Question 1

What happens when a buyer or seller calls and nobody in the office is free?

Accepted Answer

A live operator answers in your brokerage's or team's name, asks the questions on your script (which property, buying or selling, timeline, callback number, how they found you), and sends the lead to you by text, email or fax as soon as the call ends. If you want hot leads in your hand immediately, the operator can patch the caller straight through to the agent on duty; talk time after the patch is not billed.

Question 2

Can the operators schedule showings and appointments?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Appointment scheduling is part of every plan and is billed as ordinary operator minutes, not as a per-booking fee. You tell us the time windows and the information to collect, and the operator books it on the call.

Question 3

Do you work with real estate investors and wholesalers?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Investors use SIAS the same way: a script for seller calls (property address, condition, asking price, motivation, callback number), a rule for which calls reach you at once, and message delivery by text or email for the rest. Lead capture and intake are included in every plan.

Question 4

What if we also manage rentals?

Accepted Answer

Property management calls can run on the same account. Each property address can have its own greeting, contact list and on-call tree for maintenance emergencies, at $10 per property address per 4-week cycle on top of your plan; portfolios of 500 or more properties are quoted directly. Details are on our property management page.

Question 5

What does a real estate answering service cost?

Accepted Answer

SIAS prices as of October 26, 2026: Starter, $159 every 4 weeks for 100 operator minutes ($0.99 per extra minute); Growth, $219 for 200 minutes ($0.89); Business, $379 for 400 minutes ($0.85); volume tiers from $515 for 560 minutes to $960 for 1,200 minutes. Billing is every 4 weeks (28 days), 13 times a year, so $159 every 4 weeks is about $172 per calendar month. No setup fee, no contract, 14-day money-back guarantee for new accounts. What real customers paid over six months of invoices is on Pricing and Plans Explained.

Question 6

How many calls does a plan cover?

Accepted Answer

About 65 to 75 answered calls per 100 minutes at our 2026 average of 82 to 90 seconds of operator time per handled call (about 248,000 call records, July 1 to October 18, 2026). You pay for operator talk time, patch setup, callbacks, message sending and paging; not for ring time, your greeting, or talk time after a patch. Seconds are totaled for the cycle and rounded down. If a busy season pushes you over, moving up one plan costs less than the overage and takes effect the next cycle.

Question 7

Do you have Spanish-speaking operators?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Bilingual English and Spanish answering is included in every plan at no extra charge, 24 hours a day.

Question 8

Can calls go to different agents depending on the time or the listing?

Accepted Answer

Yes. You give us the contact tree: who takes which calls, in what order, and at what hours. Operators work from the current version of your account, so a change to the rotation takes effect once you call or write in with it. There is no fee for changes.

Question 9

How fast can we start?

Accepted Answer

Your account is live within 24 hours of sign-up. You forward your main line, a listing line or your cell to the number we give you, all the time or only when busy or unanswered (instructions for every major carrier are on our How to forward page). Cancel at any time by calling or writing in; there is no contract and no cancellation fee.

Answering service for real estate: lead capture, showing requests and after-hours calls for agents, brokerages and investors