ESTATE agent, Mr Eddie Barrett, is wary of American tourists who darken the door of his Co Kerry office on rainy days. He knows the form.
They say they want to buy a holiday home, ask to be taken on an extensive viewing tour, pledge to mail a deposit once they have returned home - and invariably vanish.
For estate agents in resort areas, such "property tourists" - bored holiday-makers trying to while away a few hours viewing houses without any firm intention to buy - are an occupational hazard.
The president of the Irish Auctioneers and Valuers Institute (IAVI), Mr Cormac Meehan, calls them "tyre kickers" - the domestic equivalent of car showroom perusers who test-drive many vehicles but never buy any.
Mr Meehan estimates that in mid-summer they account for over 50 per cent of those making inquiries at his office in Bundoran, Co Donegal. Most of them are holiday-makers from the Republic or Northern Ireland.
"The typical tyre kicker is looking for a small cottage for under £20,000 that needs a bit of renovation, is close to a resort with a good sea view. That's exceptionally hard to get."
Mr Peter Tuohy, from Brendan Tuohy and Co, in Westport Co Mayo, gets a high proportion of "lookers" because his office is next door to a tourist office. He estimates that one in every 20 or 25 inquiries in the summer converts into sales. That proportion drops to one in 10 or 15 in winter months.
"There's no harm in the whole thing," he says. "It's not that they are deliberately out just to waste your time. It's just curiosity, but many of them have no intention of pursuing it.
According to Mr Meehan rural Ireland has escaped the blight of bogus buyers placing bids and then disappearing, which has led estate agents in England to circulate names of repeat offenders.
"The tyre kickers are generally nice people who have a dream while on holidays of buying a holiday home and want to explore it," he says. "They don't have any malicious intent. They are relaxed and are out window-shopping at night and they look in the estate agent's windows too and naturally, if the weather is bad, they will call in."
Mr Meehan says IAVI members are generally sympathetic to such inquirers. "If they go to the bother of coming through your front door then you have to take them seriously until you can establish otherwise.
For the seasoned estate agent or auctioneer, the give-away signs of a "looker" are clear. People who do not have a fixed price range and want to view properties costing between £50,000 to £150,000 are usually window shoppers, according to Ms Breda Bermingham, from Myles Doyle and Sons, in Arklow, Co Wicklow.
Mr Barrett, from James H. North's in Tralee, says his suspicions are usually confirmed when customers ask whether they can get 100 per cent mortgages.
Most estate agents have also developed methods of filtering the casual looker from the genuine house hunter. Many of them hand out listings of available properties and ask a few probing questions about finances. Like many other professionals, Mr Barrett advises potential customers to go off and look at the outside of houses they are interested in and return to his office if they wish to see the interiors.
"If they are willing to go and take a look at the outside of the properties, that usually indicates their bona fides. The person who just wants to take a free taxi ride of the real Ring of Kerry will usually be put off at this stage."
Even when the customers are real and pay a deposit subject to contract, the house-hunting holiday romance can sometimes end bitterly for the vendor or agent.
"If they go back home without being signed up, the chances of them changing their minds is about 75 per cent," says Ms Bermingham. "It's not that they are not genuine at the time. It's just that they get caught up in their own lives at home and change their minds."
Like many estate agents who have been bitten and are now shy, Mr Barrett says he has become "craftier" about dealing with customers who he suspects are property tourists. "It's normally the newer members of our staff who get taken aback because they haven't learned to differentiate between the genuine customer and the type of person who wants to pass a rainy day or compare prices with those back home."
The huge growth in recent years in all-weather entertainment facilities has, says Mr Meehan, led to a decline in the numbers of property tourists.
Despite the mild annoyance factor of those whose hobby is house hunting, Mr Meehan says that IAVI members generally treat every inquiry with equal seriousness. In some cases, this year's browser will turn out to be next year's purchaser.