Herald Welcome

Herald Welcome handles the “I have a closing in your HOA” calls the board would otherwise field by hand. It keeps a list of homes in your community that are for sale, and lets you send each listing agent a Hello Email with a private portal link. The portal has the welcome letter, your covenants, the property’s current standing, and Herald Chat.

Modes at a glance

You pick a mode under When a new listing is detected:

• Manual Listing Entry - no automatic scan. The board adds listings with the Add Listing button and chooses when to email the agent. Available on every plan.
• Auto Search + Notify Board, Manual Email Outreach - Herald searches realtor.com every morning for new listings in your community and tells the board, with the Hello Email ready to send. A board member reviews it and presses Send. Needs the Automate plan.
• Automated: Auto Search + Notify + Email Outreach - shown on the screen but not selectable yet. Every Hello Email is sent by a board member.

The agent portal, welcome letter, and Hello Email work the same way in both working modes. The only difference is who tells Herald Welcome that a listing exists.

Choosing a mode

If your community turns over slowly and you don’t mind adding two or three listings a month yourself, Manual Listing Entry is plenty.

Turn on Auto Search when you don’t want to keep an eye on the market yourself, or when turnover is high enough that you’d miss listings. Herald creates the same listing records you’d otherwise add by hand, usually within a day of the listing going live.

The Add Listing button works in every mode. Even with Auto Search on, you can add listings it missed: a pocket listing, a for-sale-by-owner, anything off the public market. Automatic detection never overwrites, re-statuses, or archives a listing you added by hand.

What it does

With Auto Search on, every day at 10:00am Central Herald Welcome:

1. Searches realtor.com for homes for sale in your community’s ZIP code
2. Matches them by address against your properties
3. Adds new matches to the Herald Welcome screen
4. Alerts the board with an in-app notification and a post in Board Chat (if Alert the board when a new home is listed is on)
5. Keeps existing listings current: status changes (Pending, Sold) and homes that come off the market

In Manual mode you do step 1 yourself with Add Listing. Everything after that is the same, and the agent gets the same portal.

Search ZIP code

The scan searches one ZIP code. Leave Search ZIP code blank to use the Mailing ZIP from your community settings. Set it when your HOA’s mailing address (a PO box or a management office) is in a different ZIP than the homes. If there’s no ZIP to scan, the screen tells you.

Adding a listing manually

On the Herald Welcome screen, click Add Listing. The form has:

• Property (required) - start typing an address and pick the property from your roster. Properties that already have an active listing aren’t offered.
• Listing Agent Name (required)
• Agent Email (required) - where the Hello Email goes
• Agent Phone (optional) - for the board’s reference
• Brokerage (optional)
• List Price (optional) - shown on the listing
• Notify board members (on by default) - sends an in-app message and push notification to every active board member and admin

The listing then appears with the same detail view, activity timeline, and Hello Email flow as a detected listing.

What the listing agent gets

The Hello Email arrives with an Open your HomeHerald page button. The link is good for 7 days. When the agent opens it, HomeHerald emails them a 6-digit code to confirm it’s them, and they agree to the AI data-sharing terms. Their session ends after 30 minutes of inactivity. They see:

• Welcome letter to share with their buyers, as a PDF
• Community covenants (CC&Rs)
• Current Balance on the property they’re listing, and the community’s Annual Dues
• Estoppel letter download, if you’ve turned it on (see below)
• Herald Chat, which they can chat with or call to ask about fees, rules, and this property’s standing

Setting it up

Automate → Configuration → Herald Welcome card

The switch in the header turns Herald Welcome on or off. Configure opens the settings. All of them can be edited while it’s off, so you can prepare the email and letter before switching it on.

The settings

• When a new listing is detected - the mode (see above)
• Search ZIP code - Auto Search only
• Test against a real property - pick a property to fill in the previews with its real address, balance, and dues
• Alert the board when a new home is listed - in-app notification to active board members and admins on every detection. Each member’s Announcements notification preference still applies.
• Last run - when the scan last ran and what it found

Welcome Letter to Resident tab

The one-page PDF the listing agent gives the new owner at closing. Tick what the AI should include (Amenities + rental fees, Annual dues, Annual HOA meeting, HOA Board roster), click Write welcome letter with AI, then edit. Download PDF preview shows the finished letter. The PDF carries your HOA’s name, a QR code, and your join code so the new owner can join the community in HomeHerald.

Variables: {{address}}, {{communityName}}, {{joinCode}}, {{annualDues}}.

Hello Email to Listing Agent tab

The email the listing agent receives. Variables:

• {{agentName}} - the listing agent’s first name
• {{address}} - the listing’s street address
• {{communityName}} - your HOA name
• {{listPrice}} - the asking price
• {{duesOwed}} - the current balance on this property
• {{boardSignoff}} - for example “The Board of [Community]”

Settings on this tab:

• Include portal link (on by default) - adds the portal button to the email. Turn it off and the email is a plain note from the board.
• Offer estoppel letter download - adds an Estoppel Letter download to the agent portal: the current balance, recent ledger, open violations, dues schedule, and board contact. It is marked as an unofficial summary. The legal certificate is still signed by the board.
• CC the board on agent emails - this switch is saved, but board members are not copied on the email today. The board can see each send in the listing’s activity timeline.

The Herald Welcome screen

Automate → Configuration → Herald Welcome card

The header shows whether Herald Welcome is on and which ZIP it scans. Below it:

• Homes currently for sale - Active and Pending listings, with the Add Listing button
• Recently off the market - homes that sold or came off the market recently

Each listing shows its address, list price, source, listing date, status, and outreach status (Awaiting outreach, Email sent, Handled). Marking a listing handled takes it off both lists.

Click a listing to open the detail view. It has the agent’s contact details (which you can edit when the scan missed them), the activity timeline, the Agent Magic Link card, and the actions: Send Hello Email, Edit template, Mark as handled, and Mark off-market.

Sending the Hello Email

From a listing’s detail view, click Send Hello Email. You’ll see the recipient, the subject, and a preview of the email with every variable filled in for this listing. Click Send and the listing’s outreach status changes to Email sent. The activity timeline gets an entry.

To change the wording first, click Edit template.

Activity timeline

Each listing’s timeline records:

• When the listing was detected, or added by an admin
• When a Hello Email was sent
• When an admin marked it handled
• Status changes: the scan saw it go Pending, Sold, or off the market, a board member marked it off-market, or someone edited the agent’s contact details
• When the agent accepted the portal’s terms

The same events appear in Automate → Activity & Usage under the Herald Welcome filter.

Agent magic links

The Agent Magic Link card on a listing lists every portal link sent for it, with its status (Active, Expired, Revoked) and a Revoke button. If a sale falls through or the listing changes agents, revoke the link. It stops working immediately.

How the email is sent

• Your HOA’s Gmail (preferred) - if you’ve connected Gmail under Email Integration, the Hello Email goes out from your HOA’s address and replies land in your inbox.
• HomeHerald platform email - otherwise it’s sent from hello@homeherald.ai, and replies go to the board member who clicked Send.

Gmail is recommended: the agent sees your address, and the reply thread stays where the board already reads email.

Lifecycle

• Active - on the market
• Pending - under contract, as reported by the listing
• Sold - the listing shows it sold
• Off the market - it dropped out of the search, or a board member marked it off-market
• Handled - a board member marked the outreach complete

Listings leave the operational view on their own after a short wait: 1 day for Handled, 3 days for Sold, 7 days for Off the market. They stay in the activity log.

Edge cases worth knowing

A home comes back on the market. It keeps the same listing record. Its status flips back to Active and it returns to the list, with its earlier history and outreach status intact. Check whether it has a new agent before you send again.

The same agent has several listings in your HOA. Each listing gets its own Hello Email and its own portal link.

The scan found no agent email. This happens when the public listing doesn’t show one. The listing still appears, but Send Hello Email is disabled until you add the agent’s email on the listing.

The scan has a bad day. If a scan is incomplete or errors out, Herald Welcome doesn’t mark anything off the market. You won’t get false “listing pulled” changes because the data source couldn’t be reached.

A property isn’t in the roster. Add Listing only offers properties on your roster. Add the property under Community > Properties first.

Common questions

Q: How often does it check? A: With Auto Search on, once a day at 10:00am Central. In manual mode there’s no automatic check.

Q: Which plans include it? A: Manual Listing Entry, the agent portal, the welcome letter, and the Hello Email work on every plan. Auto Search needs the Automate plan.

Q: What if the agent never clicks the link? A: That’s fine. The listing stays on your screen and you can follow up however you like.

Q: Can I revoke an agent’s access after they’ve used it? A: Yes. Click Revoke on the Agent Magic Link card and the link stops working immediately.

Q: Does the agent see other properties or residents? A: No. The portal covers a single property: the welcome letter, your covenants, that property’s standing, the community’s annual dues, and a Herald Chat that knows your HOA’s rules and this property’s account. No directory, and no other balances.

Q: Can I use my own Gmail to send the Hello Email? A: Yes. Connect Gmail under Email Integration and Herald Welcome uses it automatically.