Questions estate agencies ask
If yours is not here, message us and ask.
Cost and contract
What does it cost?
R6,500 to set up, then R2,500 a month including 3 agents, and R550 a month for each agent after that. Excluding VAT, invoiced monthly, paid by EFT.
The pricing page lists what is in it and the one thing that is not.
Whose WhatsApp number does it run on?
Yours. You buy a prepaid SIM in your agency’s name, for about R10, and the number is yours from that day. We operate the WhatsApp Business account on it for you, which is why there is nothing for you to install or sign up for, and no Meta business verification for you to go through.
If you ever leave, you keep the number. Your adverts carry on working, because the number on them never changed hands.
What does it cost me in WhatsApp fees?
Nothing. They are included, and there is no per-message line on your invoice.
Am I tied in?
No. Month to month, 30 days’ notice, no minimum term. And if you go, the number goes with you. Take the SIM, and every advert you have placed carries on working.
What it will and will not do
Does it replace my agents?
No, and it is not built to. It answers the questions a buyer asks about a house you are already advertising, asks how they are paying and what they can spend, and books the viewing into the diary of the agent who holds the mandate. Then the agent does the part an agent does.
It never negotiates, never quotes a figure that is not on your listing, and hands the chat to a person whenever anybody asks for one.
What happens when it does not know something?
It says so and leaves it for the agent. Asked about rates and taxes on a listing that does not carry them, it will tell the buyer it does not have that to hand and name the agent who will, rather than guess about somebody’s house.
That is the behaviour we would most want you to test. Message the demo line and try to catch it out.
Can it sound like our agency?
Yes. In your settings you describe the tone you want in your own words, and give it your own answers to the questions your buyers ask most. The next message it sends uses them.
Whatever the tone, it always tells a buyer in its first reply that it is your agency’s digital assistant and that they can ask for a person.
Do my agents have to change anything?
Not on their phones. They keep their own personal WhatsApp exactly as it is, and nothing is installed on it. New leads start arriving on their phones, with what the buyer said about their budget, how they are paying, when they need to be in, and anything holding them up. The one new thing is the dashboard: to carry a conversation on from your agency number, they sign in with their email address.
Does it work after hours?
Yes. It answers whenever a buyer writes.
Getting started
What does the setup actually involve?
We register and verify your number as a WhatsApp Business account under our Meta business, which is the part an agency cannot do for itself without going through Meta’s own business verification. Then we get the name buyers see approved.
Then we load your whole listing book with your references kept, so a buyer quoting the number off a Property24 advert reaches the right house. Every listing gets a link for each place you advertise it, and the taps on each one are counted. Every agent is set up with their mandates, their working hours and where their alerts go.
And it is proven with real messages on your own number before you are invoiced: the enquiry, the qualifying, and the booking landing in the right agent’s diary. You are live within a week of us having the two things we need from you.
What do I have to do?
Two things. Buy a prepaid SIM in the agency’s name that has never had WhatsApp on it, and have somebody answer it once for a verification code. And send us your listing book, in whatever your system exports and with your own references, plus each agent’s name, WhatsApp number, email address and the hours they show houses.
Nothing is installed on your agents’ phones.
How do buyers reach it?
On your agency’s WhatsApp number. You put it on your boards and your website, and we make a link for every listing that opens the chat with that listing already named.
A buyer who types a reference instead still reaches the right house, whether it is your own web reference or the Property24 listing number. Where your portal enquiries land today is something we look at with you when we talk.
What happens to the information
What happens to my buyers’ information?
It is held to answer them, route them and book the viewing, and nothing else. We do not sell it, we do not share it between agencies, and we never message your past buyers about new stock. There is no mechanism in the product that could.
The privacy policy sets out exactly what is held, who processes it, and how a buyer has it erased.
Can an agent delete a lead they mishandled?
No. Every message, assignment and booking is written to a record no agent can change. Leads are archived rather than deleted, and the only thing that destroys data is a buyer exercising their POPIA right to erasure. A principal actions that, and a dated line saying the enquiry existed and was erased stays behind.
Can I see it working before I commit?
Yes, and you should. Message the demo line: it answers as a demonstration agency with made-up stock, and it tells you so in its first reply. Ask it what you would ask if you were a buyer, then try to catch it inventing something.
Or write to craig@propertyagent247.co.za, or use the form on the contact page.