Over 40 Percent of Home Buyer Activity Happens When No Agent Is Available

Written by:

Alejandra Rodriguez

Date:

13 Aug 2026

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You found the house. It is 10:30 on a Tuesday night; you are scrolling through listing photos on your phone, and you have three questions you want answered right now. You fill out a contact form. Nobody responds until the next afternoon. By then, you have moved on, or worse, another buyer has moved faster.

This scenario is the norm, according to engagement data tracked across thousands of real estate websites. The mismatch between when buyers are active and when agents are available is one of the most expensive blind spots in residential real estate, and it affects sellers as much as buyers.

Peter Kachan, Co-Founder & CEO of Realty AI, a company whose AI tools have engaged over 30 million website visitors across North America, according to the company’s own data, says buyers work during business hours and browse listings on evenings and weekends. Most brokerage websites have no one available to respond during those peak windows.

The 40 Percent Gap

According to Realty AI’s internal engagement data, over 40 percent of visitor interactions happen on weekends or after hours. These are not casual page views; they are interactions where a visitor is actively asking questions, expressing interest in a property, or providing information about what they want to buy.

For sellers, this creates a problem that is easy to miss. A listing may be beautifully staged, professionally photographed, and priced correctly. But if a motivated buyer visits the listing page at 11 p.m. on a Saturday and finds no way to get questions answered, the seller may never know that buyer existed. “A lot of these inquiries will even happen around midnight,” Kachan says. “You don’t want to be up talking to people then.”

Why Contact Forms Fail

The standard solution on most real estate websites is a contact form: name, email, phone number, message. Kachan argues this approach fails twice. First, it offers no immediate value to the buyer, so many visitors will not fill it out. He points to data suggesting one in two people leave a website within the first 10 seconds. Second, even when someone does submit a form, the response often comes hours or days later, long after the buyer’s attention has moved elsewhere.

The result, according to Realty AI’s internal analysis, is that the average real estate agent is losing over $14,000 in gross commission income from not having a system that engages visitors on arrival. That figure comes from the company’s own calculations across its user base – it is not an independent industry benchmark – but it illustrates the scale of the problem as Kachan’s team measures it.

What Buyers Should Watch For

If you are actively searching for a home, this pattern has practical implications. Agents and teams most likely to respond quickly tend to be those investing in technology and staffing beyond business hours. If you are consistently submitting inquiries and hearing nothing for 12 to 24 hours, the delay is not unusual; it is structural.

Some buyers respond by limiting their searches to business hours, which narrows their options. Others send the same inquiry to multiple agents, hoping one responds quickly. Neither approach is ideal. Kachan says the problem is getting worse as attention spans shrink: “People will only want answers quicker and responses faster.”

The Cost for Sellers

For sellers, the consideration is more direct. If your agent or their team has no system for engaging buyers outside business hours, no assistant, no automated response, no after-hours coverage, then roughly four out of every ten serious inquiries about your property may go unanswered during the window when the buyer is most engaged.

In a market where inventory is rising, and buyers have more choices, that silence carries a cost. According to Kachan, some of his company’s brokerage clients have seen 20 to 30 additional transactions per year after implementing after-hours engagement systems – though results vary widely depending on traffic volume and market conditions.

Kachan says the top-performing brokerages treat speed to lead as a system rather than a habit: “If a lead comes in, you need to have an ISA, a VA, an admin, someone calling that lead within five minutes.” The teams that do this consistently are the ones capturing buyers that competitors lose to overnight silence.

About the Expert: Peter Kachan is a co-founder and CEO of Realty AI, which operates the AI assistant Madison, used across a network of North American brokerages.

This article is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, or investment advice. The views and opinions expressed herein reflect those of the individuals quoted and do not represent an endorsement of any company, product, or service mentioned. Readers should conduct their own due diligence and consult qualified professionals before making any investment decisions.