# Out-of-hours property enquiries: who answers at 9pm? > What happens to out-of-hours property enquiries at evenings, weekends and bank holidays, and the trade-offs of rotas, auto-replies, answering services and AI. Source: https://owlvox.com/blog/out-of-hours-property-enquiries Published: 2026-10-02 Category: Lead response ## In short - Without a plan, nobody answers a 9pm property enquiry: it waits until the next working day, and by then the buyer has often asked other agencies too. - Estate agencies can cover evenings and weekends with a negotiator rota, phone forwarding, auto-replies, an outsourced answering service or an AI agent, each with its own trade-offs. - On WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger, Meta only allows free-form business messages within 24 hours of the customer's last message, so leaving a Saturday evening DM until Monday can close the conversation. - An estate agent's out-of-hours auto-reply should say when a person will reply and ask about buying or renting, budget and moving date, not just promise to be in touch. It is Tuesday, 21:04. A couple have just got the children to bed and are scrolling through flats on the sofa. They find a two-bed that fits, send a portal enquiry, then message your agency on Instagram as well, because they would like an answer tonight: is it still available, and can we see it on Saturday? Your branch closed at half five. Nobody will read either message until tomorrow, and by then they have asked two other agencies the same thing. This happens every evening, every weekend and across every bank holiday. This article looks at what actually happens to those enquiries, the options agencies use to cover them (rotas, phone forwarding, auto-replies, outsourced answering and AI), what each one asks of you, and how to choose. ## People look for property when you are closed Most buyers and tenants have jobs. They browse after work, at lunch, on Sunday mornings and on bank holiday Mondays, which are exactly the hours your branch is shut or everyone is out on viewings. Anyone who has opened the inbox at 9am on a Monday knows the shape of it: a stack of enquiries from Saturday afternoon to Sunday night. The buyer enquires when it suits them and wants the answer on the same terms. They asked several agencies so they would hear back quickly, and the first useful reply tends to get the viewing. We go into how quickly is quickly enough in [how fast an estate agent should reply to an enquiry](/blog/estate-agent-enquiry-response-time). ## What happens to an evening enquiry by default Without a plan, it waits. Portal emails sit in the shared inbox. Website forms go to an address someone checks after the first coffee. Instagram DMs and WhatsApp messages wait on whichever phone they arrived on, possibly in a coat pocket at a barbecue. ### The Monday morning pile By Monday at 9:15 the overnight enquiries are competing with ringing phones, weekend offers and vendors wanting viewing feedback. The oldest, sent on Friday evening, are nearly three days old. Over a bank holiday weekend, add another day, and the order they get answered in is usually the order of the inbox. ### The 24-hour window on social messages WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger have a harder limit. Meta only allows a business to send free-form messages within 24 hours of the customer's last message. A DM sent on Saturday at 20:00 and first opened on Monday morning is outside that window, and your options for replying in that conversation narrow considerably. For social enquiries, leaving it until Monday is not only slow. It can close the conversation. ## Your options, and what each one asks of you There is no free option. Each one trades something: staff goodwill, quality of reply, or control over what is said in your name. ### A rota on negotiators' phones Someone on the team covers evenings and weekends from their phone, usually in turns. The strength is that replies come from someone who knows the stock and can book a viewing. The weakness is that it runs on goodwill, and goodwill wears thin by the third Sunday in a row. The person on rota needs access to every channel, not just the branch WhatsApp. Cover slips during holidays and during their own viewings. And if replies go out from a personal number, the conversation leaves when that person does. ### Forwarding the branch phone Calls divert to a mobile after hours. It is simple to set up, but it only covers calls, and evening enquiries tend to arrive in writing. Whoever holds the phone is on call in all but name. ### Auto-replies An automatic response on email, website forms or social messages is instant and costs nothing once written. The trouble is what most of them say: thanks, we will be in touch. That answers nothing, offers no viewing and captures no budget. It confirms the buyer is waiting, while another agency may not be keeping them waiting. ### An outsourced answering service A call-handling company answers your phone in your name and sends you a message. You get a human voice, and nobody on your team gives up their evening. In practice these services often handle calls rather than DMs, know your stock only as well as you have briefed them, and take a message rather than book the viewing. Check what yours can do, or the follow-up still lands on your desk in the morning. ### An AI agent Software that answers messages, and in some cases makes calls, at any hour. It can reply in seconds on several channels and ask the same qualifying questions every time. It is only as good as the information it can see. An agent that guesses at properties is worse than silence, so it should only quote listings you actually have and say plainly when nothing fits. It needs to hand over to a person the moment someone asks. If it calls people, it needs consent and sensible calling hours. Rules on automated calls and marketing differ by country, so check the rules in your market. ## What a good out-of-hours setup needs to do Whatever you choose, judge it against the same list: - It answers the question the person asked, rather than confirming receipt. - It captures what you need to qualify: budget, bedrooms, area, timescale, buying or renting, and for buyers their chain and finance position. - It offers a next step, ideally a viewing time, not "someone will call you". - It leaves a clean handover, so the morning team does not start from scratch. - It knows when to stop and pass the person to a human. ## A plan you can put in place this week 1. **Count the problem.** Pull last month's enquiries and mark those that arrived after closing, at weekends or on a bank holiday. Note how long each waited for a useful reply. 2. **List every channel and who sees it after hours.** Portal email, website form, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, lead ads and the branch phone. Any channel without a name next to it is unattended. 3. **Rewrite your auto-reply.** Say when a person will reply, and ask whether they are buying or renting, their budget and when they want to move. 4. **Set fair rules if you run a rota.** Fixed hours, a clear handover and time back in lieu. Replying until 21:00 is a rota. Replying until you fall asleep is not. 5. **Reorder the morning.** Have one person work through overnight enquiries first thing, starting with social messages closest to the end of their 24-hour window. 6. **Plan the next bank holiday now.** Decide who covers it before it arrives, not on the Thursday before. ## Where Owlvox fits Owlvox answers enquiries the moment they arrive on WhatsApp, Instagram DMs, Facebook Messenger, Facebook lead ads and website forms, in English, French or Arabic, at 9pm the same as at 9am. It qualifies the buyer or tenant in conversation, only quotes properties from your own listings and says so when nothing fits. It calls only within your calling hours and with consent recorded, so a 21:00 enquiry may get its call the next morning, with the viewing booked into the diary. Anyone who asks to speak to someone, or asks if it is a robot, is handed to your team and is not dialled. If a matching property is listed later, it messages waiting buyers inside Meta's 24-hour window and flags the rest to your team on the board. It is in early access. You can read [how Owlvox works](/how-it-works), and if it suits your branch, [request early access](/early-access?from=blog). ## Frequently asked questions ### What happens to an Instagram or WhatsApp enquiry if nobody replies within 24 hours? Meta only allows a business to send free-form messages on WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger within 24 hours of the customer's last message. After that, your options for replying in the same conversation narrow considerably. A social enquiry sent on Friday evening should be answered by Saturday evening, not on Monday morning. ### What should an estate agent's out-of-hours auto-reply say? It should say plainly when a person will reply, and ask the questions you would ask anyway: buying or renting, budget, bedrooms and when they want to move. Avoid a reply that only says thanks and promises to be in touch, because it confirms the buyer is waiting without moving anything forward. ### Do estate agents need to answer enquiries in the evening and at weekends? Not necessarily with a person on duty, but something useful should happen before the next working day. Buyers and tenants often browse when branches are closed and enquire with several agencies at once, so an enquiry left until Monday may already have a viewing booked elsewhere. A rota, a useful auto-reply, an answering service or an AI agent can each cover part of the gap.