For some, it’s a matter of privacy. They don’t want friends, colleagues, and neighbours to know that they are selling up, and they certainly don’t want them to know how much their property is worth.
Others, particularly high profile individuals, want to avoid pictures of their homes being available to look at online and possibly finding their way into the newspapers. They may also have security concerns about people being able to study the layout of their homes.
Yet more go off market because it can be an excellent way of testing the market – putting out discreet feelers to gauge how much interest there is in a property, without committing publicly to an asking price. They might get a great offer and sell up privately, and if they put the property on the market, they have a good feel for the level of interest it’s going to attract and what its price point should be.