Property Sales Starting to Improve ?

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BENIDORM
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Property Sales Starting to Improve ?

Postby BENIDORM » Sun Nov 17, 2019 8:25 pm

During the past few weeks I've been 'out and about' quite a bit and got the chance to chat with quite a number of people who have moved to Spain recently, a good number have brought forward their plans to move because of the chaotic times in UK.
Most have rented but are actively seeking suitable property to buy and I was surprised at the wide range of properties they are viewing, everything from coastal apartments to abandoned campo ruins inland.
They do seem to have their 'heads screwed on right' and are looking for realistic properties and locations to suit their present needs, however two couples I spoke to were out and out dreamers and unless they change their plans based on my experience I would say that they have every chance of failing.
So sellers, maybe now is a good time to have a good tidy up and push your properties.!!
And buyers, please be careful, don't buy your house just because it has fantastic views, look for property that really does tick most of your boxes for present and future and remember that you never know what's around the corner...

Oh....And I almost forgot I know of three people who have had sales agreed this week ....wow...for the past few years it's been three a year..
And the nice thing I heard from the above people is that they are staying in Spain, just moving to different areas or smaller property all to suit their present needs and lifestyles.
Regards,
Gordon

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Re: Property Sales Starting to Improve ?

Postby costakid » Sun Nov 17, 2019 11:18 pm

Wow Gordon, that post covers most of it.

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Re: Property Sales Starting to Improve ?

Postby chrissiehope » Sun Nov 17, 2019 11:20 pm

If you know anyone looking for a nice little casa de campo, let me know ;-)
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Re: Property Sales Starting to Improve ?

Postby elusive » Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:19 am

I think the problem has been properties in many areas are way over priced. If properties are advertised at legitimate prices they are selling due the scandies. I have noticed the longterm market slowing mainly imo due to many properties been hugely over priced.alot of top end priced ones seem to be sitting around for a long time or been reduced.theres becoming abit of a glut of high priced low quality properties. Maybe the brits arent moving over as much due to brexit and ones already here are been put off moving because the prices have gone up ridiculously in the last few years yet many rentals are of terrible quality.

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Re: Property Sales Starting to Improve ?

Postby katy » Mon Nov 18, 2019 3:02 pm

Surprised at the news as Sept Spanish official figures showed weaker demand and this year there has been a 20% decline in Malaga region. Lots of graphs on Spanish Property Insight.

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Re: Property Sales Starting to Improve ?

Postby Devils Advocate » Mon Nov 18, 2019 4:11 pm

We found one issue was estate agents acting like they were a tour company, offering free trips to people to nose inside a good few houses and pass an afternoon.

I'll be brutal and say the 20 or so people who viewed ours whilst we were actually over there had time waster written across their foreheads. When the estate agent turns up with 3 separate women whilst their 3 husbands are doing something else you know you're on to a loser. No vetting whatsoever, they were bringing anyone around to get the numbers up.......and to say the market is booming.

As for pricing a house sensibly? How do you value it? Do you take the estate agents word for it?, do you look at similar properties to yours in the area? Do you set your own price regardless?

Our method was a mixture of the last two.

Sensible price is often a term used by low ballers who can't afford the house they want.

I also got the feeling that a lot of the "prospective" buyers were just this, and were looking for a desperate seller, however most of the houses for sale near us were owned by guys like ourselves who didn't have to sell up in any rush, we just wanted out of Spain and to experience pastures new for our hols.

No way would our house be blown out, we were still enjoying visiting and if it took another 10 years so be it......the price was firm.

It sold because it was a nice place with good title and in all honesty the first serious couple who saw it bought it without haggling.

Not one has sold in our area since ours completed in August, although I believe an offer has been accepted on a house nearby so that may change.

Ours sold to a Dutch couple, we didn't in a million years think it would stay in UK hands with the exchange rates as they are, although it served us very nicely indeed.
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Re: Property Sales Starting to Improve ?

Postby elusive » Mon Nov 18, 2019 4:46 pm

We found back in 2014 agents wanting to show us any old crap (sales) although we were in no postion or even knew if we wanted to buy at that point but they were quite happy to say ive got xy and z They obviously do it so they can go back to the owners and say look at all these viewers ive got you. Look im doing a good job when they know very well the viewers have very little intrest.

Now we rent a house thats for the sale and have had the hassle and worry of been on the other end of this. Viewers with the other half in another country people not that fussed but as the asking price gets dropped then we get a glut of viewers so the agents can say look you dropped the price (its still over priced) look at all the new viewers ive got you!

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Re: Property Sales Starting to Improve ?

Postby Devils Advocate » Mon Nov 18, 2019 4:50 pm

That's exactly how it appeared to us!
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Re: Property Sales Starting to Improve ?

Postby BENIDORM » Mon Nov 18, 2019 8:41 pm

Some interesting posts...thank you for your views....

Many of the people I spoke with are actually living on the Costa del Sol, however most are in temporary rented accomodation awaiting either moving into a house or still looking.
One did comment on the fact that they had viewed over 30 properties , none of which matched their criteria, too expensive or just not the type or area they want and they did appear rather annoyed that the agents seem to have cloth ears and are not showing them the correct property of the type that they requested.
And that I know is a common problem with agents , as indicated by other posters,I know that they try to push properties that are exclusive to them rather than show properties where they have a split commission arrangement.
I'm aware that this is extremely annoying and irksome to both buyers and vendors, but I doubt that this situation will change.
There is probably more interest in property on the Costa Blanca at the moment, there are many 'British' areas that many seem to be attracted to, I understand their reasons.
Some of the people that I know are waiting to see what happens with the state of the pound, quite likely to rise whichever way the UK eventually turns, understandable.
Regards,
Gordon

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Re: Property Sales Starting to Improve ?

Postby chrissiehope » Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:48 pm

BENIDORM wrote: ............ none of which matched their criteria, too expensive or just not the type or area they want and they did appear rather annoyed that the agents seem to have cloth ears and are not showing them the correct property of the type that they requested.
Oh, how familiar that sounds :roll: :wink:
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Re: Property Sales Starting to Improve ?

Postby elusive » Tue Nov 19, 2019 9:13 am

Most if not all of the U.K the agents we came across were nothing short of wide boys/girls with no qualifactions or experience in real estate until they decided to move to spain to cash in on the boom. No idea or care about the laws and they all act like flies to s@#$ when a new property comes on the market by "nicking" it off the offical agent and advertising as their own to make themselves look like they have a large database of properties

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Re: Property Sales Starting to Improve ?

Postby Free at Last » Tue Nov 19, 2019 10:05 am

It must be very annoying to have lots of people viewing your property who are just wasting your time, but I have to say that wasn't our experience when we sold our house in 2017. During the 3 months it was on the market we had just 4 viewings (all couples, one Belgian and the others British) and none of them gave the impression they were timewasters. In fact one of them bought another house just around the corner so they were definitely genuine buyers, as were the last couple who bought ours. The friend who lent us her holiday home to live in whilst we searched for another property sold it last year and we held the keys for the estate agent to conduct viewings. There were just two (plus a second viewing for the ones who bought) and it sold in six weeks.

When we were looking for a new property we only approached Spanish estate agents as they were the ones who had the type of property we were interested in listed. With two of them, we just asked to view a particular property on their books, they took us to see them (one of which we bought) and never tried to persuade us to view other places, or to "sign up" with them. The third was more prone to contacting us and saying they had something new on their books which might suit us, although they weren't what we'd asked for.

When we bought our original house in 2003, we used a property finding service and specified the town we wanted to buy in, the type of house and budget. They arranged for us to view 12 properties and all of them were within our specifications, although there were only 2 we would have considered buying. Talking to the agent, she said the biggest problem was buyers not knowing what they actually wanted either in terms of location or access to amenities, which resulted in a lot of her time being wasted as well by taking clients to view places which weren't suitable. I could sympathise because before getting in contact with them we'd viewed a few places with other agents and on one occasion the agent brought another British couple along to view two houses in Vélez-Málaga and after seeing them they asked "where is the beach?". (For those who don't know the area, Vélez-Málaga is 5km inland).

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Re: Property Sales Starting to Improve ?

Postby Devils Advocate » Tue Nov 19, 2019 11:03 am

Interesting to hear all the views on this,

I think there are genuine buyers about in Andalucia for sure, and more so than in the UK it is vital that estate agent is upfront with the client before they drag them in to the car and set off on the hunting tour.

The client only has the picture of a white house with red roof and a glistening pool to go on, most of them don't know the difference between Canillas, Sedella or Rio Gordo, the house is just "in the campo".

Point being (well for us anyway), if you are considering a property in the UK you'd get its details off the agents and do your own drive by first. That would give you some feel for its position/area/ambience. Far more daunting to do that in Andalucia when you are new to the area......we couldn't find our house on the way back to it for over 2 years after we bought it :mrgreen:

Seriously though I go back to Gordons point about the couple who'd seen 30 houses and there was something wrong with either the area or position of the house each time.........if they'd told the agents exactly what they wanted then it's baffling they could mess up 30 times.

It's a toss up whether the clients are purely timewasters or the agents don't have a clue, my feeling is both in a lot of cases.

The 30 viewings mentioned also made me and the Mrs smile.........so poignant.

I may have mentioned it in an earlier thread but when our house finally went on the market the agent called the next day with a cast iron certain buyer. A lady who we now refer to as "Maroma lady" was going to visit.(Hope she's on here haha)

Her criteria for her dream house was minimum 3 beds,tick, 2 baths, tick, fruit trees, tick, good views,tick, no neighbours in your face, tick..................and her main goal that had not been met so far for some unusual reason was a view of Maroma, bloody big tick this time, Bingo. The view of Maroma from our place was there in all its massive glory.

Excited at a sub 24 hour sale we asked how many places she'd seen so far, and the answer deflated us, she'd seen more properties than a meter reader would.

So she visited, went through the motions, spent 15 seconds in the house, then just stared at Maroma for an hour. Agent nodded and said "this is the one"

They left and agent called back the next day after speaking with the client, Doh, we had the wrong view of Maroma, she wanted to see it from a different angle. Guys, I kid you not.

3 years later the woman was still doing the rounds, my question is why? Why would the agents bother wasting time and petrol on her? I really can't fathom it. This woman was English by the way.

Had another couple a year later, also English who simply loved the place, and basically committed to buy there and then. I walked around the grounds with the husband whilst the women were having a brew and he said "Yep, we will buy this......we'll get our place in Frigiliana on the market tomorrow".. Adios!!

Bringing unvetted people like this around may boost the agents perceived work load, but it is a right royal pain in the ass for the people they are disrupting.
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Re: Property Sales Starting to Improve ?

Postby costakid » Tue Nov 19, 2019 1:29 pm

Estate agents must be the most mistrusted people in any trade.

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Re: Property Sales Starting to Improve ?

Postby Free at Last » Tue Nov 19, 2019 1:33 pm

The wrong view of Maroma - priceless! Not so funny for you though, DA.

As to the ones who announced they'd put their property on the market after saying they would buy yours, I was adamant that I wouldn't even start looking at new properties when we were selling our house (although I did trawl all the property portal websites pretty much every day to see what was out there!) until we had sold and the money was in the bank. I didn't want to get into a chain situation and also wanted to know exactly how much we could spend on the new place, and have the advantage of being a cash buyer. It worked in our favour because when a property came onto the market which we really liked we were able to proceed really quickly and the sale was completed within a week, although it did mean we had to move into temporary accommodation whilst we searched and had the work we wanted done on the new place (although better because we didn't have to live in it whilst the work was done). We didn't really enjoy having to move house twice within 5 months, but there were advantages as well.

You only have to watch the property shows on TV, whether about the UK or abroad, to see the sometimes ridiculous reasons why people reject properties they are shown which seem to meet the brief they've specified, though. We know a couple (American with a British wife) who must have viewed just about every property for sale in the Axarquia (town, country and coastal) over a period of a couple of years. They decided to buy one along the street from us then pulled out of that sale. Then another house went on the market just across the street from us and they were the first and only people to view it, and bought it straight off - because it was "the one". The agents must have been absolutely fed up of them, but they did get a sale in the end!

The property finder we used said it was common for people to specify a rural location then complain that the property was too isolated/too far from shops, restaurants, etc., or to specify somewhere within walking distance of shops, restaurants, etc. then complain the area was too built up/too busy. They can't win!

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Re: Property Sales Starting to Improve ?

Postby katy » Tue Nov 19, 2019 2:22 pm

What Suprised me on those TV programmes some have never been to the area before and after seeing just 4 houses buy one! I would want to suss out the surroundings first and the neighbours. I know one couple who bought a rural house without realising there was a pig sty next door.

Fortunately we didn't have to use an Agent on our last sale but used them in Spain to sell twice before. I was not happy that clients aren't vetted like in UK. One Agent came with two French couples and 3 young kids. I was home alone and they were all over the place, No control of the situation. I do know someone who had a clock stolen during a viewing. Needless to say they didn't buy and I don't think there were any intentions to. A year after we sold that villa I saw it in an Agents window 20 Ks away. Knew it wasn't for sale again so went in and told them to remove it. I don't trust Agents in any country.

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Re: Property Sales Starting to Improve ?

Postby Devils Advocate » Tue Nov 19, 2019 3:50 pm

FAL, you are normal and do what normal people do when they are buying a house, it's amazed me just how many we met who didn't follow your example.

Katy, the hoard you mention visiting your place is a disgrace, again the blame can only lie with the agents. With regards to the thefts, well what can you say?

I mentioned earlier about the 3 women arriving to view....sin husbands. Speaking with the OH now there were many more women who came to view, with a friend rather than the husband. If that doesn't smack of a day out I don't know what does.

Also, and I'm speaking of the campo here, but people demand a view, then seem to be shocked that to have a view you need to climb up to it, more often than not on a twisty road.

Manners come in to it too when viewing. Another example of what we went through here, shut me up if I'm becoming boring now. :mrgreen:

The agent always loved to bring people around when we were actually there, I'm certain they did this to show they really were getting viewers, I think they may have been paying them to visit haha.

So we were having a brew and a piece of toast on the terrace at about 9.30am one morning before we set off for the big shop at Eroski in Velez, phone rings and it's the agent.

She said they have a couple in the office who at short notice who want to view, it needs to be today as they fly home tomorrow.

"Yep, no problem" I said, "When?"
"In the next hour" was the answer.

Now we needed to go to Eroski as we'd not done any shopping having only been there a day, and living room was strewn with cases and all sorts of stuff as we were just settling in. Also we like to make the day of it down at the coast rather than rushing back.
I had a word with the Mrs and she said we should compromise said to ask for a 1pm viewing......giving us time to nip to Velez and spruce the place up.

I relayed this to the agent who spoke to the couple. Answer? "Sorry, they can't do 1pm, they always like to enjoy a long leisurely lunch", and yes I was shaking!!

I told the agent to wish them a pleasant flight home and to visit us next year when they are back over.

Whether they were true buyers we'll never know now, but I do have a hunch!
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Re: Property Sales Starting to Improve ?

Postby BENIDORM » Tue Nov 19, 2019 7:19 pm

Well there will always be good and bad amongst the Estate Agents regardless of nationality, but cetainly many have bad reputations and haven't received the correct training etc.
It's so easy in Spain to set up as an estate agent, I know of many whose only training/experience was from buying their own property..Yikes !!
I would suggest checking out the qualifications and experience before getting involved with any of them, that said I have met ,over the years, some really decent agents who have worked hard to find the right property and generally given good aftercare.
The person that I mentioned who had viewed over 30 properties had tried several agents all non Spanish, and I did suggest trying Spanish agents , but they were concerned about not understanding them,but I've rarely come across any who didn't speak English and told them so.
There is of course the problem of buyers arriving with pre-conceived ideas of their ideal property, and quite often buying something totally different !
Anyway everyone thank you for your input, I'm sure that it will help prospective buyers to hear about all of the different angles of buying and selling property in Spain..
Regards,
Gordon

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Re: Property Sales Starting to Improve ?

Postby Free at Last » Tue Nov 19, 2019 7:43 pm

BENIDORM wrote: The person that I mentioned who had viewed over 30 properties had tried several agents all non Spanish, and I did suggest trying Spanish agents , but they were concerned about not understanding them,but I've rarely come across any who didn't speak English and told them so.
However, none of the three I used in 2017 spoke more than a few words of basic English and certainly couldn't have conducted business in English. Their business practices didn't seem dubious to me and the one we bought through has been very helpful to us subsequently in helping to find a tenant for our parking space.

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Re: Property Sales Starting to Improve ?

Postby elusive » Tue Nov 19, 2019 8:41 pm

Re the campo. It doesnt take many viewing trips to realise if its for you or not. People have the dream of a villa with a pool without realising that unless you are loaded a nice villa just off the road isnt going to happen. We looked at a couple before realising the reality is very different to the pictures of a property you look at on a website. Having never been in the campo before we quickly realised that looking at the campo from your property is better than actually been in it! You know or should know pretty quickly what you prefer.

We had the odd viewer who wanted to come at very short notice.we refused and expected a call to view the following week but nothing came. We did see at the same time a passing car (we live in a dead end street) looking like they were eyeing the house up so maybe they did what you should always do first. Go look at the street etc and get a feel for if you actually want to bother viewing. Luckily they obviously didnt. Others were just looking at loads of properties around the area. One lived in the village for years (never seen them or their car in the village since or before! and was looking at anything and everything without the husband. The house has been for sale for ten years so she obviously didnt look very hard! Old spanish couples totally unsuited to the house and a columbian dr from the usa.all very odd!


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