What virtual property viewings don’t show you

I’ve never worked out why anyone would want to buy an outfit over the internet without first seeing it in the flesh and trying it on. I know my wife does it all the time — although the constant piles of parcels by the door, full of stuff waiting to be sent back whence it came, pays testament to drawbacks of buying things sight unseen. Then again, a suit or a dress is only a suit or a dress. I would rather buy clothes online than I would a five-storey townhouse.

But maybe I’m a bit of an old stick-in-the-mud. There are some buyers, it seems, who are only too happy to buy blind. According to buying agent London Central Portfolio, 22 per cent of purchases they have handled in the capital this year have been made by overseas investors who haven’t actually set foot in the properties they are buying.