AI voice agents for win-back in real estate call past clients and old leads from the agency's own CRM, only those with written consent on file. After verifying the person, the agent asks about their plans and records the answers as said, then books a valuation or a call with an agent. It never quotes a price.
Key Takeaways
- Past clients and old leads are separate lists, both built from your CRM.
- Asking about moving plans makes it a sales call that needs written consent.
- The agent books a valuation or a call, and a person talks price.
Past clients and old leads share one CRM, and a call to either about moving is a sales call. We split the lists, verify before naming the house, ask about plans without quoting a price and log answers and opt-outs to the CRM in Dograh. It sits within our guide to dormant customer reactivation.
Past clients and old leads are two lists
An agency's dormant contacts fall into two groups, and each gets its own list and its own script. Past clients bought or sold with you, often years ago. Old leads asked about a property or a valuation once and never went further.
Past clients carry much of an agent's business. In the National Association of Realtors' (NAR) 2026 Member Profile, the typical REALTOR earned 28% of their business from repeat clients in 2025 and another 22% from referrals by past clients. The gap between moves is long, though. NAR's 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers found sellers had stayed a median of 11 years before selling, an all-time high.
Build both lists from your own CRM, and only from people who gave written consent for AI-voice calls. Never buy lists or scrape numbers from expired listings. Take out anyone who has opted out, and anyone already working with one of your agents on a live deal, so two people from the same agency never call the same client in one week.
A check-in that asks about moving is a sale
A call that asks a past client about moving or a valuation invites new business, and a referral ask does too, so treat every win-back call here as a sales call. For a past client, that means the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) applies in full. An agency needs the client's prior express written consent on file before an artificial voice makes that sales call, under the Federal Communications Commission's calling rules, and the FCC's 2024 ruling on AI-generated voices treats the AI voice on your line as artificial.
An old relationship does not stand in for that consent. The established business relationship lasts 18 months after a purchase and three months after an inquiry, and it matters for the do-not-call rules only. With a median of 11 years between moves, it lapsed long ago for most past clients, and a lead who asked once last year is well past three months.
A pure "is everything fine with the house?" call with no ask is rare in practice, because the point of win-back is the next deal. Plan the script as a sales call from the first line.
Referral asks follow the same rule, and they belong on their own call, covered in AI voice agents for referral and advocacy outreach. Some states add their own rules for sales calls, so confirm your consent wording and calling times with counsel before the first campaign.
Verify before naming the house
The call names the agency, confirms who it is talking to and only then mentions the home or the old deal. Put the agency and the agent's name in the Greeting Text, the fixed line Dograh speaks word for word as the call connects. A variable such as {{first_name | there}} needs a fallback like that one, or a missing name is spoken as empty text.
A past client may need to hear that an automated assistant is calling, either because you prefer it or because local law requires it, and that notice goes in the Greeting Text as well. Once it is there, open the Start Call node and switch Allow Greeting Interruption off, since it stays on unless you change it and a past client's quick hello could cut the line short. The agent then asks for the person by name, which only finds the right person. Before it says "the house on Birch Lane" or mentions the sale, it checks something on file, such as the property address or the email the client used. If the check fails, it shares nothing and records a callback request for the agent.
Open Source Alternative to Vapi / Retell
Self-hosted voice agent platform — no per-minute fees
dograh-hq/dograh
Star on GitHub
Ask about plans, never quote a price
Once the person is verified, the agent asks about their plans and records each answer as stated. Are they thinking of moving, and when? Would a valuation help? Answers such as "maybe after the kids finish school" go into the CRM as said, through variable extraction, with the transcript as the exact record.
If they want a valuation, an HTTP API tool reads the agency's calendar or CRM for free slots and books one, and a second request writes the booking back. This works with any calendar or CRM that has an API.
The agent never gives a price or a view on what the home is worth. A past client who asks "what's my house worth now?" hears that the agent who does the valuation will cover it, and is offered a visit or a call. A caller who wants that conversation now goes to a person through Transfer Call, which works on Twilio, Telnyx, Plivo, Cloudonix and Asterisk ARI. The agent writes the details to the CRM before the transfer.
This call is months or years after the last contact. A call weeks after a viewing or a valuation is a different job, covered in buyer and seller follow-up.
Join the Dograh Community
Dograh is an OSS alternative to Vapi. Join our Slack community for queries, releases, best practices & community interactions.
Opt-outs, voicemail and the CRM record
Every answer and every opt-out goes back to the CRM, so the next campaign starts from a clean list. Callers opt out by voice. The agent writes the request to the CRM during the call, and your CRM keeps the number off every later list.
Voicemail handling is off by default. If you turn it on and choose "Leave a message", keep it to the agency name and a number to call back. Each campaign keeps its calling hours in a single time zone, so an agency working across zones runs one campaign per zone. A Webhook node sends the call's results, plans and bookings included, to the CRM after the call.
You can self-host Dograh or run it on Dograh Cloud, and self-hosted, the call recordings stay in the agency's own storage. Start with one segment, such as sellers from three to five years ago. Test the agent on a real phone line, then read the early transcripts for any figure the agent should not have said.
Glossary
- Past client
- Someone who bought or sold with the agency, often years ago. A call asking about their plans invites new business, so it is a sales call that needs written consent.
- Established business relationship
- A relationship based on a purchase in the last 18 months or an inquiry in the last three months. It matters for the do-not-call rules and has usually lapsed for past clients and old leads.
- Prior express written consent
- A signed agreement, electronic signatures included, that names a phone number and allows sales calls with an artificial or AI voice to it. Real estate win-back calls need it before the first dial.
- Greeting Text
- The optional fixed line Dograh speaks word for word as the call connects. It names the agency and the agent, and any variable in it needs a fallback.
