Every email lead gets a guest card in minutes, not a day
A proposal for Situs Group: Clara reads every lead email that reaches your leasing inbox and creates the AppFolio guest card for you.
Propflow · October 27, 2026 · Based on your last 12 months of guest cards and the last 30 days of your leasing inbox
30
email leads your team typed into AppFolio by hand in the last 30 days
18.5 h
typical wait from the lead email to the guest card today
~6 min
typical time for Clara to create the card from the email
The proposal: Clara creates the card
1 · ReadA lead email lands in your leasing inbox.
2 · Look upClara checks AppFolio for this renter by phone, then email, then name.
3 · CardClara adds an inquiry to the existing card, or creates a new one with the source set.
4 · ReplyClara drafts the first reply. Your team approves it, as it does today.
What we need from you
- Permission for Clara's AppFolio login to create guest cards. Today that login can only view.
- Your go to start with the first group of sources. TurboTenant and your website form are the biggest share.
- A yes or no on AffordableHousing. If yes, we work out with you how Clara reads its messages.
Once Clara's login has that permission, we start with TurboTenant and your website form. Your team sees each new card and every first reply before anything is sent.
Today: how email leads become guest cards
Today: your team retypes lead emails
Most of your listing sites send leads by email: TurboTenant, AffordableHousing, your website form and a few others. Someone on your team opens each one, checks AppFolio for an existing card, then types the renter's name, phone, email, property and message.
Email leads typed by hand, last 30 days
Over the past year the average was 17 a month. From May to August, after TurboTenant started, it was 39 a month.
Your team replies fast once the card exists, usually within minutes. The wait happens before that, while the lead sits in the inbox.
Time from lead email to guest card
Four in ten email leads waited more than a day. About 15 renters a month who emailed never got a card at all.
Which sources, and how
- Sources covered first: TurboTenant, your website form, Apartments.com and the smaller listing sites. Their emails carry the renter's name, contact and property, so Clara can build the card from the email alone.
- AffordableHousing comes second. Its emails only say "log in to read the message", so Clara needs a way to read the listing site first.
- Nothing changes for your team's other work. Walk-ins, referrals and calls stay exactly as they are today.
"Anything from TurboTenant or Zillow would be like a no-brainer." — your team, October 13 call
What you gain, and how we avoid duplicates
What you gain
Typing the cards takes a few hours a month. The bigger win is speed: a renter hears back the same hour instead of the next day, and no lead email is left without a card.
| Estimate, likely case | Per month | Per year |
|---|
| Typing the card | 2 to 2.5 h | 22 to 30 h |
| Card plus the first reply | 2.6 to 3.5 h | 31 to 42 h |
| Card plus first reply, at the May–August pace | 4.6 h | 55 h |
| Wait from email to card | about 18 hours down to about 6 minutes |
| Renters who emailed and never got a card | about 15 a month down to none |
Time estimates use 5 minutes per card and 2 minutes per first reply. Your AppFolio history doesn't record typing time, so these are estimates. The volumes are measured.
No duplicate guest cards
Renters often email more than once and from more than one site. In the last 30 days your team added 15 of 102 new inquiries to an existing card instead of creating a new one. Clara follows the same rule:
- It looks for the renter by phone, then email, then name at the same property before creating anything.
- A renter who writes about five homes ends up with one card and five inquiries, the way your team does it today.
- Before we turn this on, we run every email format your inbox receives through Clara and check each card it would make.