Claude for real estate agents: Projects, Skills, and what to keep out of the chat

A buyer consultation in the morning, an inspection report due back to the buyers tonight, a seller asking why the number is the number. Claude can do real work on all three if you give it the right material. Here is what it costs, how Projects and Skills fit a transaction, the settings to check before any client detail goes in, prompts that work, and the part of the job it was never built to keep.

Short answer: Claude is a strong reader and a careful drafter for the paperwork around a deal, provided you decide what goes in and check what comes out. For the wider picture beyond this one tool, see our guide to AI for real estate agents. Every Anthropic statement below was read at the source on 1 October 2026.

This guide is published by Equerry, a personal assistant for client work. Equerry is not affiliated with Anthropic, and nothing here is legal advice.

What Claude is, and what it costs an agent

Claude is Anthropic's assistant, in a browser, Claude Desktop or Claude Mobile. It reads files you upload, drafts, rewrites and can search the web. It isn't your MLS.

On Pro, "Your session-based usage limit will reset every five hours," with a weekly limit on top. On Free, Pro and Max, model training is listed as "Opt-out," a setting covered below.

One recent change: on September 16, 2026 Anthropic wrote, "Starting today, Claude Cowork and chat are merging into one Claude," adding "It's rolling out on Pro and Max plans over the next few weeks, with more plans to follow." On 1 October its pricing page still read "Rolling out to Pro and Max," so what you see depends on your plan.

Projects and Skills: what they are, and what an agent does with them

Projects: one per transaction

Anthropic's help center: "Projects allow you to create self-contained workspaces with their own chat histories and knowledge bases." You can upload documents to each one and give it its own instructions. On memory: "Each project has its own separate memory space and dedicated project summary."

So make one Project per deal. Name it by property and side ("41 Juniper Ct, buyer side"), upload only what your brokerage's policy allows, and give it instructions such as: "These are first-time buyers; write so they can follow it without a glossary. Never say what the contract means legally; quote the clause and tell me to confirm it. Flag every date you mention."

Skills: useful later, rarely on day one

Anthropic's definition: "Skills are folders of instructions, scripts, and resources that Claude loads dynamically to improve performance on specialized tasks." They are "available for users on Free, Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans," and "This feature requires code execution to be enabled." Anthropic contrasts the two: "Projects provide static background knowledge that's always loaded when you start chats within them. Skills provide specialized procedures that activate dynamically when needed and work everywhere across Claude."

A Project holds a deal; a Skill holds a method, such as the way you always lay out an offer comparison. The directory is under "Customize," then "Skills." The real-estate skill packs in search results are published by agents, coaches and developers, not by Anthropic, and "you can attach executable scripts to custom skills," so read one before you install it. No skill takes responsibility for an ad off you.

Where Claude saves an agent time, and where it falls short

• The long documents. A 70-page inspection report or a condo resale packet. Ask for what a buyer will ask about, with page numbers, then open those pages yourself.
• Notes into structure. Rough notes from a first call become a consultation agenda or a list of what's still open.
• The process in plain English. What happens between acceptance and closing, from dates and terms you supply.
• Writing around your numbers. A pricing narrative for a seller, built from comparables you pulled and checked.

The shortfalls: your forms and your state. Contracts and how deadlines are counted vary, and Claude can sound sure of a general rule your contract overrides. Value: NAR's Standard of Practice 11-1 says that when REALTORS® "prepare opinions of real property value or price," they must know the type of property, "have access to the information and resources necessary to formulate an accurate opinion," and "be familiar with the area where the subject property is located," unless a gap is disclosed in advance. A narrative can't stand in for that. Invention: without facts, it fills gaps with plausible ones.

What to paste, and what never to paste, document by document

Start with what you owe the client. For REALTORS®, Standard of Practice 1-9 says the duty to keep client information confidential "continues after termination of agency relationships," and what counts as confidential is set "as defined by state law." Your brokerage's AI policy sits on top. Within those limits, sort by document:

Don't misread Anthropic's line that "financial account numbers" are among what is "never saved to memory, even if you ask." That governs memory, not the chat, where what you paste stays.

Claude's own data settings, step by step

These are Claude's; ChatGPT's are different, and our guide to ChatGPT for real estate agents walks through them.

1. Decide the training setting. Anthropic's Privacy Center gives the path as your name in the settings menu, then Settings, then Privacy: "Under Help Improve our AI models, click the button to toggle it off/on." Other Anthropic pages call it "Model Improvement." Off, "we will not use any new chats and coding sessions you have with Claude for future model training." On, Anthropic "may retain your data in a de-identified format for up to 5 years." A thumbs up or down stores "the entire related conversation" for up to 5 years, so don't rate a chat with client detail in it.
2. Outside a Project, use an incognito chat for a one-off question. On a new chat, click the ghost icon; the chat shows an "Incognito chat" label. "Incognito chats are not used for training," and are "retained for either 30 days (default)" or longer under an Enterprise retention setting. On the new Claude experience it opens in the previous chat experience, so Claude "can't create files or run code" in it.
3. Inside a deal's Project, turn memory off for one chat. Incognito isn't available in Projects. Before your first message, click "+" in the message box and click "Memory" to turn it off. Claude won't use or add to memory in that chat, though the chat stays in your history.
4. Read what it remembers. In Settings → Memory, "Everything Claude remembers is listed under Topics." Open a topic to edit it, or select "Delete." But "When a conversation expires or is deleted, related memory entries generated from it won't be removed."
5. Clear out after closing. A deleted chat is "Removed from your chat history immediately" and "Deleted from our back-end storage systems within 30 days." Then delete the deal's memory topics.

Fair housing: the ad is still yours

Two layers of rules apply. Federal law reaches every agent: 42 U.S.C. §3604(c) makes it unlawful to publish any notice, statement or advertisement for the sale or rental of a dwelling "that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin." Your state or city may protect further classes. If you are a REALTOR®, NAR's Standard of Practice 10-3 adds its own rule against advertising that "indicates any preference, limitations or discrimination," with a list that also names sexual orientation and gender identity. The NAR standard binds members; the statute binds everyone.

Claude can be a drafter and a second reader, never the check. Put "Describe the property and its features, never the household that should live there" in each Project's instructions, and before anything is published ask it to list every phrase that describes people or an "ideal" buyer, then read those lines yourself. The published ad is yours to answer for; if a phrase leaves you unsure, cut it or get your managing broker's read first.

Prompts for client work

Each works from material you supply. Keep the right-hand column of the table above out of all of them.

Buyer consultation prep

"From my notes on a first call with buyers, draft an agenda for a 45-minute consultation: what they've told me, what I still need to learn about budget, timing and must-haves, and the questions to ask. Describe needs in terms of the property (bedrooms, commute, price range), not the household. Where my notes are thin, write a question rather than assume. Notes: [first names only]."

A contingency timeline for a first-time buyer

"Explain this timeline to first-time buyers in under 250 words: what happens at each step, what they need to do, what happens if a deadline passes. Use only these dates and terms: [acceptance date, each contingency and its deadline, closing date]. Where the contract decides something, such as how days are counted, say 'your contract decides this' instead of stating a rule." Then check every date against the signed contract.

Inspection findings into questions for the inspector

"Group these inspection findings by system, mark the ones the inspector flagged as safety items, and for each group write the questions my buyers should ask the inspector: likely cause, urgency, and what kind of specialist should look further. Do not estimate repair costs. [findings, cover page removed]." Then check that nothing the inspector flagged dropped out.

A pricing narrative from your comparables

"Using only the figures below, write a plain-English narrative for a seller explaining these comparable sales: price per square foot, my adjustments, days on market. Show the arithmetic. Leave the recommended price as [PRICE] for me to fill in, and add no outside statistics. [my comparables and adjustments]." Then recompute every figure; the price and its basis are yours.

What Claude doesn't hold: what each client told you

Claude's memory learns about you and how you work. Anthropic: "Claude saves memory as a set of individual topics as you chat." That's distilled from chats, not the deal file. The lender's email reaches Claude only if you paste or upload it, or connect the account it sits in: the whole mailbox, not one thread. And the details that decide a deal are usually said out loud. "If the inspection finds anything on the foundation, we're out." "The job starts on the third, so a fast close beats a higher price." Those reach no tool until you put them somewhere. (Lawyers face the same gap; see Claude for lawyers.)

The habit that closes most of it costs nothing: a short debrief straight after each appointment, kept in one place. Our guide to where these tools fit an agent's week has a sixty-second version that works with any tool.

Where Equerry fits

Equerry is a personal assistant on your iPhone who helps you get things done. For an agent, it keeps what each client told you, from what you send it; Claude keeps the drafting.

• CC or forward the one thread that matters. Your Equerry has its own email address. Copy it on the deal thread with the lender or the other agent, and replies that keep the address on the thread keep arriving; or forward the single email you need. It never asks for your inbox, and the original stays in your own mailbox. What Equerry remembered from it is listed in Settings → Your memory, each line marked as from that email, and you can delete any line.
• Record a voice note in Equerry after the appointment. In the car, say what they told you and what you promised. It's transcribed and kept.
• Send it the paperwork. Share the inspection report PDF or a photo of a handwritten counteroffer from your iPhone's share sheet.
• Type a note when that's quicker. When an answer draws on a note you saved, it carries a source chip: tap it to see the passage Equerry used and open the original.
• Ask later, in plain words. "What did the Okafors say about the foundation?" "When does the appraisal contingency on Juniper Court run out?"
• Walk into the next appointment briefed. If you allow calendar access and set up Meeting Prep, Equerry puts together where things stand before a client meeting from what you've shared: the latest reply, what's open, what was agreed last time.

Honest limits. Equerry doesn't connect to the MLS or your CRM, doesn't text or call clients or leads, doesn't send email on your behalf, and doesn't write your listings. It knows only what you send it, plus your calendar if you allow it. A CC is visible to everyone on the thread, so forward instead where an extra address would be awkward. And what you send is processed by the outside providers named on our AI disclosure page, so your brokerage's policy applies here too.

Sources, all read 1 October 2026. Anthropic: Claude pricing (prices exclude tax and "are subject to change at Anthropic's discretion") and Claude Cowork and chat are now one Claude (September 16, 2026). Claude Help Center: What are projects?, What are skills?, Use Claude's chat search and memory to build on previous context, Use incognito chats, What is the Pro plan? Anthropic Privacy Center: How do I change my model improvement privacy settings? (dated August 3, 2026), Is my data used for model training?, How long do you store my data? National Association of REALTORS®, 2026 Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice (effective January 1, 2026): Standards of Practice 1-9, 10-3 and 11-1. 42 U.S.C. §3604 (law.cornell.edu). OpenAI Help Center, Projects in ChatGPT. Anthropic's pages describe the consumer plans unless they say otherwise; where its current page disagrees with this one, Anthropic's page is right.

Last updated 2026-10-02.

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