asp mvc4 html helper not navigating to expected page - asp.net

Question

I am generating a link using the below code
#Html.ActionLink("Search", "Index", "Properties")
on the client side this renders
Search
Looking at the above link I expected to got to
controller: Properties
action: Index
When I click the link I am navigated to http://localhost:49878/Properties/ and I get the error
HTTP Error 403.14 - Forbidden
The Web server is configured to not list the contents of this directory.
If I navigate to http://localhost:49878/Properties/Index I get my expected page.
Why?
I have looked at RouteConfig to try and understand this and looking at the default route
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Default",
url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
I thought the below would resolve the issue, but it didn't, why?
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Search",
url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "Properties", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);

Answer 1

You only see a Properties folder in your solution like this:
But if open project folder like this:
You can see two folders in two paths:
Root
View folder
The routing system checks the file system to see if a URL matches a file/folder on the disk. If it finds a match, the routing is ignored and the request bypassed any route entries so that the file will be served directly.
To fix this you can set the RouteExistingFiles property to true in your RouteConfig:
routes.RouteExistingFiles = true;

Answer 2

You cannot use Properties as it's the name of the folder that has AssemblyInfo.cs . So kind of restricted name.
Add this to
routes.RouteExistingFiles = true;
RegisterRoutes in RouteConfig to ignore physical paths (although this will have some complications for static files, do test it thoroughly).
Better approach is renaming your controller and use it not sure if there is something else that can be done.