The Scarf on the Chair
Not every lesson in property sourcing arrives wrapped in a dramatic deal collapse or a five-figure loss.
Sometimes it arrives in the form of a silk scarf draped over an empty chair in a restaurant, while you sit there wondering where on earth your investors have gone.
The Investor Explorer Day
Around 2016, we had developed what we called an investor explorer half-day.
The concept was straightforward. When a new investor was interested in working with us but wanted to get a feel for our patch before committing, we would meet them, drive them around the areas we sourced in, and give them a genuine sense of the types of properties and opportunities available. We were careful about how much detail we shared at that stage, but the idea was to give them enough to make an informed decision about whether we were the right fit.
We would finish with lunch, use the time to understand exactly what they were looking for, and talk through how we might be able to help.
It was a good format. It built trust, it gave investors something tangible to take away, and it meant that by the time anyone signed up with us, they had a real sense of what working together would look like.
A couple approached us looking for deals in the North West. They came across as engaged, serious, and genuinely excited about the area. They attended an explorer day, seemed to enjoy it, and left enthusiastic about moving forward.
Shortly afterwards they paid their registration fee and signed our terms of business agreement. A second visit was arranged to view specific properties we had filtered as potential fits for their brief.
Everything pointed in the right direction.
The Second Visit
On the day of the viewings, the couple arrived by train and we picked them up. We spent the morning working through five properties, discussing each one, taking in the locations, and building what felt like a genuinely productive working relationship.
Then we went for lunch.
One of them was wearing a beautiful silk scarf. At some point during the meal, they excused themselves from the table. The scarf stayed behind, draped neatly over the back of the chair. A few moments later, the other investor went to check on them.
We thought nothing of it at first. A couple of minutes passed. Then five. Then ten. Then fifteen.
We checked the restaurant. We looked outside. We tried their phones. Calls, texts, emails. Nothing.
They had simply walked out and kept walking. No explanation, no apology, no goodbye.
They never came back for the scarf.
What Happens After You Have Been Ghosted
There is a particular kind of bafflement that comes with being ghosted in a professional context.
You run through the day in your head. The viewings had gone well, or at least appeared to. The conversation over lunch had been easy. There had been no obvious moment of tension or disagreement. And yet two people had decided, somewhere between the starter and the main course, that the right approach was to simply disappear.
We tried to make contact for a few days. Nothing came back.
Eventually we did the only sensible thing available to us. We posted the scarf.
The Lesson Hiding Behind the Humour
The scarf story gets a laugh whenever it comes up, and rightly so. But it points to something real.
The couple had done everything that should have indicated serious intent. They had attended an explorer day. They had paid a registration fee. They had signed terms of business. They had come back for viewings. By any reasonable measure, these were committed investors.
And yet something was clearly not right, either in their own thinking or in how we had qualified them before investing a second full day of our time.
It reinforced a question we now ask more carefully at every stage of the onboarding process. Not just whether an investor says the right things, or even whether they sign the right documents, but whether the overall picture genuinely adds up.
A registration fee and a signed agreement are meaningful steps. They are not, on their own, a guarantee of commitment. Real qualification goes deeper than paperwork. It means understanding where the money is coming from, what timeline the investor is genuinely working to, and whether there is any hesitation or uncertainty that has not yet been named.
The explorer day format was a good idea and we continued to use it. But we tightened the questions we asked and the conversations we had before committing to a second full day of viewings with any investor, however promising they appeared.
We Still Have No Idea Why They Left
To this day, we have never received an explanation.
Perhaps something came up. Perhaps they had a change of heart about investing altogether. Perhaps the lunch was not very good.
Whatever the reason, they chose silence over a simple conversation, and left us with nothing but a mystery and a rather lovely scarf.
If you are going to ghost your sourcer, at least leave something worth keeping.
