The 2am leak call
gets answered.
Tenant emergencies do not wait for office hours, and a voicemail box is not an emergency line. fonea answers every call around the clock, works out whether it is an emergency, escalates the real ones to your on-call manager immediately, and logs everything else as a structured maintenance request.
What is a property management answering service?
A property management answering service answers your tenant and owner calls when your office cannot — nights, weekends, and holidays. fonea does it with a natural voice: it triages emergencies, transfers urgent calls to the on-call manager, logs maintenance requests with unit and contact details, and sends you a summary of every call, from $90 a month.
The after-hours problem
Your emergency line is a voicemail box, and everyone knows it
Emergencies arrive when the office is closed
Burst pipes, failed heat, lockouts, and no-hot-water calls do not respect business hours. When the after-hours number rings out to voicemail, a small problem becomes an insurance claim — and a tenant who tells the story to everyone in the building.
Water damage compounds by the hour
The on-call phone gets everything, urgent or not
When one cell number covers after hours, the manager holding it fields the burst pipe and the “what day is trash pickup” question at the same 11pm. Burnout follows, then calls stop being answered at all — and nobody can tell which one was the leak.
Most after-hours calls are not emergencies
Routine calls swallow the workday
Rent questions, showing requests, lease renewals, vendor callbacks, owner check-ins. Each is two minutes; together they are the reason nobody at the office gets through their actual list — and the reason the phone starts going unanswered during business hours too.
The same handful of questions, all day, every day
What changes
What fonea does for your portfolio
Emergencies escalated in under a minute
You define what counts as an emergency — water, gas, heat, electrical, fire, lockout. When a caller describes one, fonea transfers them straight to the on-call manager and captures the unit and callback number first, so nothing is lost if the call drops.
Maintenance requests logged, not scribbled
Every non-emergency request comes back as a structured summary: who called, which unit, what is wrong, when they are available. No more decoding a voicemail at 7am or chasing a tenant for their apartment number.
The on-call phone stops ringing for nothing
Routine questions are answered or logged instead of forwarded. Your manager’s phone rings for the burst pipe and stays quiet for the trash schedule — which is the difference between an on-call rotation people accept and one they quit over.
English and Spanish tenants, one number
fonea detects the caller’s language and answers naturally in Spanish, English, German, French, or Italian — no separate line to publish, no menu for a tenant with water coming through a ceiling.
Live within 24 hours
How it fits your current setup
Keep your office and after-hours numbers
fonea works through standard call forwarding on any US carrier. Point your after-hours line at it, your main line, or both — no porting, no new number for tenants to learn.
Tell it what an emergency is
Water, gas, heat, electrical, lockout, fire — your definitions, your escalation order. Everything else is handled or logged instead of waking someone up.
fonea triages and escalates
It greets the caller with your company name, works out what is wrong, transfers real emergencies to the on-call manager, and captures unit and contact details on every call.
You get the log
Structured summaries by email or text after every call — what came in overnight, which unit, what was escalated, what still needs a callback.
Typical calls
How fonea handles tenant and owner calls
Emergency — water through the ceiling, Saturday night
Escalated in under a minute with the unit captured — instead of a voicemail discovered Monday, after the ceiling has come down.
Not an emergency — dishwasher out, Tuesday evening
Logged with everything the office needs, and the on-call manager’s phone never rings.
Prospect — availability question during a showing
A leasing inquiry becomes a booked showing while your team is out walking units.
Privacy and disclosure
Transparent with every tenant who calls
Callers are always told it is an assistant
fonea discloses at the start of every call that the caller is speaking with a digital assistant, and the disclosure cannot be switched off. No tenant is left thinking they reached a person.
No voiceprints, no biometric profiles
fonea does not build voice profiles and does not identify callers by voice. Calls are transcribed and the transcripts encrypted — no biometric identifier is created or stored.
You control recording and retention
Whether calls are recorded and how long transcripts are kept is configurable per account, so you can match your state’s consent rules and your own record-keeping policy.
Encrypted, on European infrastructure
AI processing runs on European infrastructure and persistent data is stored in Switzerland, encrypted in transit and at rest. Tenant call data is not a training set for someone else’s model.
Precios
Precios transparentes
Incluido
- 120 minutos de conversación IA incluidos
- ES, EN, FR, DE, IT
- Integración con calendario y reserva de citas
- Contestador IA 24/7
- IA interactiva para atención al cliente
- Notificaciones por email y SMS
- Cancela cuando quieras, sin permanencia
- Sin costes de configuración
Incluido
- 500 minutos de conversación IA
- 3 llamadas simultáneas
- 3 números de teléfono
- Asistentes ilimitados
- Usuarios ilimitados
Funciones
- Todo de Basic
- Llamadas salientes
- Sin costes de configuración
Incluido
- Desde 2.000 minutos
- Llamadas simultáneas a medida
- Números a medida
- Asistentes ilimitados
- Usuarios ilimitados
Funciones
- Todo de Professional
- Voz personalizada
- SLA a medida
- Sin costes de configuración
Frequently asked
Property management answering service — your questions
How much does a property management answering service cost?
fonea starts at $90 per month including 120 minutes of talk time, with no per-call charges, no setup fee, and no annual contract. That matters for property management specifically: traditional answering services bill per call, so the month with a cold snap and forty no-heat calls is the month the invoice spikes. Here the price is the same whether it is a quiet week or a burst-pipe weekend.
How does it know what counts as an emergency?
You define it. Most portfolios set water, gas, no heat, electrical, fire, and lockouts as emergencies, and everything else as a logged maintenance request. When a caller describes something on your emergency list, fonea transfers them to the on-call manager immediately — capturing the unit number and a callback number first, so the details survive even if the call drops.
Can it replace our on-call rotation?
It changes what the rotation is for rather than removing it. Someone still has to go fix the pipe. What fonea removes is the part people burn out on: fielding every after-hours call to find the one that matters. The on-call phone rings for genuine emergencies and stays quiet for trash schedules and rent questions.
Does it work for both tenant and owner calls?
Yes. The same line handles tenant maintenance and emergency calls, prospective renter inquiries, and owner check-ins — each gets the answers you configure, and each comes back as a structured summary. Leasing inquiries can be booked straight into your calendar as showings.
Does it answer in Spanish?
Yes. fonea detects the caller’s language and answers naturally in Spanish, English, German, French, or Italian on the same number. For portfolios with Spanish-speaking tenants this replaces a separate bilingual line — and a tenant with water coming through a ceiling never has to navigate a language menu.
How quickly can we go live?
Within 24 hours of sign-up. You keep your existing numbers and forward them to fonea using standard call forwarding from any US carrier — most offices set this up in a few minutes. You configure your emergency list, your escalation order, and the questions you get every day, and the line is live. Forwarding can be switched back off just as fast.
Further reading
Property Management Answering Service: A Guide for 2026
Learn how a property management answering service can streamline your small UK agency's operations and boost tenant satisfaction.
How Much Does an AI Receptionist Cost? (2026 Guide)
AI receptionist pricing explained: subscription vs per-minute vs per-call models, hidden fees to watch, and how the cost compares to hiring or outsourcing.
AI Receptionist vs Answering Service: Which Is Right for You?
AI receptionist, human answering service, or in-house reception? An honest, vendor-neutral comparison of cost, availability, and fit.
How AI Answers Business Calls, Step by Step
How AI answers business calls, step by step: speech-to-text, language models, sub-second latency, bookings, transfers, summaries — and where it still fails.
Answer the 2am call. Start today.
Live within 24 hours, keep your numbers, cancel monthly. No annual contract.
Get started