Leasing Office Hours : Accompanied Showings Recap

RentEngine's Smart Scheduling algorithm handles the complexity of managing in-person showings, calculating agent availability, drive time, property restrictions, and more.

If you missed our live Q&A session on accompanied showings and Smart Scheduling, catch up on the session below or scroll down for a recap.

What types of showings does RentEngine support?

RentEngine supports four showing types:

Accompanied showings are in-person showings led by an agent on your team.

Self-guided showings allow prospects to visit a property on their own after verifying their location and receiving access instructions.

Accompanied or self-guided showings offer both types for a single property. If an agent is available, the showing is accompanied. If not, the prospect can schedule a self-guided showing instead. This hybrid approach works well for teams that want agent-led showings during business hours and self-guided access after hours.

Remote-guided showings combine the convenience of self-guided scheduling with a live team member. The prospect goes to the property, but instead of receiving access instructions directly, a member of your team connects with them and stays with them for the duration of the showing. Think of it as an accompanied showing where your agent is at the office instead of on-site.

What is Smart Scheduling?

Smart Scheduling is the algorithm that optimizes scheduling for accompanied showings. It focuses on two things: maximizing the number of available showing slots for prospects, and minimizing the time agents spend driving between properties.

More available slots means prospects are more likely to find a time that works, which directly improves conversion rates. And less drive time means your agents can show more properties per day with the same salary cost.

How does agent availability work?

Each showing agent controls their availability in two ways.

First, they set personal showing windows — their recurring weekly availability. If an agent does showings Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm, they set that as their weekly schedule.

Second, they can connect their Google or Outlook calendar. RentEngine reads that calendar and automatically blocks any non-showing appointments (doctor visits, meetings, etc.) from their availability. Between the two, you get a real-time view of when each agent is actually available.

Where to find it: Settings → Showings → Personal

How does property-level availability work?

Beyond agent schedules, you can control when a specific property is available for showings. There are several options here.

Weekly showing windows let you set recurring availability at the property level. For example, if a tenant-occupied property can only be shown Monday and Wednesday afternoons, you drag those time blocks in the calendar. Showings can't be directly scheduled outside those windows.

Earliest showing date lets you push out when a property becomes available for showings while keeping marketing active. If a tenant moves out March 28 and you expect the unit to be ready April 1, set the earliest showing date to April 1. Leads come in and can schedule — they just can't book before that date. This is especially useful for pre-leasing.

Tenant notifications: Adding a current tenant's contact information to the property automatically defaults the minimum notice period to 24 hours and notifies the tenant when a showing is scheduled or canceled.

On hold keeps your marketing live but prevents prospects from scheduling any showings. Use this when you've received multiple applications you're likely to move forward with, or when an emergency maintenance situation makes the timeline for showing the property unclear.

What showing settings should I configure for my entire company?

You can control showing settings the company level (i.e. across your entire portfolio). Keep in mind that you can still override most of them at the property level when needed.

Some important settings to take note of:

Piggybacking allows showings to be scheduled back-to-back at the same property (1pm, then 1:15pm, then 1:30pm). If you prefer to have multiple prospects see the property at the same time rather than one by one, turn piggybacking off. This pushes everyone into the same time slot.

Stacking controls how many prospects can see a property at the same time. Setting this to 5 means up to 5 prospects can attend a single showing slot. If one no-shows, the trip isn't wasted. We recommend setting this between 3 and 5.

Showing duration determines how long each slot lasts. 15-minute slots open up more availability and reduce dead time. You can increase this at the property level for larger homes or buildings with more amenities to cover.

Max visits per property per day limits how many times an agent travels to a single property in one day. Setting this to 1 means the system pushes all showings for that property into the same time slot on a given day. If the first prospect books 1pm on Friday, the next prospect who wants Friday will also see 1pm as the available slot — keeping the agent from driving back to the same property twice.

Max visits per unit per week helps manage high-demand properties where you want to cap total weekly visits.

Minimum notice period controls how far in advance a showing must be booked. Keep this as low as possible. A short notice period (1 hour, for example) means that when a 2pm showing cancels, a new prospect can grab that slot at noon while the agent is still nearby.

Confirmation timing: We recommend sending the confirmation message 120 minutes before the showing. Prospects then have until 45 minutes before the start time to confirm. If they don't confirm, the showing auto-cancels, freeing the slot for someone who will actually show up.

Drive time buffer adds extra time between showings to account for traffic. RentEngine uses Google Maps to calculate drive time between properties, but if you're in a high-traffic market (Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston), adding a 25% buffer gives agents a more realistic window.

What is Smart Assign?

Smart Assign automatically determines which agent is the best fit for each showing. When a prospect requests a time, the system evaluates every agent associated with that property: their personal showing windows, their connected calendar, what other showings they have scheduled, where those showings are, and the drive time between them.

The agent who is closest, most available, and can get there with the least disruption to their schedule gets the assignment. In the rare case of a true tie, the system assigns randomly to keep distribution fair across agents.

Where to activate Smart Assign: In the property's showing settings, make sure Smart Assign is checked and that you've added all agents who can show that property.

Can I still schedule showings manually?

Yes. Smart Scheduling controls what prospects can directly book, but your team can always override it. If an eager lead can only visit at 6pm and your agent typically works until 5pm, the agent can schedule that showing manually from the Command Center. The system shows available slots based on Smart Scheduling, but the agent can pick any date and time.

What is the Availability Audit?

The Availability Audit shows you how many available time slots each property has within your scheduling lead time, and if a slot isn't available, it tells you exactly why.

Navigate to Settings → Showings and scroll to the Availability Audit. For every property on the market, it calculates total available slots and flags properties in red (no available slots) or orange (few available slots).

Click into a property to see availability by day. Click on a specific time slot to see whether it's open or blocked — and the reason why. Reasons include max visits exceeded, agent unavailable, drive time conflicts, notice period restrictions, property on hold, and more. Each reason links directly to the relevant setting so you can fix it in one click.

What are the best practices for accompanied showings?

The most common mistake is restricting property-level availability too heavily. When you manually limit a property to narrow showing windows, you're working against Smart Scheduling rather than with it. Layer the agent's calendar, other showings, and drive time on top of those tight windows, and you can quickly end up with zero available slots.

Instead, keep property-level availability as wide as possible (unless the property is tenant-occupied or has a specific constraint). Assign as many agents as possible to each property so Smart Assign has the largest pool to choose from. Then let the algorithm handle the optimization.

In short: don't limit availability at the property level unless you need to, add as many agents as possible to each property, make sure each agent has broad personal showing availability, and use the Availability Audit to catch gaps before prospects hit a dead end.

How does clustering work?

When your agents are doing showings in one area of town, Smart Scheduling pushes new prospects toward time slots adjacent to existing showings in that same area. If an agent has an 11am and an 11:30am on the east side of town, the next prospect wanting to see a property on the east side will see preferred times clustered around those — say 10:30am or noon — so the agent stays in one area instead of driving back and forth across town.

What is PM approval?

PM approval adds a manual step before showings are confirmed. When enabled, prospects can still choose an available time and complete pre-screening, but the showing goes into a "Pending" status. You and your team get notified, and the showing isn't scheduled until someone approves it.

This gives you a final check on every showing without disabling direct scheduling entirely. You can turn it on at the company level or for specific properties (useful for tenant-occupied units or properties with special requirements).

Where to find it: Settings → Showings → Company (for company-wide) or in the individual property's showing settings.

What about Blocked times?

Blocked Times let you override all other settings for specific dates and properties. If you need to block showings for a specific property for the next 2 days, or block all properties on a company holiday, you can do that from the showing calendar. Block times take precedence over everything else in the scheduling algorithm.

Where to find it: Showing Calendar → Block Times

What upcoming scheduling features are on the way?

Availability templates allow you to control property-level availability in bulk. Instead of updating each property individually, you can create templates — for example, "east side mornings" and "west side afternoons" — and link them to multiple properties at once. This also supports one-off availability (a specific date and time that isn't recurring weekly). Rolling out in the coming weeks.

Tenant approval flow will let tenants at occupied properties approve or reject showing requests directly, instead of requiring your team to coordinate between prospects and tenants.

Blocked time improvements will make it easier to set up blocked times for company holidays across your entire portfolio.

Virtual showings will allow agents to give video tours from the property while the prospect joins remotely. The agent shows up, the prospect connects from wherever they are, and the showing is managed through RentEngine like a standard accompanied showing. Expected in the May-June timeframe.

Agent home location will let agents set a starting location so drive time calculations account for the first and last showings of the day, not just the ones in between. Expected early summer.

Questions from the session

When multiple agents have the same showing hours, how does the system decide who gets the showing? Smart Assign looks at each agent's existing showings, their drive time to the property, and overall availability. If everything is truly identical, it assigns randomly for fairness.

Can we have different configurations for accompanied and self-guided showings? Yes. The settings covered here apply specifically to accompanied showings. Self-guided showings have their own, simpler configuration. You control the showing type at the property level.

Will the availability templates apply to properties, agents, or both? Properties. Agents already control their own availability through personal showing settings. Availability templates give you bulk control over property-level availability.

Is there a way to require a minimum number of people at a showing before the agent goes? Not currently. The challenge is logistical — once the first person books, there's no clear point to cancel on them if others don't also sign up for the same slot. Stacking (set to 3-5) is the best way to increase the odds of multiple attendees.

How is drive time calculated for the first showing of the day? Right now, the system calculates drive time between scheduled showings but doesn't account for the agent's starting location. The agent home location feature (expected early summer) will address this.

If you have more questions about accompanied showings or Smart Scheduling, let us know via the Chat or visit our knowledge center.

Plus, send us your suggestions or questions for our next Leasing Office Hours session!