London Property Hunt — Automated with Claude Cowork

An AI-powered workflow that searches London rental platforms twice a day, tracks listings in a spreadsheet, generates personalised outreach messages, and emails you a formatted summary — fully automatically.

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Example output

Every run sends you an email like this — clickable listings, ready-to-send outreach messages, and a backlog of uncontacted leads:

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What it does

1. Searches 4 platforms — SpareRoom, OpenRent, Rightmove, Zoopla — across your target areas
2. Deduplicates against your tracker spreadsheet (URL-based, O(1) lookup)
3. Prioritises listings as HIGH / MEDIUM / LOW based on your criteria
4. Generates personalised outreach .txt files for every HIGH priority listing
5. Emails you a summary with clickable cards, ready-to-send messages, and a backlog of uncontacted leads

Runs on a cron schedule (e.g. 9 AM and 6 PM daily). Human effort required: zero between runs.

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Repository structure

london-property-hunt/
├── README.md              ← you are here
├── skill.md               ← the main Claude Code skill (copy-paste into your setup)
├── config.example.md      ← fill in your personal config here
├── case-study.md          ← write-up of how this workflow was built and what it produced
├── tracker/
│   └── README.md          ← spreadsheet column schema and setup instructions
├── outreach/              ← generated outreach .txt files land here (gitignored)
└── .gitignore

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Requirements

• Claude Code (CLI or desktop app) — claude.ai/code
• Claude in Chrome MCP extension — for browser automation (SpareRoom, OpenRent, etc.)
• Gmail MCP connector — for draft creation and sending
• Python 3 + openpyxl — for spreadsheet updates (pip install openpyxl)
• A Gmail account you can grant MCP access to

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Setup

1. Clone and configure

git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/london-property-hunt
cd london-property-hunt
cp config.example.md config.md

Edit config.md — fill in your name, target areas, budget, move-in date, and email.

2. Create your tracker spreadsheet

mkdir -p ~/London-Room-Hunt/outreach

On first run the skill creates the spreadsheet automatically at the path in your config. Or create it manually — see tracker/README.md for the column schema.

3. Install the skill in Claude Code

Copy the contents of skill.md and paste it as a new skill in Claude Code, or point your Claude Code config at this file.

Alternatively, run it manually:

claude "Run the London property hunt — search all platforms, update tracker, send email"

4. Schedule it

In Claude Code, use /schedule to run it twice a day:

/schedule 0 9,18 * * * Run the London property hunt skill

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How the search works

Type A — Rooms in shared flats

• Furnished double rooms, max 3-bedroom properties
• Flatmates: professionals preferred (28–40), students/under-25 skipped or flagged LOW
• Budget: up to your configured max (bills included preferred)

Bed count filter (mandatory):

Stated beds	Action
2-bed or 3-bed	ADD ✅
4-bed, 5-bed, 6-bed+	SKIP ❌
Unknown	ADD with note "Verify ≤3 bed before messaging"

Type B — Studios and 1-bedroom flats

• Whole-unit lets, furnished, no bed count restriction
• Budget: up to your configured studio max

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Priority logic

Rooms:

• HIGH — Prime areas + ≤ budget + available by move-in ± 1 week + furnished + ≤3 bed + flatmates 28+ (or unconfirmed)
• MEDIUM — Secondary areas within budget, or prime area with minor flags
• LOW — Late availability, outer areas, student flat, confirmed 4+ beds

Studios:

• HIGH — Zone 1–2 South + ≤ budget + available by move-in + furnished
• MEDIUM — Zone 2–3 within budget and timing
• LOW — Late availability or outer areas

Row colours in spreadsheet: HIGH = green (E2EFDA), MEDIUM = yellow (FFFFC7), LOW = red (FCE4D6)

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Email format

Every run sends an HTML email (even if zero new listings) with:

• Header — date, run time, platform counts, HIGH/MEDIUM/LOW totals
• HIGH listings — card per listing with a green ready-to-send outreach message (<100 words, personalised)
• MEDIUM listings — condensed cards with short outreach
• LOW/SKIP — bullet list only
• Backlog — up to 8 uncontacted HIGH listings from previous runs, with outreach cards
• Stats — area breakdown, days until move-in, "message at least 5 listings today" reminder

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Adapting for your own search

The only file you need to edit is config.md (copied from config.example.md). Everything else — search URLs, priority logic, outreach tone, email format — reads from that config.

Key things to configure:

Field	Example
Your name	Alex
Age	29
Brief profile	Software engineer, clean, professional
Work postcode	EC2A 1NT
Target areas	Hackney, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green
Budget (room)	£1,500 pcm
Budget (studio)	£1,800 pcm
Move-in date	1 June 2026
Email	you@gmail.com
Hunt directory	~/my-room-hunt

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Case study

See case-study.md for a full write-up: how this was built, what techniques were used (structured JSON extraction, DOM-as-buffer trick, idempotent dedup), and the numbers from a real run (230 listings found, 132 HIGH priority, 132 outreach files generated, in ~45 minutes).

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Tips for standing out as a tenant

1. Message fast — be in the first 5 replies on SpareRoom
2. Be specific — reference something from the listing, not a generic template
3. Phone over message — if a number is listed, call
4. Commit quickly — if you like it, say so in the viewing
5. References ready — employer reference and previous landlord contact, sendable same-day
6. Weekend mornings — best time for new listings (Friday night + Saturday morning flood)

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Built with Claude Code + Claude in Chrome + Gmail MCP Generated: April 2026