Every enquiry gets a reply draft: how real estate agents can use Claude to answer buyers and sellers faster

A buyer who waits a day for a reply has already called someone else.

Every agent knows this. And every agent has had the week where enquiries pile up anyway. You're at an appraisal, then an open, then a contract signing, and the inbox keeps filling. By the time you sit down at night, some of those messages are two or three days old.

Today's step is about closing that gap. Instead of writing every reply from scratch, you have Claude find the enquiries you haven't answered and draft a reply to each one. It drafts. You read it and press send.

Why this one matters

Most enquiries aren't hard to answer. Someone wants to know if the property is still available, when the next open is, whether there's a price guide, or what you'd think their place is worth. The answer usually takes a minute to work out. Writing it well, in a tone that sounds like you, takes longer. Multiply that by a full inbox and it's the job that keeps getting pushed to tomorrow.

That's what makes it a good job to hand over. The thinking is light, the writing is repetitive, and the cost of leaving it is real.

The goal isn't to take you out of it. It's to change your part from writing every reply to checking every reply. Thirty seconds each instead of thirty minutes.

Drafts, not sends

This is the most important line in today's post. Claude writes the drafts. It doesn't send them.

Email is outward-facing. Once something goes to a buyer or a seller, you can't take it back. So for this job, Claude's role ends at the draft. You're still the one who reads each reply, fixes anything that's off, and decides when it goes.

That's also why the prompt ends the way it does. More on that below.

What you need set up first

For Claude to read your inbox, it needs a connection to your email. In the Claude apps this is done through connectors, which you'll find in Settings. The episode shows Gmail, and the setup is similar for other email services where a connector is available. You sign in to your email account, give Claude permission, and from then on it can search and read your mail when you ask it to.

A couple of things to check when you connect:

• What it can do. Look at what the connector is allowed to do. Reading and searching is what this job needs. If your setup can also save drafts, Claude can put them straight into your drafts folder. If it can't, it will show you the drafts in the conversation and you copy them across.
• Approvals. Keep approvals on for anything that sends, spends or deletes. If Claude ever tries to do one of those things, you'll be asked first. For this job, the answer is no.

The Day 10 prompt

Find every buyer or seller enquiry in my inbox from the last 3 days that I haven't replied to. Draft a reply to each one in my voice, answering what they actually asked. Save them as drafts. Do not send anything.

Here's what each part is doing.

"Find every buyer or seller enquiry" tells Claude what kind of email to look for. Not newsletters, not supplier invoices, not the office group chat. Just people asking you about a property or about selling.

"From the last 3 days" keeps the job narrow. It's the inbox version of adding one folder instead of your whole computer. A short window means fewer emails to work through and fewer chances of digging up old conversations you've already dealt with another way.

"That I haven't replied to" is the filter that makes this useful. Claude checks whether you've already answered, so you're not doubling up on replies.

"In my voice" asks it to write the way you write. It does this best when it has something to go on, like your sent emails or a sample of how you normally reply. More on that in the steps below.

"Answering what they actually asked" stops it writing a generic "thanks for your enquiry" email. If someone asked about parking, the reply should mention parking. If they asked about price, the reply should deal with price the way you normally would.

"Save them as drafts. Do not send anything." draws the line. Claude prepares, you decide.

Try it yourself

1. Connect your email. In the Claude app, go to Settings and find connectors. Add your email account and sign in. Check what it's allowed to do while you're there.
2. Give it a sample of your voice (optional, but worth it). Make a new folder and put in a short document with three or four replies you've sent before that you're happy with. Remove client names and details first. Add just that one folder to the conversation. This gives Claude a clear model to copy.
3. Start with a plan. Paste the Day 10 prompt, and add "show me your plan first" on the end. Claude will tell you how it's going to find the enquiries and what it's going to do with them before it does anything.
4. Check the list. Ask it to list the enquiries it found before drafting. Make sure they're the right ones, and that it hasn't missed any or included something that isn't an enquiry.
5. Let it draft. Once the list looks right, tell it to go ahead. If it asks for permission to save drafts, approve that. If it ever asks for permission to send, say no.
6. Read every draft. Open your drafts folder (or read them in the conversation). Check names, addresses, times and anything factual. Claude only knows what's in the email thread and whatever you've given it, so if a reply needs a price guide or an open time it can't see, fill that in yourself.
7. Send the ones you're happy with. Edit anything that doesn't sound like you. Then send.

The first time through, expect to change a few things. Tell Claude what you changed and why, so it can do better next time. "Shorter." "Less formal." "Always offer a call back." Small notes like that add up quickly.

A few habits to keep

• Keep the window short. Three days is plenty. If you've let it go longer, run it on the most recent days first.
• Never let it send. Even once you trust the drafts, the send button stays yours. It's the last check before something reaches a client.
• Watch for personal information. Enquiries come with names, phone numbers and sometimes details about someone's circumstances. Only connect what you're comfortable with, and follow whatever rules apply where you work.
• Check your connections now and then. Look in Settings to make sure the only accounts and folders connected are the ones you meant to share.

Where to go from here

The enquiries were always going to need a reply. The only question was how long people waited for it. Having the drafts ready means the slow part is done before you sit down, and all that's left is reading, tweaking and sending.

Run the prompt once today. Read what comes back. Send the ones that are right.

Missed yesterday? Day 9: The 6am morning debrief

Every prompt from the series is on my free prompts page, with a new one each day as the episodes go up, ready to copy.