“Air source heat pump fitted, and solar panels too,” sings estate agent Claire Cossey in her now infamous video tour for a house listing in Bedfordshire. “The never ending property, aahhhhh, the never ending property.”
In the last week, Cossey’s viral video has received more than 500,000 views on the agency’s YouTube channel, sparked a media frenzy, spiked on search and has left her “overwhelmed” with enquiries.
In fact, the unconventional video tour was posted in September, when the property — a five-bedroom house in Hockliffe, outside Leighton Buzzard— was originally listed for sale. It was only after its price was reduced on 22 March, bringing it down to £700,000 from £775,000, that the video began to take off.
“It’s a bit out of the blue,” says Cossey, 43. “It didn’t get any traction [at first]. It was actually the price reduction that prompted this massive viral reaction. And it’s not just viral — last night, I had a phone call from a radio station in New Zealand.
“I’m overwhelmed. I’m waiting for it all to be gone by next week — I can’t envisage the momentum continuing the way it’s been going. It’s been great fun.”
The video, which took Cossey around 10 hours to make, is an adaptation of the theme tune from 1980s fantasy film, The NeverEnding Story. Given an 80s, Stranger Things-inspired aesthetic, a singing Cossey takes viewers around the house and adjoining dog grooming business. There is even a cameo from the owner’s dog.
Cossey, who founded Leighton Buzzard-based estate agency Just Knock with her husband Tony in 2020, had spent 16 years working as a professional singer. She had joined the ABBA tribute band Thank You For The Music in 1999, touring around the world with the production, before starting to work part-time as an estate agent in 2015.
“I fell in love with property and slowly became more full-time,” says Cossey. “When the pandemic hit, we decided to try to set our own estate agency up. That’s how it started.”
This is not the first time that Cossey has combined her singing and property experience: The Never Ending Property is her ninth musical house tour video. Fittingly, her first was a cover of ABBA’s The Winner Takes It All, advertising a Victorian terrace and gaining some 15,000 views — and renown — locally.
This time, it was the owners of the house in Hockliffe who requested that Cossey make a similar video for the property they were selling.
“I said ‘yeah — no problem’. When I was thinking of a song, I thought: this house is huge. It’s got five double bedrooms, two ensuites, three bathrooms, five reception rooms — it’s just a monster. It’s like a never-ending property — oh, there we go. So that’s where it came from,” says Cossey.
“I don’t care what other people think. I did this for a bit of fun — a bit of light entertainment and enjoyment. You’re either going to love it or hate it. It’s a Marmite.”
When Cossey last checked, the property had been viewed more than 1.2 million times on Rightmove. Typically, Cossey says she would expect a listing to gain a minimum of 800 views.
Despite the widespread attention, Just Knock only received one serious offer on the house, which has unfortunately fallen through.
The property’s owner, who owns the dog grooming business shown in the video, has also been “inundated” with media requests and new customers, and has had to reassure her existing clientele that the business is not closing. As a result, Just Knock has temporarily removed the listing from Rightmove, although the owner is still open to viewings and offers on the property.
“We’ve just taken it off Rightmove and Zoopla for now to give her a little bit of respite…It’s just to calm people down a little bit.”
The video’s success is also having a knock-on effect on Just Knock’s other listings. As well as receiving more enquiries, her other, more conventional video tours are also receiving “huge exposure”. One walk-through tour of a £1.75 million house has received four times the number of views she would normally expect.
“Does it sell a house? No — a house sells a house. The marketing and the pricing sells a house,” says Cossey. “I can try my very best to make it look lovely and do the videos, but at the end of the day, if the pricing isn’t right and the housing market isn’t happy, it doesn’t matter what you do.”
Cossey has since been approached by other sellers asking her to do musical videos for their properties. Are there more productions on the horizon?
“Absolutely,” she says. “I love doing them — I feel like I’ve married both my experiences together inadvertently. Life’s too short to not do things because you’re worried you’ll look like a fool. It’s a lot of fun.”
