Your inbox

Your inbox holds every conversation you have with the team about a property: the questions you ask with Request more info, and every offer you make, including the counter-offers back and forth. Open it from the envelope at the top of any page. A number on the envelope means something new is waiting for you.

Not every portal has an inbox. Without one there is no envelope: your questions and offers still go to the team from the property page, and they reply to you by email.

Two kinds of conversation

• Questions. Everything you ask about one property lives in one conversation, so the whole back-and-forth stays together. Asking again from the same listing adds to it.
• Offers. Each negotiation is its own conversation. It starts with your offer and holds every counter-offer after it, until someone accepts or the negotiation ends.

Use the All / Unread / Offers / Questions filters at the top of the list to find one.

If you keep coming back to the same listing, the team may send you a short message about it in that listing's question conversation, once. Reply there like any other message.

Negotiating an offer

The card at the top of an offer conversation always shows what is on the table right now: the price, how it compares to the asking price, the terms and your funding type. What you can do depends on whose turn it is:

• With the seller. Your offer is waiting on the team. You can Revise it (your new numbers replace the old ones, which stay in the history) or Withdraw it.
• Your move. The team sent a counter-offer, or an offer of their own. You can Accept it, Counter with your own numbers, or Withdraw.
• Accepted. You and the team agreed on the price and terms. The team follows up on the contract separately. Accepting in the inbox records the agreement; it is not the contract itself. Until the deal closes you can still send a Retrade Offer (a new price), and the team can counter: see Retrade Offer.
• Declined or Withdrawn. The negotiation is over. You can still send messages in it, and you can make a new offer on the property at any time.

Offer history under the card lists every proposal in the negotiation, in order, and who made it.

If the team changes the offer at the same moment you act on it, the inbox refreshes and tells you instead of accepting numbers that are no longer on the table.

Documents in a conversation

You and the team can share documents in any conversation: proof of funds, an inspection report, photos, a signed letter.

• Drag files anywhere onto the open conversation, or click the paperclip beside the message box. You can also attach documents to an offer, a counter or a revision in the offer window.
• PDF, images, Word, Excel, CSV and text files, up to 25 MB each and 10 at a time.
• Each file uploads as soon as you add it; it is shared only when you click Send.
• Documents appear in the conversation in order, with the message they came with.
• Once a conversation holds documents, a folder button with a count appears at the top. It lists every document in the conversation, newest first. Click one to open it.

Shared documents cannot be removed, so check before you send.

When the team invites you to make an offer

After you ask about a property, the team may invite you to make an offer. The invitation shows up in your question conversation (and in an email, if you have them on, with a link straight to the offer form). Click Make an offer, fill in your price and terms, and send it: it starts your negotiation with the team, who can accept it, counter or reply.

If you already have a negotiation going on that property, the invitation links to it instead.

The team can also invite you to a property you never asked about, and sometimes at a special price just for you. That invitation shows the price and the property, and if you couldn't see that property before (your access level, or a hidden address), you can now. The special price fills in your offer form, in the conversation and on the property page, but nothing is agreed until you send your offer: change the price or terms as you like. You get an email for this kind of invitation even if you turned inbox emails off, because the team sent it to you by name.

When the team invites you to counter

After the team counters your offer, they may invite you to send a counter-offer of your own. The invitation shows up in that offer conversation (and in an email, if you have them on, with a link straight to the counter form). Click Send a counter-offer, fill in your price and terms, and send it: the team can accept it, counter again or reply. Their counter stays on the table until you answer, so you can also Accept it instead.

The button only shows while the team's counter is waiting on you.

What the pills mean

Each offer conversation carries two pills: where the negotiation stands, and what kind of proposal is on the table.

• Your move (tinted red): the team is waiting on you.
• With the seller (tinted blue): your numbers are with the team.
• Accepted (green), Declined (purple), Closed (cyan), and Withdrawn (solid red): the negotiation is over.
• First offer (indigo), Counter-offer (amber) and Revised offer (teal): the kind of proposal on the table.
• Question (blue): a Request more info conversation.

Moves the team recorded for you

If you phone, text or email the team instead of using the portal, they can record your move for you (an offer, a counter, your acceptance, a withdrawal). It shows in your conversation as yours, with a line such as "Recorded by Lucy from your phone call", and you always get an email saying what was recorded and when. If it isn't what you meant, reply in your inbox and the team will correct it.

Who you're talking to

Replies come from the organization's team. Each reply shows the name of the person who wrote it, so you always know who you're dealing with. An offer your account manager entered for you (for example after a phone call) shows as entered for you.

Email notifications

When the team replies, sends a counter-offer or makes a decision, we email you so you don't miss it. Every counter-offer and every decision on your offer gets its own email. Messages are bundled: one email for a burst of new messages, not one per message, and another only after you've read them.

To choose which of these emails you get, click the bell (Email notifications) at the top of your inbox. The link at the bottom of every notification email opens the same window. There are two groups, each with a main switch and one switch per kind of email:

• Questions: Email me about my questions is the main switch. Under it, The team replies and Invited to make an offer.
• Offers: Email me about my offers is the main switch. Under it, Counter-offer, Invited to counter, Under consideration, Offer accepted, Offer declined, On hold or back on the market and Messages in an offer conversation.

Each switch saves as soon as you flip it. While a main switch is off, the switches under it are greyed out and nothing in that group is sent; they keep their settings for when you turn it back on. If you had turned inbox emails off before these switches existed, both main switches start off.

These switches are separate from announcement emails: turning one off never affects the other.

Replying to a notification email doesn't reach the team. Open the conversation from the email and reply there.