An out of office voicemail message has one job: tell the caller when you are back and who can help before then. Say your name, a real return date, a backup person with their number, and what to do in an emergency, in about 30 seconds. Below are 12 examples written for real estate agents, brokerages, property managers, investors and self storage, plus how to change the greeting on your phone.
Key takeaways
- Every out of office greeting needs four parts: who you are, the date you are back, who to call instead, and what to do in an emergency.
- In a 2025 CallRail survey of 1,000 consumers, only 42 percent said they leave a voicemail. The backup number in your greeting matters more than the "leave a message" line.
- Property managers need three routes in a holiday greeting: 911 for danger, an on-call line for urgent maintenance, and a message for everything else.
- Most carrier voicemail does not switch back on its own. Microsoft Teams can follow your Outlook auto-reply; for everything else, set a reminder.
What every out of office voicemail message needs
- Who you are. Your name and company, so the caller knows they reached the right person.
- When you are back. A real date and day of the week, not "next week". Callers hear it as a promise, so add a day of buffer.
- Who to call instead. A named person and a direct number. Ask them first; Mixavox's guide makes the same point.
- What to do in an emergency. A separate line, or 911 when someone is in danger.
Keep it to about 30 seconds. Voicemail vendors recommend 20 to 30 seconds, which is advice rather than a rule. The reason the backup matters most is in CallRail's 2025 survey of 1,000 US consumers: 42 percent said they leave a voicemail and 82 percent said they would call a competitor if nobody answered. Your greeting has to work for the 58 percent who hang up. For your everyday greeting, the voicemail greeting scripts cover the office, listing, leasing and maintenance lines.
Out of office voicemail examples for real estate agents
Buyers and sellers rarely wait. In NAR's 2025 profile, 88 percent of buyers bought through an agent, and a client under contract needs someone reachable every day until closing.
Holiday voicemail greetings for brokerages
The dates below are the federal holidays from OPM's calendar. Your office sets its own closures, so use the table as a reminder of when to record a holiday greeting, not a list of days you must close.
| Date | Holiday |
|---|---|
| Mon, Oct 12, 2026 | Columbus Day |
| Wed, Nov 11, 2026 | Veterans Day |
| Thu, Nov 26, 2026 | Thanksgiving |
| Fri, Dec 25, 2026 | Christmas |
| Fri, Jan 1, 2027 | New Year's Day |
| Mon, Jan 18, 2027 | Martin Luther King Jr. Day |
| Mon, Feb 15, 2027 | Washington's Birthday |
| Mon, May 31, 2027 | Memorial Day |
| Fri, Jun 18, 2027 | Juneteenth (observed) |
| Mon, Jul 5, 2027 | Independence Day (observed) |
| Mon, Sep 6, 2027 | Labor Day |
| Thu, Nov 25, 2027 | Thanksgiving |
| Fri, Dec 24, 2027 | Christmas (observed) |
Out of office greetings for property managers, with an emergency line
A property manager's holiday greeting is different, because tenants still have emergencies when the office is closed. State and local law, not your office hours, sets how fast a landlord has to deal with a problem that threatens health or safety. New York's attorney general puts it as a reasonable time that depends on how severe the repair is. A greeting that sends a tenant with no heat to voicemail until Monday does not pause that clock. Check your state's rules; this is not legal advice.
So the greeting needs three routes: 911 for danger, an on-call line for urgent maintenance, and a message for everything else.
The examples in script 7 are examples, not legal definitions; your lease and your state define an emergency. The maintenance call guide has the escalation list most managers use.
Greetings for investors and self storage
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How to change your voicemail greeting
| Phone or service | How to change the greeting |
|---|---|
| iPhone | Phone app. Unified layout: Calls, Edit, Edit Voicemail Greeting. Classic layout: Voicemail, Greeting. Then Custom and Record. Not every carrier supports this. |
| Verizon | In the Voicemail app, or dial *86 and follow the prompts. From another phone: call your number, press # during the greeting, enter your password, then press 4 for personal options. |
| AT&T | Visual Voicemail on iPhone or the AT&T app, or press and hold 1 to call voicemail, then follow the greeting prompts. |
| T-Mobile and other Android phones | Press and hold 1 to call voicemail, or open your visual voicemail app, then follow the greeting prompts. |
| Google Voice | voice.google.com, Settings, Voicemail, Record a greeting. Save more than one and use Set as active to switch. |
| RingCentral | In the mobile app: your profile picture, Voicemail, Voicemail greeting, Custom, Record. |
| Microsoft Teams | Calls settings, Voicemail. Teams has a separate out of office greeting that can play while your Outlook automatic replies are on. |
Out of office voicemail checklist
Before you leave
- Say a real return date and day, with a day of buffer.
- Ask your backup first, then give their full name and direct number. Hand over open transactions and tenant issues.
- Property managers: give the on-call maintenance number and the 911 line, and call the on-call number yourself before you go.
- Read it aloud with a timer. Aim for about 30 seconds.
- Call your own number from another phone and listen.
- Match your email auto-reply, website hours and Google Business Profile hours to the same dates.
When you get back
- Change the greeting back on your first morning, or save both in Google Voice and switch.
- Return calls in the order the greeting promised.
- Get a handoff from your backup on anything they touched.
- Put the next holiday greeting on your calendar now.
When a greeting is not enough
A good greeting still sends most callers somewhere else. An AI receptionist picks up while you are away instead: it books the showing, sends the burst pipe to your on-call line, takes a storage payment by card, and texts you a summary of every call. The after-hours answering guide compares the options, the self storage automation post covers storage offices, and callflo.ai starts at 39 dollars a month on annual billing.