Real estate agents in Austria: viewing requests from the chat go straight to the right listing in Justimmo
Prospects ask in the chat about status, total rent, commission and the HWB, and the answers are in Justimmo. Here's which fields to keep up to date, what has applied to energy values since 1 July 2026 and how a viewing request reaches the agent in charge of the right listing.
Contents
Sunday, 9:40 pm, on WhatsApp: "Is the 3-room apartment in Geidorf still available, and what's the HWB?" The answer is in Justimmo, but nobody checks there on a Sunday. On Monday the message sits in an agent's personal WhatsApp, with no link to the listing.
This post covers which fields in Justimmo answer questions like that, what has applied to the HWB (the heating demand on the energy certificate) since July 2026 and how a viewing request from the chat reaches the right agent.
What prospects ask in the chat
The same questions come up again and again:
- Is the property still available?
- What does it cost per month, or to buy, with all the extra costs?
- How much are the commission and the deposit?
- How big is the living area, and is there a balcony, an elevator or a garage?
- What are the building's energy values?
- And finally: Can I see it, and can I get the exposé?
How long prospects wait for an answer
In 2019 the German Institute for Service Quality (DISQ) tested 10 large real estate agencies in Germany for the news channel n-tv. Almost a third of the email inquiries got no answer at all, and for the rest the testers waited almost 40 hours on average (DISQ, press release of 6 February 2019).
We found no comparable public test for Austria.
Where a chat gets its answers
The agency blck alpaca, which sells chatbots to real estate agents, says on the service page for its real estate chatbot that the bot answers only from the listing record. If a field is missing, it hands over to the agent.
According to the agency, whether your agency software is called JustImmo, onOffice or Propstack matters less than whether there is an API or a structured export. That is a vendor's view, and the point holds.
A chat that only reads your website doesn't know about a reservation until it next reads the page.
These fields in Justimmo decide the answer in the chat
A chat's answers can only be as precise as the listing behind them. Check these 8 fields on every active listing before you send it to a portal or a chat:
| Field in Justimmo | Typical question | What to watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Status | "Is it still available?" | Set the status to reserved or contract in progress on the same day. Otherwise the next prospect gets a yes that is no longer true. |
| Price and total rent | "What does the apartment cost per month?" | Fill in each cost field separately, so the amount can be explained. According to Justimmo's API documentation, the OpenImmo Austria user group recommends showing the total rent: rent, operating costs and other costs including VAT, without heating costs. |
| Commission | "Do I have to pay commission?" | The text has to match who hired you. For rental apartments the Bestellerprinzip applies, see below. |
| Deposit | "How much is the deposit?" | As an amount or as clear text, such as "3 months' gross rent". |
| Areas | "How big is the apartment?" | Living area and usable area as separate figures. For houses, add the plot area, and list garden and basement separately. |
| Energy performance certificate | "What's the building's HWB?" | Values, classes and validity, all filled in. What applies since July 2026 is further down. |
| Publish address | "Where exactly is it?" | Decide on purpose. If the address is not published, a chat should name only the town and district. |
| Agent in charge | "Who will get back to me?" | Justimmo assigns inquiries to the listing's agent. After a vacation or a team change, check that the right person is still entered. |
The law in this post is Austrian law. Germany and Switzerland have different rules, but the field list works there too.
Commission on rental apartments: the Bestellerprinzip
Since 1 July 2023, people looking for a rental apartment in Austria pay commission only if they hired the agent themselves. In practice the landlord usually hires the agent, and then the landlord pays.
The amount is capped as follows, each plus 20% VAT (oesterreich.gv.at, page "Provision", as of 1 January 2026):
- Indefinite leases or leases of more than 3 years: at most 2 months' gross rent.
- Fixed terms of up to 3 years: at most 1 month's gross rent.
- Heating costs never count toward it.
Old boilerplate such as "Provision 2 BMM zzgl. USt. vom Mieter" (2 months' gross rent plus VAT, paid by the tenant) has no place in a listing the landlord commissioned. A chat that repeats text word for word repeats outdated boilerplate too.
Energy values: what belongs in the ad since 1 July 2026
Under § 3 of the Austrian Energy Performance Certificate Submission Act 2012 (Energieausweis-Vorlage-Gesetz 2012, EAVG 2012), ads in print and electronic media that offer a building or a unit for sale or rent must state energy values.
The duty lies with the seller or landlord and with the agent they hired. BGBl. I Nr. 38/2026, published in the Federal Law Gazette on 10 June 2026, changed what the ad has to state:
- Ads that appear from 1 July 2026 must state the heating demand (HWB) and the final energy demand with the overall energy efficiency class (new § 3, § 10a (1)).
- A certificate issued under the old Directive 2010/31/EU stays valid for 10 years from its issue date. With it, the ad may state the HWB and the overall energy efficiency factor (fGEE), as before. The same applies until a legal basis exists for issuing certificates with the new figures (§ 10a (2)).
- If the values are missing, § 9 provides for a fine of up to €1,450. The agent is excused if they told their client about the duty and asked them to provide the values or obtain an energy performance certificate, and the client did not do so.
- In good time before the buyer or tenant commits to the contract, the seller or landlord must show them an energy performance certificate no more than 10 years old. They hand it over within 14 days after the contract is concluded, and since 1 July 2026 also on paper if asked (§ 4 (1)).
The previous wording of §§ 3, 4 and 9 is in the side by side text comparison published by the Austrian Parliament.
What this means for the chat
If someone asks about the HWB, the answer gives exactly the values in the listing, with class and validity. If the listing has none, the question goes to the agent.
This is general information, not legal advice.
Why a chat shouldn't promise a viewing
To promise a viewing, the chat would need what only you know. If the property is still rented out, the current tenant has to agree.
With 30 inquiries for one apartment, you decide whether there are individual viewings or one group viewing, and whom you invite first. If a chat promises appointments, you no longer make these calls yourself, and you may have to call some of them off.
Owners who want to sell
In the evening a different question often comes in: "What is my apartment worth?" A chat should never answer that with a number.
Without a viewing, a land register extract and comparable prices, any number is a guess. An estimate in the chat that comes in too high will catch up with you in the price negotiation.
Call these leads back on the next working day, ideally with a suggested time to see the property in person.
How a viewing request reaches the right listing
Deskwoot is our product, and since October 2026 it connects to Justimmo (announced in the post Fynn now answers from your Propstack or Justimmo listings).
With the connection, Fynn, Deskwoot's AI agent, answers that Sunday evening question from your listings, in the website chat, on WhatsApp or by email. On Monday the agent in charge already finds the viewing request as an inquiry in Justimmo, with the contact and the prospect's own words.
The path an inquiry takes
- In Justimmo, open More, then Exports, create an API export, name it Deskwoot and book the listings into it, as you would for a portal. Paste the export's username and password into Deskwoot under Settings > Integrations > Justimmo. Justimmo can tell you whether your contract with them includes an API export.
- Fynn knows only the listings in this export. Deskwoot checks it for changes every 15 minutes and reads it in full once a day. If Fynn's copy of a listing is more than a few minutes old, he reads it again from Justimmo before he answers.
- Fynn gives prices, costs, commission and deposit exactly as they are published, and for rentals the total rent. He never calculates, estimates or rounds, and he never explains legal rules on commission, deposit or rent. He names the street only if you have published the address.
- When someone wants a viewing, the exposé, a callback or an answer only the agent can give, Fynn asks for their first and last name. Justimmo accepts no inquiry without both. If there's no email or phone number yet, he asks for one. He shows what he'll send and sends it only after a yes.
- Justimmo creates the contact and assigns the inquiry to the listing's agent, as Justimmo's API documentation describes. The message contains the channel, the request, the preferred times, the customer's own words, a link to the conversation in Deskwoot and a reference you can use to find the inquiry again.
What it looks like in the chat
An example with invented values:
Prospect: Is the 3-room apartment in Geidorf still available? Can I see it on Saturday?
Fynn: According to the listing, the apartment is available. The total rent is €1,240 a month without heating costs, and the HWB is 48 kWh/m²a, class B. The agent will arrange the viewing time with you. Could I have your first and last name?
Prospect: Anna Berger
Fynn: I'll pass this on: viewing of the 3-room apartment in Geidorf, preferred day Saturday, Anna Berger, this WhatsApp number. Is that right?
Prospect: Yes
After that, the prospect reads that the agent will get in touch with her about a viewing time.
Safeguards against duplicate inquiries
- If the same inquiry for this person already went out in the last 7 days, Fynn says so and sends nothing.
- He sends at most 3 inquiries in 24 hours per conversation.
- If Justimmo doesn't answer in time, Deskwoot never sends a second time on its own, because that would create a second inquiry. Your team checks in Justimmo and picks "It arrived" or "Send again" in the conversation.
What Fynn never promises
Fynn doesn't see your calendar in Justimmo. So he never books a viewing in Justimmo, never reserves a property and never sends the exposé or any other document himself.
He sends the request with the preferred times, and the agent in charge sets the appointment. He never rates or ranks applicants, buyers or tenants.
He is strict about status. Reserved, contract in progress or closed (sold or let) means not available to him, and that is what he says.
If Deskwoot hasn't been able to update your listings for 6 hours, he stops saying that a property is available. Instead he says your team will confirm it.
If you want viewings booked right in the chat, that works through a connected Outlook calendar with its own appointment type for viewings. The post Fynn now books appointments in the chat explains how it works.
Data Fynn never asks for
Fynn never asks for a date of birth, ID, income or bank details. He never puts details about income, financing, health or ID into an inquiry, and he doesn't name your software to customers.
When an owner writes in
With Justimmo, Deskwoot doesn't send owner inquiries into the system yet. Fynn takes the name, contact details and the property's location, never names a value and hands the conversation to your team.
Energy values in the chat
From the export, Deskwoot reads the HWB and fGEE with their classes, the validity date and the type of certificate. It doesn't read a separate field for the final energy demand yet.
If you already have a certificate under the new rules for a listing, put the final energy demand and its class near the top of the listing description, which Fynn reads too.
What your team sees in the conversation
In the Details tab, the Property section shows the listing the conversation is about: photo, title, number, status, price, rooms, area and agent in charge.
With "Send to Justimmo", a team member can send an inquiry too, for example after a phone call. Every inquiry shows up as a card in the conversation history, and the contact page lists them all under "Sent from Deskwoot".
From Justimmo, Deskwoot reads only the listings in the export, as they are published. It never reads your contacts, inquiries or offers in Justimmo.
What it costs
- You can connect Justimmo on every Deskwoot plan, including the free Hacker plan. There, your team sends inquiries by hand.
- What Fynn does with Justimmo, answering from your listings and sending inquiries after a yes, comes with every paid plan from Startup up: $4 per agent per month, or $3.20 with annual billing.
- That includes 50 AI conversations a month for the whole workspace. Each additional one costs $0.07 from prepaid credit.
- The 7-day trial includes Fynn's part too.
You'll find every plan on the Plans and pricing page.
Where to start
Start with the listings that get the most inquiries right now:
- Check the status.
- Check the commission text against your agency agreement.
- Complete the energy values.
- Check the agent in charge.
That helps even without a chat, because the same questions come in by phone.
If you want Fynn to answer these questions in the evenings and on weekends, create the API export next and connect it to Deskwoot. The help article Connect Justimmo walks you through every step.
Create your workspace at deskwoot.com/signup. The first 7 days run on the Enterprise plan, with no credit card and up to 30 seats, yours included. After that you pick a plan or stay on the free Hacker plan.
Also available in:DeutschEspañolFrançaisPortuguês (Brasil)
