What Is the Best Real Estate Answering Service?

ReceptionHQ starts at $25 a month, but the best real estate answering service depends on the calls you miss. This comparison covers 5 live and AI services for buyer leads, showing requests, and tenant calls.

This list is for team leads and broker-owners. It covers calls that arrive during showings, open houses, closings, and after hours.

TL;DR: Use a live receptionist for tenant emergencies. Use an AI receptionist to answer buyer and seller leads after hours. Before you buy, place three test calls and compare the notes your agents receive.

I chose vendors that publish real estate service details or pricing. I judged them on:

• Can the service answer after hours and weekends?
• Does the real estate page talk about buyers, sellers, tenants, or showings?
• Does the vendor publish a starting price?
• Can it book appointments, or only take messages?
• Does it fit a solo agent, team lead, brokerage, or property manager?
• What happens when the call needs a person?

I compared the vendors’ published real estate and pricing pages. I did not place test calls to every service, so this is a feature and pricing comparison rather than a call-quality test.

Option	Best for	Starting price	Channels listed	After-hours coverage	Fit for a real estate team	Main limitation
ReceptionHQ	Property managers and brokerages	$25/month	Phone answering, messages by email or SMS	24/7 available	Strong for tenants, landlords, buyers, and sellers	Higher work needs higher plans
Sera by Twig	Teams needing fast replies across channels	$49/month	Phone, SMS, web chat, email, WhatsApp	24/7 included	Strong for buyer, seller, renter, and website questions	Starter does not include booking or live transfers
AgentZap	Teams needing real-estate AI scheduling	$109/month plus $499 setup	Phone answering	24/7 listed	Strong for showing requests and lead questions	Higher published starting cost
Dialzara	Solo agents testing AI phone answering	$29/month	Phone; SMS and chat add-ons	24/7 listed	Good for simple messages and transfers	Text is priced separately
AnswerHero	Teams wanting live answering	Not published	Phone answering	24/7 listed	Fits agents and property management	Real estate page does not publish a price

Is ReceptionHQ the Best Live Real Estate Answering Service?

ReceptionHQ is my live-answering pick for property managers and brokerages. Its real estate page lists 24/7 live call answering, US-based receptionists during core business hours, bilingual options, emergency triaging, realty-tailored scripts, listing lead collection, appointment scheduling, and message delivery by email or SMS.

Best for: Property managers, broker-owners, and teams with tenant calls that cannot sit in voicemail.

Watch out for: The $25 entry point is MessageExpress. ReceptionHQ describes MessageExpress as a basic message-taking plan. Ask ReceptionHQ which plan can schedule appointments and collect the caller details your agents need.

Pricing: ReceptionHQ’s pricing page lists MessageExpress from $25 a month, ReceptionistPlus from $40 a month, MyAssistant from $50 a month, and MyDiary from $50 a month. It also says MessageExpress has a $1.99 charge per answered call on that pay-as-you-go setup.

Where ReceptionHQ stands out is tenant and property management work. A buyer asking about 123 Main Street is usually simple. A tenant saying water is coming through the ceiling is not.

I would shortlist ReceptionHQ when tenant calls are common. For a sales-only team, I would test the AI options first.

Is Sera the Best AI Receptionist for Real Estate Teams?

Sera fits teams that want one AI receptionist for calls, texts, web chat, email, and WhatsApp. She is strongest when the job is to answer fast, qualify the caller, collect the right details, and book with your team without asking agents to watch every inbox.

Twig makes Sera, our AI front desk for real estate teams. Sera is an AI receptionist: she answers every call, text and web chat 24/7, qualifies the caller, and books them with your team.

Best for: Teams that want fast answers to after-hours calls, website questions, and missed calls.

Watch out for: Sera is not a human receptionist. Sera escalates to a person when a question is outside what she knows, with the conversation attached, and you set those rules.

Pricing: Sera pricing starts at $49 a month on Starter. Every plan starts with a 15-day free trial, voice included, and no credit card. Appointment booking, missed-call text-back, live transfers to a person, and multi-language conversations are included on Growth at $499 a month and above.

Sera covers more ways to contact the team than the other options shown here. Phone-only answering helps, but real estate leads also come through web chat and text. If agents check those late, the first conversation starts cold.

Most businesses are live in under 30 minutes. You forward the phone line or add the website chat. Every conversation is logged with a full transcript.

Do not assume Sera connects directly to your real estate CRM. Sera can send call notes to Gmail or Slack, or to HubSpot or Salesforce.

If your team needs a direct CRM connection, test it before buying. If you are new to the category, read our plain-English explainer on what an AI front desk is. If agents call new leads too slowly, read our guide to AI real estate lead qualification.

Choose Sera when your main problem is missed buyer, seller, renter, and website questions after hours. If your main problem is tenant emergencies, use a live receptionist or keep a property manager on call.

Is AgentZap the Best Real Estate AI Scheduling Option?

AgentZap gives the most real-estate-specific examples in this comparison. Its real estate page says it can ask about budget, timing, and pre-approval. It can also schedule showings and send details to a CRM, which matches how many team leads think about after-hours listing calls.

Best for: Teams that want an AI receptionist with showing scheduling described on the real estate page.

Watch out for: AgentZap’s published starting price is higher than the other AI options here. That may fit a team, but it is not the cheapest solo-agent test.

Pricing: AgentZap’s pricing page lists Starter at $109 a month with 150 minutes included and a $499 one-time training and setup fee. Professional is listed at $295 a month with 450 minutes included. Business is listed at $899 a month with 1,500 minutes included.

AgentZap is interesting because the real estate examples are specific. Its page talks about a buyer calling at 9 PM, confirming budget, and booking a Saturday showing. That is close to the real missed-call problem.

I would test AgentZap if you want an AI service built around real estate from the first page. Still place a real listing call before you commit.

Is Dialzara the Lowest-Cost AI Phone Answering Option?

Dialzara has the lowest published starting price among the AI phone services here. Business Lite costs $29 a month and includes 60 minutes. It can ask custom questions, take messages, and transfer calls. Its pricing page also lists Zapier or Make connections.

Best for: Solo agents or small teams that want to test AI phone answering at a low starting price.

Watch out for: Dialzara’s pricing page lists SMS and website chat as separate add-ons. That may be fine if your problem is phone calls only. It is weaker if you want phone, text, and website conversations covered from day one.

Pricing: Dialzara’s pricing page lists Business Lite at $29 a month for 60 minutes, Business Pro at $99 a month for 220 minutes, Business Plus at $199 a month for 500 minutes, and Business Elite at $349 a month for 1,000 minutes. The same page lists overage rates from $0.48 to $0.35 per minute by plan.

Dialzara can make sense for a solo agent who wants to stop losing simple calls but does not need a larger team setup. The clean test is one week of missed calls.

I would choose Dialzara when price is the deciding factor and phone is the main channel. If text and web chat matter as much as calls, compare total cost after add-ons.

Is AnswerHero a Good Live Answering Service for Realtors?

AnswerHero may suit teams that want a person answering calls around the clock. Its real estate page markets the service to real estate agents and property management, lists 24-hour answering, and describes live virtual receptionists for real estate callers. Its real estate page does not publish a starting price.

Best for: Brokerages or real estate businesses that want live answering and are willing to speak with sales for pricing.

Watch out for: AnswerHero’s real estate page links to pricing, but the page text does not publish a specific starting price for real estate answering. That makes it harder to compare without a sales call.

Pricing: Not published on the real estate page. Ask for the monthly fee, included minutes, overage charge, setup fee, contract terms, and whether bilingual answering changes the price.

AnswerHero markets its service to real estate businesses. Its page also mentions appointment setting, call transfers, client details, no-contract service, flexible plans, and bilingual live answering.

I would consider AnswerHero if live answering matters more than seeing a price before a sales call. If your broker-owner wants a clear number first, start with vendors that publish rates.

How Should You Choose a Real Estate Answering Service?

Choose by call type, not by vendor category. A buyer asking to see 123 Main Street at 7:40 PM is different from a tenant reporting a broken pipe. Both are different from a seller asking what their home is worth.

Here is the simple decision table I would use:

Your main call type	Best first pick	Why
Tenant emergency	ReceptionHQ or another live service	Human judgment matters more
Buyer showing request	Sera, AgentZap, or Dialzara	Speed and clear questions matter
Seller valuation lead	Sera or a live receptionist	Qualify and book quickly
Low-volume solo agent calls	Dialzara or ReceptionHQ entry plan	Keep the test cheap
Team leads with phone, text, and web questions	Sera	More contact methods are covered
Live bilingual answering	ReceptionHQ or AnswerHero	Both vendor pages mention bilingual options

A worked example helps.

Say your team gets 80 after-hours calls a month. Forty are buyer calls from listings, 15 are seller leads, 15 are rental questions, and 10 are tenant issues. I would not put all of that in one bucket.

Use AI for the 70 buyer, seller, and rental calls if the questions are clear. Keep tenant issues with a live receptionist or on-call property manager. That gives speed where speed helps, and human judgment where judgment matters.

Here is a short script I would test before buying any real estate phone answering service:

Thanks for calling [Team Name]. Are you calling about buying, selling, renting, or a property issue?

Which property are you calling about?

What is your name, phone number, and email?

If buying or renting: What price range are you considering, and when would you like to move?

If buying: Are you pre-approved, paying cash, or still early in the process?

If selling: What is the property address, and when are you hoping to sell?

What times work for a showing or call with our team?

If this is urgent, I can contact the right person now. Otherwise, I will send the details to the team right away.

Then place three test calls yourself:

1. A buyer who knows the listing address and wants a showing.
2. A seller who is not ready yet but wants a home value opinion.
3. A tenant or homeowner with an urgent issue.

Read the transcript or message after each call. If your agents know exactly what to do next, the service passed the first test. If they still need to call back for basic facts, fix the script or choose another vendor.

For broader buying help, see our guide to the best phone answering service and our plain pricing breakdown for answering service costs.

Last verified: October 2026.

Pick two services that fit your main call type. Place the three test calls above, compare the messages your agents receive, and check the full monthly cost before choosing.