Property management answering service: AI for tenants, prospects, and owners

Set up a property management answering service for calls and texts. Take messages and try on-call staff for urgent calls.

A property management answering service handles calls from tenants, people who want to rent, owners, and vendors. With Hail, one AI agent answers calls and texts on your number. It takes messages and tries your on-call staff when a phone call is urgent.

Connect Hail through MCP to set this up with your AI assistant. No code is needed for this setup.

Answering service for property management companies: who calls

Choose the questions for each caller and the rules for trying a person. For urgent texts, the agent gives your emergency phone number so the person can call.

Call type	What the agent collects	When it tries a person
Tenant: maintenance emergency	Property address, unit number, what happened, and callback number	Tries on-call maintenance during a phone call
Tenant: routine repair	Unit, problem, and times the tenant is home	Takes a message. Does not promise a work order or repair date.
Tenant: rent, lease, or move-out question	Question and unit	Takes a message for the office
Person who wants to rent	Name, property, question, and contact details	Takes a message for the leasing team
Property owner	Name, property, and question	Tries the account manager during office hours, on phone calls only
Vendor or contractor	Company, job, and question	Takes a message
Tenant text message	Same details as a call	Cannot transfer a text. Gives the emergency phone number for urgent issues.

This setup collects details. It does not create work orders, book viewings, or change leases.

Set up your property management answering service

You need a Hail account and a number that supports calls and texts. Connect your AI assistant through the MCP setup guide. If you need a number, ask your assistant to show available numbers and prices.

Replace the parts in capitals. Send this request and the phone agent instructions below in the same message.

Request for your AI assistant:

Create an agent for COMPANY NAME using Hail. Use the agent instructions I include below for calls and texts. Add ON-CALL MAINTENANCE and ACCOUNT MANAGER as transfer contacts. Ask me for their names and phone numbers, our office hours, property details, and emergency rules. Ask for the emergency phone number to give people who text about urgent issues. Keep the AI disclosure on for calls. Ask which existing Hail number should use this agent for both calls and texts. Show me the settings and ask for my approval before connecting the number.

Your assistant can save the agent, add transfer contacts, and connect the number through MCP.

Answering service property management prompt

These instructions tell the agent how to handle callers and texts. Replace the parts in brackets. Include your office hours, property details, and emergency rules. Send these instructions with the setup request above.

Instructions for the agent:

You answer calls and texts for [Company], a property management company in [city or area]. Find out whether the person is a tenant, someone who wants to rent, an owner, or a vendor. Ask one question at a time. Do not promise a callback time, repair time, work order, rent amount, or lease decision. For a fire or a gas smell, tell the person to leave and call 911 first. Current tenant: - Ask for the property address, unit number, problem, and callback number. - Use our emergency rule: [emergency list, including the temperature rule for heat]. - For an urgent phone call, try the on-call maintenance person. - For an urgent text, give [emergency phone number] and ask the person to call. - Do not try a live transfer for a text. - For routine repairs, take the problem and the times the tenant is home. - For rent, lease, and move-out questions, take the question. Do not answer it. - Say "I can take a message for the office." Someone who wants to rent: - Take their name, the property they want, their question, and contact details. - Do not answer questions about rental rules, pets, income, credit, or applications. - Say you can take a message for the leasing team. Do not promise a reply time. Property owner: - Take their name, property, and question. - During office hours ([hours]), try the account manager for phone calls. - Outside office hours, or for a text, take a message. Vendor or contractor: - Take the company name, job, callback number, and request. - Take a message for the office. If nobody answers a transfer, return to the caller and offer to take a message. Do not promise when someone will call back or visit.

Test a tenant call, a rental question, an owner call, and a caller whose role is unclear. Also test an urgent text and a call that staff do not answer. The text must get the emergency phone number. The unanswered call must get an offer to take a message.

One agent for calls and texts

Your assistant can connect the same agent to calls and texts on your Hail number. The agent replies from that number. Texts cannot start a live call transfer.

The agent can look up recent texts and calls from the same phone number. Ask it to confirm details when the history is missing or unclear. Hail limits automatic replies per text thread. Long exchanges can stop when that limit is reached.

When a person texts STOP, Hail stops texting that number until they opt in again, for example with START.

On-call maintenance handover

Ask your assistant to add on-call maintenance and account managers as transfer contacts through MCP. Each contact has a short note that says when the agent should try them. You can add up to 10 people. Update the contacts when your on-call staff change.

Hail calls the contact from your Hail number. When they answer, the agent says who is calling and why. Then it goes silent. If nobody answers, the agent returns to the caller and offers to take a message.

Automatic backup text alerts need a webhook subscription and your own code. The setup above does not add those alerts. Your code must check which calls need an alert before sending a text through the SMS API. The webhook guide explains how to subscribe. The warm transfer guide explains how transfers work.

Nights, weekends, and holidays

The same agent answers after hours. Your emergency rules decide which phone calls try on-call staff. Routine requests become messages for the office. The agent must not promise when the office will act. The after-hours answering service guide has more examples.

Other trades use the same pattern with different rules. See the guides for a plumbing answering service and a construction answering service.

Records you keep

You can read call records through your AI assistant. If you subscribe to webhooks, Hail sends call events to your server. These include call.received, call.answered, and call.completed. A transfer sends call.transferred when the contact answers. Inbound texts send sms.received.

Recording is on by default for each workspace. An owner can turn it off. Review available recordings to find unclear questions or missed transfer requests.

What a property management answering service costs with Hail

Each answered minute costs the same as an outbound call minute. Agent text replies bill as outbound texts. You pay from a prepaid balance with no subscription. See current rates.

Checklist for property managers

Write your emergency list, including the temperature rule for heat.
Tell the agent which questions it must pass to the office.
Connect calls and texts to the same agent through MCP.
Put your emergency phone number in the instructions for urgent texts.
Update transfer contacts when your on-call staff change.
Choose who reviews messages when nobody answers. Automatic text alerts need extra setup and code.
Test routine calls, urgent calls, urgent texts, and unanswered transfers.

Use the API for calls and texts (optional)

You can use code instead of MCP. For an existing agent and Hail number, set both routes to the same agent:

curl --fail-with-body --silent --show-error \
  -X PATCH "https://api.hail.so/v1/numbers/$NUMBER_ID" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $HAIL_API_KEY" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{ "voice_agent_id": "'"$AGENT_ID"'", "sms_agent_id": "'"$AGENT_ID"'" }'

Set NUMBER_ID to your Hail number's id and AGENT_ID to the saved agent's id. The agent's instructions go in system_prompt. Add transfer contacts through handover_contacts. Each contact's note allows 1 to 200 characters. The list replaces the agent's existing transfer contacts.