Inquiry reply before a guest books
Send this when someone asks about the home and has not booked. Answer the question they asked, then stop.
{Guest name}, thanks for the question about {Property name}.
On {Question topic}: {Listing fact}. That matches the listing. For {Requested dates}, send a booking request in this thread if the dates and the guest count fit what the listing allows.
I can clear up anything else that is already written on the listing. A request is not a confirmed stay until it is accepted.
When to send
Send an inquiry reply when a person asks about the home and no reservation exists yet. The note has one job: answer the question they actually asked. A booking confirmation, a door code, and a house manual are later messages, for a stay that is already confirmed. Sending them now makes the thread long before you know the dates are even open.
Read the question twice before you write. If they asked whether the street is level enough for a stroller, the answer is about the street and the entrance, not about the coffee machine. Put that answer in {listing_fact} and name the subject in {question_topic} so the reply still makes sense when they sent three questions and this is the first one you are answering. If a second question needs a different fact, send a second short note. Leave the rest of the listing where it already lives.
{guest_name} is the name on the inquiry. {property_name} is the home they wrote about. {requested_dates} are the dates in their note, copied as they wrote them, so they can see you are talking about the same trip.
Timing tip
Answer the same day if you can, and within a few hours when the dates they named are close. An inquiry about next week goes quiet overnight because those guests are writing to several homes at once. An inquiry about a date four months away can wait until morning. A plain answer sent today beats a careful answer sent after they have booked somewhere else.
Check the calendar before you invite them to request {requested_dates}. If those dates are blocked, this is the wrong note. Use the decline. Inviting a request you cannot accept fills the inbox with a refusal you still have to write, and it leaves them with less time to find another home.
Common mistakes
The reply that causes the most trouble is the one that adds a rule. A quiet-hours line, a fee, or a limit on visitors that is not already on the listing is a new term. People decide from the listing. Repeat a fact that is already there, inside {listing_fact}, and leave new terms out of this thread. If the listing is missing the fact they asked for, fix the listing first and then point at it.
The second mistake is leaving the booking thread. Do not ask them to email, text, or call, and do not paste a link. Write the answer here. If the useful thing is a photo of the parking spot, use the photo tools the booking site already gives you.
The third is a discount you invented while typing. If they did not ask for a lower price, do not offer one. If they did, a price change belongs in the offer tools on the booking site, where the total is visible before they pay. A sentence that says you can probably do better is how a stay gets hosted at a number you never entered in the price settings.
Before you send
Confirm {property_name} is the home they asked about. Hosts with two listings paste the other home’s answer into the wrong thread. Read {listing_fact} against the live listing once. If the listing and the message disagree, the listing wins, and the message has to change. The message should not be the only place a fact exists.
Keep the note short enough to read on a phone without scrolling past the answer. The question they asked should be visible in the first two lines. Anything after that is optional. If you need a paragraph to explain a lock, a code, or a checkout chore, you are writing a later message too early.