Home / Real Estate Agents / Lender and title status requests by email, with replies logged and a client update draft
Real Estate Agents problem 3: Chasing lenders and title for status updates
Lender and title status requests by email, with replies logged and a client update draft
Every Tuesday the workflow emails the lender and the title or escrow officer on each open deal one short status request with a deal code in the subject. Replies come back through Resend's inbound email, are matched by code and sender, logged in a Google Sheet, and 'clear to close' or delay words text you right away. On Thursday it nudges only whoever hasn't answered. On Friday you get a client update draft for each deal, written from fixed phrases with a wire-fraud reminder; it never forwards the lender's wording to your client.
The problem
Every unanswered status question turns into a call from an anxious client. The figure below is from a vendor's count of forum comments.
- In Sifta's count of 7,439 agent comments, chasing lenders, title and other agents for documents and updates came up 179 times. Vendor analysis. Source: Sifta: What real estate agents complain about (7,439 r/realtors and r/RealEstate comments, July 2026) (Vendor analysis of public forum comments)
- Transaction coordinators and TC software already do this for many teams. If you have one, you may not need this recipe. Source: Sifta: What real estate agents complain about (7,439 r/realtors and r/RealEstate comments, July 2026) (Vendor analysis of public forum comments)
Who it's for
US agents and small teams who spend afternoons calling and emailing lenders and title companies for updates their clients keep asking for.
Tools and monthly cost
| Tool | Official price |
|---|---|
| Resend (sends status requests and receives replies) | Free: 3,000 emails / month, 100 / day, inbound included (each received email counts toward the quota). Pro: $20 / month for 50,000 pricing page |
| Google Sheets (opt-out ledger, reply log, open-house and transaction lists) | Free with a Google account or your existing Google Workspace plan pricing page |
| Twilio US SMS, sent or received | $0.0083 per 160-character segment, plus carrier fees of about $0.0035-$0.005 per segment pricing page |
| n8n | Community Edition: free if you self-host (you pay for the server). n8n Cloud: from EUR 20 / month (Starter) or EUR 50 (Pro) pricing page |
Example month: Illustrative arithmetic. Assume 5 open deals: 10 Tuesday requests, about 4 nudges and 10 replies a week, so about 100 emails sent or received a month, inside Resend's free tier (received emails count toward it). About 8 alert texts = $0.07 plus carrier fees, using the Twilio number from the lead recipe. About $0-$1 a month plus your n8n server.
Setup
- In Resend, verify a sending domain and enable receiving on an address (E3_INBOUND_ADDRESS); add Resend's email.received webhook pointing at 'mss-e3-inbound' and copy its signing secret into RESEND_WEBHOOK_SECRET. Forged webhooks are dropped before anything is fetched.
- Create the transactions Sheet (deal code, address, closing date, lender and title names and emails, status) and the replies Sheet; swap the mock sheet URL for n8n's Google Sheets node. Only people listed on a deal can update it.
- Set AGENT_NAME, AGENT_FIRST, AGENT_LICENSE, AGENT_PHONE, AGENT_MOBILE, AGENT_EMAIL, AGENT_TZ, BROKERAGE_NAME, BROKERAGE_LICENSE, OFFICE_ADDRESS and EMAIL_FROM from .env.example. Every message is signed with your name, license number, brokerage, phone and office address; ask your broker what your state requires. Set TC_EMAIL to copy your TC. CLIENT_DIGEST_MODE stays 'draft' (the client update goes to you) unless you set it to 'send'.
- Tell your lenders and title officers the emails are coming and ask them to reply above the quoted text. The workflow also has a manual 'run now' webhook used by our tests. Delete it, or put it behind n8n's header authentication, before you go live.
Download
Download real-estate-lender-title-status-chase.zip
Contains the n8n workflow, the mock data, the test runner with its last results, and the mock server we tested against. All keys in .env.example are fake.
Test result
Every workflow was imported into n8n 2.45.4 and run end to end on our test machine. Follow Up Boss, dotloop, Google Calendar, Google Sheets, Twilio and the email sender (Resend, including its inbound webhook) were replaced by a local mock server built from their official API docs: it checks the same request shapes and required fields, enforces Follow Up Boss's rate limit (HTTP 429 with Retry-After), expires dotloop's access token so the refresh path runs, and records every call. Webhook signatures (Follow Up Boss FUB-Signature, Twilio X-Twilio-Signature, Resend/Svix) are really computed and checked. These recipes use no AI model; every decision is a written rule. Leads, clients, agents, brokerages and addresses are invented. Nothing was sent to a real phone, person or account.
7/7 scenarios passed (run 2026-10-28)
| PASS | S1 | Tuesday: one status request per open transaction and party ([TX-id] in subject, reply-to the receiving address, TC cc'd); closed and past-closing files skipped |
| PASS | S2 | Tuesday run again: nothing re-sent |
| PASS | S3 | Lender replies 'clear to close' above the quoted request: verified, body fetched, quote stripped, row saved, agent texted |
| PASS | S4 | Forged Svix signature: dropped before any fetch. Valid webhook from an address not on file: not recorded, agent told |
| PASS | S5 | Thursday: nudge only parties with no reply (title on both files, not the lender), plus one agent summary |
| PASS | S6 | Title replies that closing may be pushed: delay alert text to the agent |
| PASS | S7 | Friday: one client-update DRAFT per file to the agent only (client not emailed); draft has fixed-phrase status + wire-fraud reminder, lender wording kept separate |
Actual output from the test run
Scenario S7: the Friday client-update draft, sent to the agent only (invented deal). Names and numbers are invented.
Subject: Draft client update: 214 Elm St, Austin TX (review, then send to maria@example.com) Nothing was sent to the client. Edit and forward this draft: ======== Hi Maria, Here's this week's update on 214 Elm St, Austin TX (closing Fri Dec 11): - Lender: replied Wed - Title / escrow: replied Thu [Agent: add a plain-English summary here.] Reminder: we will never email you wiring instructions. Before sending any money, call the title company at a number you looked up yourself. Jordan Lee (license #000000-MOCK) Example Realty Group (license #000001-MOCK) (512) 555-0100 100 Example Ave, Suite 2, Austin, TX 78701 ======== What the lender/title side said this week (do not forward as-is; may contain loan details): --- lender wrote (Wed): We're clear to close as of this morning. CD going out today. --- title / escrow wrote (Thu): Survey is late, closing may get pushed to 12/18.
Verified with mocks
- Tuesday: one status request per open deal to the lender and to title, with the deal code in the subject and replies routed to the receiving address; the TC is copied; closed deals and deals past closing are skipped. Running it again the same day sends nothing.
- A lender reply saying 'clear to close' above the quoted request: signature verified, body fetched, quoted text stripped, row saved, agent texted.
- Forged Svix signature: dropped before any fetch. A valid reply from an address not on the deal is not recorded and the agent is told.
- Thursday: nudges go only to parties that haven't replied, plus one summary to the agent. A title reply that closing may be delayed sends a delay alert text.
- Friday: one client update draft per deal goes to the agent only (the client is not emailed), built from fixed status phrases plus a wire-fraud reminder; lender wording is kept separate.
- Verified with mocks; fictional people only.
Documented from official API docs only
Built to the vendor's documentation but not run against a live account. Check these on yours.
- Resend email.received webhook (Svix signing) and the Receiving API for fetching the body (from Resend's docs; tested against a mock).
- Resend send API with reply_to and idempotency keys; Twilio Messages API (from their docs).
Limitations
- Status words are matched from a list ('clear to close', 'delay', 'pushed'...). It can miss unusual wording, so skim the replies Sheet.
- Never put wiring instructions or account numbers in these emails, and never act on wiring instructions received by email; call a known number to confirm.
- Lenders' and title companies' own portals may already give you this status; this recipe is for the ones that answer only by email.
- Not legal advice. Your broker's policies decide what you may share with clients.