Individual Buyer - User Guide

Find, evaluate, and buy property — from first search to closing.

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How this guide is organised

Your purchase runs along one chain, and this guide follows it rather than your sidebar. Read it in order and you will always know what to do next and where the result lands.

The professional track — the spine of a purchase

The financing track — the parallel path that makes an offer credible

The two tracks meet at your offer: the professional track tells you whether the price is right, the financing track tells a lender you are ready.

Every section below tells you its place in the chain, what each action does, what changes as a result, and exactly where you land.

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Overview

You land on your Dashboard when you sign in. Use the sidebar on the left to move between sections.

If you are new, the fastest useful order is: complete your readiness assessment, save some searches, then start a professional engagement when you have a property you are serious about.

Looking to rent instead of buy? Renting is a separate workspace with its own dashboard. The Renter dashboard covers rental search, lease applications, rent payment records, utilities, maintenance, renewals, and move-in/move-out. See the Individual Renter guide.

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Your Dashboard — where both tracks are visible at once

Place in the chain: the starting point, and the only screen that shows the financing and professional tracks side by side.

The dashboard answers four questions:

1. What is worth looking at? — Recommended for you, matched to your browsing and saved searches, plus a Saved properties section and a Recently viewed rail so you can pick up where you left off.
2. How finance-ready am I? — the Mortgage readiness card shows your readiness score and links into the assessment.
3. Who is paying attention to me? — Lender activity shows contact requests on your readiness package.
4. What professional help is available? — trusted professionals for valuation, the property services directory, and a direct link to your readiness packages.

Important: lender activity is not a live feed. It reflects contact requests raised against your shared readiness package, so it stays empty until your package is shared and a lender responds to it. This is by design — a lender cannot see a package you have not released.

From here you also have:

• Saved searches — every search you saved, each with a notifications toggle, a view-matches shortcut, and a delete control. Turning notifications off does not delete the search.
• Browse listings — the empty-state card and the View all links take you to the full public listings page at /properties.

What happens next: save a property or a search here, then either start your readiness assessment (financing track) or request a professional (professional track, see Purchase support).

Using your dashboard effectively

• Treat the dashboard as a morning check: recommendations, readiness score, lender activity, and saved searches in one glance
• Save searches instead of re-running filters — the bell toggle controls whether that search notifies you
• Don't read an empty lender-activity card as a problem; it means nothing is shared yet

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Getting Started

Place in the chain: the setup that makes every later section work.

Step 1: Sign Up

Select "Individual Buyer" at sign-up, confirm your email, and you're in.

Step 2: Complete Your Profile

Add your details and preferences — this feeds the recommendation matching, so a complete profile means better suggested listings.

Step 3: Search and Save

Use the dashboard search or browse the public property listings. Save anything promising — saved properties and saved searches are how the platform learns what you want.

Step 4: Start Your Readiness Assessment

Open /mortgage/readiness or use the Mortgage readiness card on your dashboard (~5 minutes, free, no impact to your credit score). Doing this before you find the property puts you ahead — see Document Readiness Assessment for why.

What happens next: finishing the assessment is what makes the Readiness Packages room useful, and lender interest can only appear once a package is shared.

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Sidebar Navigation

Place in the chain: your map. Every entry below is a stop on one of the two tracks.

Two things to know about this list:

• Offers is not a separate page. It is the Your offers view inside Contacts, at /dashboard/buyer/agent?view=offers. If you arrived here looking for offers, that is where they are.
• The Pipeline does not track your property or your offer. It tracks your professional engagements — valuations, notary services, and your readiness assessment. Offers live in Contacts; property views live in Scheduled Tours.

The sidebar also shows Ask AI — the in-app assistant — and a Renter workspace link to switch workspaces.

A note on /dashboard/buyer/progress: this route exists but is not currently linked from anywhere in your journey. The stage-by-stage view you actually use is the milestone tracker on each Pipeline row.

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Finding Properties

Place in the chain: the start of everything. Nothing else in this guide matters until you have a property you are serious about.

Search by address, city, or price range from the dashboard search bar, or browse the full property listings — buying off-plan? Published pre-construction projects sit in the developments index. Two features keep you oriented as you browse:

• Saving properties — tap the bookmark on any card. Saved listings collect in the Saved properties section of your dashboard, and the full list is at /dashboard/buyer/saved-properties.
• Saved searches — after applying filters, Save Search stores the criteria with a notifications toggle. Your saved searches are listed on the dashboard, where you can toggle notifications, view matches, or delete one.

Picking up where you left off

You don't need to remember which listings you already looked at:

• Recently viewed — a rail of the properties you opened most recently, on your dashboard and on the listings page, so you can jump back without searching again.
• Similar to what you viewed — on the public listings page, listings similar to your recent views: same type and market, comparable price, ranked by closeness to what you last looked at.

Both rails appear after you've viewed at least one property, and they work before you even create an account.

What happens next: save a property, then request a tour from its listing page, or go straight to Purchase support to get a valuation before you commit.

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Document Readiness Assessment

Place in the chain: the financing track. This is the question every seller and lender asks first: is this buyer actually prepared?

It captures your self-reported document situation and produces a readiness package you can point lenders and sellers to — without touching your credit or making any lending decision.

Start it in the readiness assessment, or from the Mortgage readiness card on your dashboard (~5 minutes, free, no credit impact).

What your status means:

• Submitted / Under review — your answers are in; the assessment is being processed. Nothing is required from you unless the card flags it.
• Pre-qualified / Approved — your readiness package is complete. The card shows your status, your Core complete score, and your Enhanced score. View details opens your assessment history at /mortgage/my-assessments, where you manage your assessments and loan packages.

Why it's worth doing early: lenders can see which buyers have completed readiness packages, so a finished assessment makes your offers and inquiries more credible before you've spoken to a single lender.

What it is not: the assessment records what you told it — it does not verify your documents, check your creditworthiness, or predict any lender's decision. Any estimate is illustrative. Real qualification happens when a licensed lender reviews your actual documents.

What happens next: completion opens up the Readiness Packages room, which is where lender interest actually begins.

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Readiness Packages — The Document Readiness Room

Place in the chain: the financing track's working space. This is where your completed assessment becomes something lenders can act on.

Go to: Readiness Packages in the sidebar (/dashboard/buyer/readiness-packages)

The room holds your document checklist, your files, and — critically — your access controls.

Lender Interest & Contact

When you share your readiness package, interested lenders can request contact. From the room you can:

• See which lenders are interested — lender interest only appears once your package is shared, so this is your signal of financing appetite
• Approve or decline contact requests — approve to open an in-app conversation and choose whether to share contact details; declined requests are recorded without exposing anything about you
• Grant and revoke document access — lenders see only the files you explicitly release, and you can pull access back at any time

Using the room effectively

• Don't release documents until you've approved the lender's contact request — control first, share second
• A complete, organized package reads better to a lender than a fast one; fill every checklist item before sharing
• Check lender interest after sharing — that's when the conversations start

What happens next: approved conversations appear in Messages. The financing track then runs in parallel with the professional track until both meet at your offer.

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Pipeline — Your Professional Engagements

Place in the chain: the professional track. This is where every engagement you start lands, and where you accept or decline quotes.

Go to: Pipeline in the sidebar (/dashboard/buyer/pipeline). The badge shows quotes waiting on your decision.

This is not a deal tracker. There are no properties, stages, or offers here. Every row is a professional engagement: a valuation, a notary service, or your readiness assessment.

The three kinds of engagement

Use the filter buttons to narrow the list:

• All requests — everything active
• Document readiness — your readiness assessment records
• Valuations — valuation engagements with valuators
• Legal and notary — notary service engagements

The milestone tracker on each row

Every row shows where that engagement sits, and the tracker differs by type because the work differs:

• Valuation — Request → Quote → Payment → Inspection → Report
• Legal and notary — Request → Quote → Payment → Schedule → Complete
• Document readiness — Draft → Submitted → Contact → Documents → Follow-up → Complete (with its own variations once a package is under review or pre-qualified)

Reading a status

Each status carries a plain-language explanation of what is happening and what happens next. For example a valuation sitting at Quote requested means the professional has received your request and is reviewing it; Awaiting professional means you should expect a quote. Valuations at Valuation completed open the related record for deliverables.

Your actions, and what each one does

Two details worth knowing:

• Accept and Decline appear on any engagement with a quote awaiting your decision. Once a quote is accepted, paid, declined, or closed, the buttons are replaced — an accepted quote shows a continue-to-payment action instead.
• Accepting a quote opens a payment page at a /dashboard/client/payments/ URL. That is expected — the payment surface is shared across roles. You are not leaving your account.

Where the record goes afterwards

• Completed, declined, cancelled, and delivered engagements are hidden by default. Use the Show history toggle to bring them back. Nothing is deleted — they are just out of your active list.
• Accepted quotes can also be handled from /dashboard/buyer/quotes, the Quotes workspace. If you land on an invoice that says Accept quote to open payment workflow, that button takes you here.
• Once paid, a notary session appears in Scheduled Tours and its invoice appears in Invoices.

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Scheduled Tours

Place in the chain: the professional track, after payment. This is where booked work actually happens.

Go to: Scheduled Tours in the sidebar (/dashboard/buyer/tours)

This page is the Calendar shell filtered to your sessions. Use Calendar for the full hub including bank meetings and offer deadlines.

Every session type appears here, and each has its own status vocabulary:

• Property viewings — a tour you requested from a listing. Statuses run from a request awaiting the agent, through confirmed, to completed.
• Notary sessions — appear only once payment is confirmed. Before that, the engagement sits in your Pipeline waiting on the quote and payment. This is why a paid notary request may not appear here immediately.
• Valuation inspections — the valuator's site visit. These have a negotiation loop: proposed, counter proposed, reschedule pending, then agreed. A counter-proposal is a discussion about timing, not a rejection.

Toggle between Calendar and List view with the buttons above the schedule.

To request a property tour: open any property listing → Schedule a Tour → pick a date/time → add a note → Send Request.

Using tours effectively

• Add a note with your real questions — agents who know what you care about prep better answers
• A viewing sitting unconfirmed for days is worth a nudge via Messages
• Confirm details before the day — miscommunication on time or meeting point is the most common failure
• If a session is missing, check your Pipeline status first — unpaid notary work has not reached this page yet

What happens next: attend the session. Valuation deliverables then land in My Valuations.

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Mortgage Calculator

Place in the chain: pre-work. Knowing your ceiling before you tour saves wasted effort.

Go to: Mortgage Calculator in the sidebar (/dashboard/buyer/calculator) — a public mortgage payment calculator is also available before you sign in.

Estimate monthly payments from price, down payment, rate, and term — and use the Amortization view to see how the balance actually pays down over time.

Using it effectively

• Run numbers before falling for a listing — knowing your ceiling early saves wasted tours
• Compare terms, not just prices: a longer term lowers the payment but the amortization view shows what that really costs
• The estimate is illustrative — actual rates come from lenders, not the calculator

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Contacts, Agent Directory & Brokerage Directory

Place in the chain: the relationship workspace. This is where the professionals you are actually working with live — and where your offers live too.

Go to: Contacts in the sidebar (/dashboard/buyer/agent)

Contacts has two views:

• Relationships — every agent and brokerage you are connected to. Selecting one opens their detail view with counts for threads, tours, and recommendations.
• Your offers — every offer you have made, at /dashboard/buyer/agent?view=offers.

Inside a relationship

What you see depends on who you're viewing:

• An agent — tabs for Activity (recent messages and shared sessions), For you (what they've recommended), Tours (shared viewings), and Shared files.
• A brokerage — tabs for Conversations and Shared files.

From a selected relationship you can Message the professional directly (opens a pre-addressed conversation) or Schedule a tour with an agent. If a brokerage profile is no longer active, you are told so — your existing conversation history stays available.

The two directories are for before that:

• Agent Directory (/dashboard/buyer/agents) — browse and compare individual agents
• Brokerage Directory (/dashboard/buyer/brokerages) — compare firms when you want institutional backing or are still deciding who to approach

Use the directories to shortlist, then the relationship moves into Contacts and Messages.

What happens next: a conversation here is where tour details, quote clarifications, and offer negotiations belong — see Offers.

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My Valuations

Place in the chain: the end of the professional track — where the deliverable lands.

Go to: My Valuations in the sidebar (/dashboard/buyer/valuations)

Track valuation requests, quotes, inspections, reports and supporting files. Filter by status; the counts appear on the filter itself.

The lifecycle, and what you do at each stage:

• Pending — your request is in the queue.
• Quote requested — the valuator has received it and is reviewing. Watch your Pipeline for the quote.
• Quote received — a price is on the table. Accept or decline it from your Pipeline or from Quotes.
• Quote declined — closed.
• Awaiting payment — accept the quote to open the payment workflow.
• Inspection scheduled — the site visit is booked. It appears in Scheduled Tours.
• In progress — the valuator is working.
• Report in review — the report is being finalised.
• Completed — the report is delivered. Open it, and open any supporting attachments.

Once delivered you can also leave a review of the valuator (once per valuation).

To start a new valuation, use Browse Valuators on this page — it takes you to the purchase support hub with the valuator picker already open. Not signed in yet? The public professionals directory lists valuators and notaries.

Why order one: a professional valuation is your evidence in a price negotiation. On an overpriced listing it's leverage; on a fair one it's confidence. Order it before offer negotiations get serious, not after.

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Offers — Tracking What You've Bid

Place in the chain: where the two tracks meet. Your readiness package and your valuation both feed into this.

Go to: Contacts → Your offers, or /dashboard/buyer/agent?view=offers (the sidebar badge shows offers waiting on your decision)

Every offer you've made, newest first, against the asking price — with summary counts (Total / Pending / Accepted / Countered / Closed) at the top. What each status means for you:

• Pending — live, waiting on the seller; shows its expiry time if one was set. You can Withdraw here — withdrawing posts the update to the linked conversation, and tells you if that update couldn't be delivered
• Under Review / Counter Under Review — these badges only appear on offers created before the current offer model. They're historical records — nothing is pending on your side and no action is available. If one is still showing on an offer you care about, message the other side via Messages to pick it up directly
• Counter Offer — the seller came back with a different price; the offer row shows Accept and Decline so you can answer it directly. Accepting puts the property under offer at the countered price and notifies the seller
• Accepted — the important one: a Next Steps checklist appears on the offer itself, guiding you through what follows (financing, professionals, closing prep)
• Declined / Expired / Withdrawn / Not Approved — closed; the property is back in play for you or off the table

Two things worth knowing: an offer can expire on its own clock, and withdrawing one notifies the other side — neither happens silently.

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Calendar

Place in the chain: the single scheduling hub. If it's booked, check it here before agreeing to any new time.

Go to: Calendar in the sidebar (/dashboard/buyer/calendar)

One view of everything scheduled across four families:

• Property viewings — tours with agents
• Professional sessions — notary sessions and valuation inspections
• Bank meetings — arranged through your readiness package conversations
• Offer deadlines — expiring offers, so an expiry never surprises you

Scheduled Tours is this same workspace filtered down to viewings and professional sessions. Use Calendar when you want the full picture, including financing and offer dates.

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Purchase support

Place in the chain: the professional track's starting point. This is where you engage a professional.

Go to: Purchase support in the sidebar (/dashboard/buyer/services, the wrench icon)

This is not a marketplace to browse. It is the place you start a purchase engagement, and it asks one question first: what kind of purchase are you making?

Step 1: Choose your purchase path

• Existing property — preparing to buy a property that already exists
• New construction — preparing to buy into a new build
• Land purchase — preparing to buy land only

Each path sets the context for your readiness assessment. Start assessment takes you to /mortgage/readiness with your choice carried through, so your documents are prepared for the right kind of purchase.

Step 2: Bring in a professional

Two engagements are available here:

• Property valuation — get your target property professionally valued. Lenders may require valuations during their review. Browse valuators opens a picker of available valuators.
• Legal and notary services — coordinate title, deed, and notary services where needed. Browse services opens the service picker.

Where each one lands — this is the important part:

• Requesting a valuation takes you to your Pipeline. The engagement is created as a valuation record and you land on /dashboard/buyer/pipeline to track it.
• Requesting notary services takes you to your Calendar. The session is created and you land on /dashboard/buyer/calendar, because a notary engagement is fundamentally a scheduled appointment.

If you arrive here from a direct link (for example ?service=valuation from My Valuations), the relevant picker opens immediately.

From here, the engagement runs through Pipeline → quote → payment → session → deliverable exactly as described earlier.

Boundary: estateTT helps you organise information and coordinate independent professionals. Professionals and lenders conduct their own reviews and make their own decisions.

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Invoices — Paying Your Professionals

Place in the chain: the professional track's billing step. An invoice exists because you accepted a quote.

Go to: Invoices in the sidebar (/dashboard/buyer/invoices, badge shows unpaid count)

When a valuator or notary bills you for an engagement, the invoice lands here — invoice number, issue date, service type, property address, the professional's name, and the full breakdown (amount, tax, total). Search by number, property, or professional; filter by status:

• Outstanding — unpaid (covers issued, sent, pending, awaiting-payment states)
• Settled — paid
• Voided — cancelled

The action on each invoice depends on where the engagement stands — read the card, it tells you the gate:

• "Open payment workflow" — payment is ready; follow it to pay through the recorded workflow
• "Accept quote to open payment workflow" — the professional sent a quote you haven't accepted; the invoice can't be paid until you do. This button takes you to your Quotes workspace, where you can accept it
• "Payment workflow needs professional setup" — the professional hasn't connected their payment method yet; nothing for you to do but nudge them via Messages
• PDF download — every invoice downloads for your records

Cross-currency invoices show an estimate in your currency alongside the billed amount — the estimate is informational; you pay the billed currency.

Boundary: payment is arranged directly between you and the professional — estateTT records the workflow and status but does not hold or process these funds.

What happens next: once settled, the professional's session or report proceeds — check Scheduled Tours or My Valuations.

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Messages

Place in the chain: the communication layer under every other section.

Go to: Messages in the sidebar (badge shows unread)

All your platform conversations in one place: listing agents, brokerage contacts, service providers you've engaged, and lenders you've approved for contact. Keeping communication here means a record exists if details get disputed later — price conversations, tour arrangements, and quote clarifications all benefit from being on-platform.

Messages also carries two of the Pipeline's actions: Ask about status and nudging a professional who hasn't set up payment.

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Settings

Place in the chain: where your profile lives.

Go to: Settings in the sidebar (/dashboard/buyer/settings, the gear icon)

Profile details and contact information — name, phone, country, and photo. Your email is managed through sign-in and cannot be changed here. Saved-search alerts are controlled individually on each saved search on your dashboard, not from Settings.

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Professional Network

Place in the chain: discovery, before an engagement exists.

Below your dashboard stats, the platform surfaces:

• Ready for your property valuation? — trusted professionals for valuation, with a search that opens the valuator directory
• Complete your property team — the property services directory for renovation, repair, installation, and maintenance providers
• Mortgage readiness packages — a direct link into your package workspace

Ask AI in the sidebar gives in-app guidance as you work.

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Workflow: Buying Your Home Step by Step

Place in the chain: the whole guide in one list. This is the order things actually happen in.

The financing track

1. Complete your profile — so recommendations match you
2. Search and save — browse listings, save properties and searches
3. Complete your readiness assessment — before you fall in love with a property, not after
4. Share your readiness package — this is what unlocks lender interest
5. See interested lenders — lender activity appears on your dashboard and in the Readiness Packages room
6. Engage a lender — approve a contact request, grant document access, and move the financing conversation forward

The professional track

1. Tour the shortlist — request tours from property pages, confirm when agents respond
2. Order a valuation if the asking price looks optimistic — evidence beats instinct in negotiation
3. Choose your purchase path in Purchase support, and start your assessment
4. Request a valuation or notary service — valuation lands in your Pipeline; notary lands in your Calendar
5. Review and accept the quote — from Pipeline or from Quotes
6. Pay through the payment workflow — the invoice in Invoices reflects the engagement
7. Attend your session — it appears in Scheduled Tours once payment is confirmed
8. Collect your deliverable — the valuation report and attachments land in My Valuations

Where the tracks meet

1. Make your offer — track it in Contacts → Your offers, with the readiness package and valuation as your evidence
2. Respond to a counter or accept — an accepted offer gives you a Next Steps checklist for what follows

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Troubleshooting

I don't see recommended properties — recommendations need browsing signals. View and save a few properties first; the rails populate after your first views.

My readiness card still shows "Start" — the card only reflects a completed assessment. Finish the flow at /mortgage/readiness.

A lender can't see my documents — access is grant-based. Check that you approved their contact request and released the specific files in the Readiness room.

My tour request is stuck awaiting confirmation — the agent hasn't confirmed. Message them directly, or request a different slot.

I accepted a quote but no payment page opened — the quote was accepted, but its payment record couldn't be opened automatically. You can reach it from the Quotes workspace or from the matching invoice in Invoices; both point to the same payment workflow.

My paid notary session isn't in Scheduled Tours — notary sessions only appear there once payment is confirmed. If you've just paid, check the engagement in your Pipeline; its status tells you where it actually is.

There's no Accept button on a quote in the Pipeline — the quote is no longer awaiting a decision. It was already accepted, paid, declined, or closed; an accepted quote shows a continue-to-payment action instead. Check the engagement's status first.

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Need Help?

Use Ask AI in the sidebar for in-app guidance, or message the professional you're working with directly. For platform issues, use Help & Support in the top header — it opens the support workspace at /dashboard/support. Not signed in? The contact page reaches the same team.