A quarter of TikTok influencer videos claiming to offer guidance or advice on property investment have been found to be misleading.

The Online Mortgage Advisor service analysed videos from TikTok influencers with a combined 11.8m followers and with an average reach each of some 500,000.

Some 64 per cent were not transparent about their qualifications in the property and investment sectors, and 99 per cent of the videos did not have any disclaimers for their audience.

The research analysed 624 videos from 25 different top property influencers and flagged any content that contained suggestions to invest in or purchase property, comments on how much to spend on the property or where to buy it, and claims that purchasing property guarantees a profitable return.

Pete Mugleston, managing director of Online Mortgage Advisor, says: “Whether it’s your first home or an addition to your investment portfolio, buying a property is a huge financial decision that needs to be researched thoroughly beforehand. 

“Worryingly, our research revealed a considerably high proportion of videos giving property investment advice on TikTok, an app that’s most popular in the UK with those aged 18 to 34. 

“Of these videos, we flagged one in four as misleading, and the majority of their creators didn’t mention having any qualifications or professional experience in real estate – something you should certainly look for when taking financial advice.”

Mugleston continues: “One of the most common types of content we found on TikTok’s #realestateinvesting corner – a hashtag with nearly 1.5 billion views – were influencers boasting about how much money they had made by investing in properties.

“One money-making strategy that influencers espoused was ‘house hacking’, the term for buying a multi-unit property and living in one unit while renting out another to pay the mortgage. While the promise of profits using this method can be enticing, the reality is that property investment will never be a guaranteed source of income.”