Your agent calls after the viewing. "They loved it. Really positive feedback. Very interested — just need to discuss between themselves and we should hear back early next week."
Next week arrives. Nothing.
You follow up with your agent. They follow up with the buyer. Silence. It's as if the viewing never happened.
Ghosting after viewings is far more common than the industry acknowledges — and far more informative than most agents let on.
The Feedback Agents Don't Pass On
Here's something worth knowing: the feedback you receive after viewings has usually been edited. Not always maliciously, but consistently.
When a buyer says the kitchen is dated and would need replacing, your agent tells you "they felt the style wasn't quite right for them." When a buyer says the property is overpriced by £40,000, you hear "it was slightly above their budget." When a buyer says the photos made it look considerably larger than it is, you're told "they had slightly different space requirements."
It's all translation. Softening. And while it's often well-intentioned, it's not useful — because you can't address problems you haven't been told about clearly.
What Silence Actually Tells You
Ghosting isn't random or mysterious. It's usually one of three things:
The price is clearly wrong. If a property is significantly overpriced, buyers don't engage. They're not going to offer £520,000 on something they think is worth £475,000 and listed at £575,000. London buyers are sophisticated — they've seen the comparables, they know what your street has sold for, and if your agent has priced optimistically, serious buyers simply move on.
There's a genuine deal-breaker. Sometimes it's nothing to do with price. The main bedroom is too small, the garden backs onto a busy road, the layout simply doesn't work for their needs, or the train noise is more significant than expected. If it's unfixable, you want to know — because if ten buyers ghost for the same reason, that's a pattern telling you something important about how your property is positioned in the market.
They found something better. Occasionally this is genuinely nobody's fault. But if it keeps happening, the real question is: why is your property consistently everyone's second choice? Usually it's because something comparable is available for less, or your property is slightly overpriced for what it offers.
How to Get Honest Feedback
You'll often need to work around the natural tendency toward diplomatic vagueness. A few approaches that help:
Ask your agent to use specific questions when chasing feedback: not "what did you think?" but "on a scale of one to ten, how did it compare to other properties you've seen? If price wasn't a factor, would you proceed? If not, what specifically would need to change?"
Be present for viewings — not conducting the tour, but available at the end for a brief, natural conversation. You'll learn more in five minutes of direct dialogue than from weeks of filtered feedback.
Watch for patterns. Eight viewings and five ghostings isn't a run of bad luck. It's a signal. If your agent is telling you consistently that feedback is "positive but not quite right," they are telling you very little.
The Pricing Conversation Nobody Wants
If viewings are happening but everyone is disappearing, and your agent keeps advising patience, what they're really communicating is this: the property was overpriced at instruction, and rather than acknowledge it, they're hoping the right buyer eventually appears.
That's not a strategy. It's optimism standing in for one.
The correct response to consistent ghosting is almost always a price adjustment — and the sooner the better. Every week that passes with viewings and no offers is another week where more buyers dismiss your property and stop paying attention. The longer it sits, the harder it becomes to sell at any price.
The Reality
Ghosting isn't random. It's feedback — just feedback that nobody's interpreting honestly.
If one buyer disappears, that might be them. If five do, it's almost certainly about your price or how your property is positioned relative to the alternatives. A good agent will tell you which — clearly, and before you've wasted three months finding out the hard way.
Because right now, while your agent is telling you those buyers just need more time, they're out there making offers on a property that's priced correctly.
