of these tenants deserves a clear, respectful response in the language they're most comfortable with. But realistically, no letting agent speaks seven languages. Most don't speak two.
Hauzed's Smart Replies agent detects the language of each incoming message and responds in kind. A Polish tenant asking "Czy mieszkanie jest jeszcze dostΔpne?" gets a reply in Polish β with accurate property details, in the right tone, in seconds. No Google Translate. No guesswork. No accidental miscommunication about lease terms or viewing times.
This isn't a luxury feature. In a city where 39 out of 42 migrant tenants in one study reported experiencing housing discrimination during their search, the ability to communicate clearly and professionally in a tenant's first language is a differentiator that builds trust, expands your market, and demonstrates the kind of inclusive professionalism that wins instructions from institutional landlords.
What Smart Replies Won't Do
Transparency matters. Here's what the agent is designed not to do:
It won't fabricate property details. If it doesn't have the information, it won't make it up. It'll either pull from your listing data or flag the question for you.
It won't create fake viewing times. Every viewing is based on your actual availability. If no slots exist for a requested date, it suggests alternatives.
It won't handle everything. Complex negotiations, sensitive disputes, and unusual requests get flagged to your dashboard, not handled autonomously. The agent knows its limits.
It won't spam your tenants. Maximum three messages per conversation per run. It reads the full chat history before responding, ensuring no duplicate messages.
It won't replace you. It handles the 80% of routine communication that consumes your day β so you can focus on the 20% that actually requires a human: closing deals, building relationships, solving problems.
The Industry Is Moving β Fast
Consider these numbers:
97% of real estate professionals show active interest in AI applications (PwC)
87% of brokerage leaders report agents in their firms already use AI tools
72% of real estate firms globally plan to increase AI investment by 2026 (Deloitte)
AI adoption rates among brokerages: 52% in 2025, projected 73% in 2026
In the US multifamily market, platforms like EliseAI (handling 90% of leasing conversations automatically), AppFolio's AI assistant, and Knock CRM are already standard. But the UK and Ireland market β with its unique regulatory landscape (RTB compliance, Tenancies of Minimum Duration, Rent Pressure Zones), multilingual population, and letting agent-centric workflow β has been underserved.
That's exactly where Hauzed fits. Purpose-built for the Irish and UK letting market. Not a US multifamily tool awkwardly adapted for European agents. A system that understands Daft.ie, knows about RTB compliance, speaks your tenants' languages, and sounds like your agency.
Start Responding in Seconds
Hauzed's Smart Replies agent is available now as part of Hauzed Autopilot. Here's how to get started:
Add your properties to Hauzed (import from CSV or create manually)
Activate the Smart Replies agent for any property
Choose your voice β Professional, Friendly, or Concise
Let the agent work β it handles conversations, books viewings, and reports back
No credit card. No contract. Your first property is free.
The next enquiry about your property could arrive in 30 seconds. Or at 11 PM tonight. Or in Portuguese at 6 AM on Saturday.
With Smart Replies active, every single one gets an answer.
Hauzed is an AI-powered platform for letting agents, property managers, and landlords in Ireland. Our Autopilot suite includes the Smart Replies agent for automated conversation handling and the Scout Agent for AI-powered tenant discovery. See all Autopilot agents.
