slow house market?

[pete_l]

This time last year I was sitting in front of my computer searching
online inmobiliarias for property inland of Almeria for houses around
£100k.

This year I thought I'd go back to review some of the "possibles" I looked
at before I bought the place I settled on.

The first thing that struck me was that most of the houses I had printed
off details for were still for sale. (Don't forget, this is inland spain, resale
property only).
For example, one agency had sold 3 of the 9 houses I had details for.
Another had 1 of 4 sold. The worst was 4 sold of 23 I had listed.

The second thing I noticed was that most of the prices were exactly the
same as a year ago. So much for the british custom of dropping the price
if a place doesn't sell. I did find one that had gone down from E89,500
to E59,000 today and was still for sale ..... how much lower?
Strangely, more than one agency seems to have a policy of raising prices
of houses that don't sell. They seemed to be consistently 5-6K higher than
the listings I had, although one house had gone up from E110,000 to
E149,000

Apart from wondering how some of these agencies make a living (ans: by
having very high comissions), I can't help feeling that a lot of property
which is listed isn't really for sale. OK, the buyer would take your money
if you dropped it in their lap, but otherwise doesn't seem too motivated.

Pete

[Nikvin]

Some agencies, put/keep properties on their books that arent for sale, or have been sold, especially the cheaper ones, as it draws the punters in.

Spaniards think they should hike their prices, as a year has passed, so it must be worth more!!, or they try another agent and put the price up!!
Some Spaniards will have dropped their prices ( and Brits) but agencies ofetn dont drop the asking price, hoping to get some interest at the old price, and then cream off even more!!

One of the problems also is that due to the problems with all the illegal new builds, the resale market is attracting more interest, so vendors are reluctant to drop prices, unless they have to. many of the older/ruinous properties are being sold, just to raise some cash, but as many Spaniards might own 2 or 3 (sometimes more) they sell 1 only, and probably wont drop on any of them unless desperate.

There are still some amazingly good deals available in inland areas, but rarely through agents, who are inclined to put it on for what they believe they can get, and this can mean a mark up of enormous amounts. I know of one where mark up was getting close to 200%!!!!!!.

There are also now, so many agents chasing the same number of customers, that business can seem slow, but properties are selling and more and more brits moving in.

There are something like 80 agents in the Albox area, probably more, that havent been quantified, as dont have offices, and only use a mobile phone. There were about 3 or 4 ,5 yrs ago