You thought things were going great. They couldn’t stop cooing over the living room, they said they’d be in touch. But a few weeks later and you’ve still not heard from them. You’ve been ghosted.
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To be exact you’ve been property ghosted. ‘Ghosting’ is a term more often used in dating when the person you’ve been seeing seems to vanish without a trace, with not so much as a warning text.
However, ‘property ghosters’ are running rampant through homes for sale across the UK. A study by commercial estate agents Savoy Stewart found that 96 per cent of Brits have browsed properties with no intention of moving.
Property Ghosting
Sound familiar? We’ll be the first to put our hands up as being guilty of some strings-free property browsing. Out of the 1,614 people surveyed, 76 per cent admitted to taking a look around simply to be nosey.
36 per cent justified their property perusing as looking for interior inspiration, while 12 per cent admitted to doing it as a hobby.
While so many of us enjoy property window-shopping, all the participants said their first port of call was online site like Rightmove or Zoopla. However, 8 per cent took this a step further, organising in-person viewings for properties they were not planning to buy.
It comes as no surprise that half of the Brits surveyed were viewing homes way out of their price range. Homes with swimming pools, gym or previously owned by a celebrity were all found to be big draws for serial property ghosters.
Property ghosting can all seem like a little harmless fun unless you’re on the other side of it. If you’re trying to sell a home, it can be a little disheartening to watch people traipsing through your kitchen or bedroomswith no intention of making an offer.
‘The best thing to do is to treat each applicant and enquiry exactly the same,’ says a spokesperson from Winkworth on dealing with property ghosters. ‘As long as you follow the protocol and ensure you’ve asked the qualifying questions, it tends to make it clear who is serious and looking and who is purely window-shopping.’
Related: Take a tour of restored mill – now a charming country home in Norfolk
Are you guilty of a little property ghosting?
(If you've clicked on one of the above links, I think you know the answer)...
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