Houser – and the mystery of the Marie Celeste of property portals continues.
Houser is the portal that was mysterious right from the word go, as it launched amid considerable publicity just as OnTheMarket was starting up.
The problem for Houser and its founder Rocky Mirza was that agents really didn’t want their properties on it – even if the listings were free.
A lot of agents demanded that their listings be taken down.
A lot more, it has to be said, didn’t notice that months and even years later, their properties were still up on the site.
And these properties stayed up. And up. And up.
Meanwhile, Rocky seemed to have gone to ground. Or maybe to sea.
Then came two Advertising Standards Authority cases, both about properties that were being ‘misleadingly’ advertised on the site, when they were no longer for sale.
The second such case was reported earlier this month. The property had been on the market back in 2016 but was still on Houser.
As in the first case, the ASA could not contact the owner of Houser or even identify who it was, but nevertheless ordered the listing to be taken down.
And guess what?
It has been taken down.
Along with every other property on Houser.
The site is bare, apart from some bits and pieces of furniture, including a promise to offer unmatched value for estate agents.
Finally, it looks as though the Marie Celeste of the property portal world has been scuppered.
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