THE GOOD

Sadly there are few in this category. Very few indeed. These are the agents who are professional, honest and hard working, skilled and knowledgeable. They inform their clients of their legal obligations, of any pitfalls there might be to a sale, they do their homework on market pricing, they are honest with their clients about what is achievable and what is not. As a result, sometimes, they lose out on selling the property because they basically talk the owner out of selling. It is easy to take houses on to your books but the difficult part is selling them and an honest agent will tell you the likelihood of getting a sale and if they believe that you will do better in a year or two when the market picks up they should tell you that.

A good estate agent is a major bonus to anyone wanting to market their property. Their professionalism will not only be clear to the seller but also to the buyer which, will build trust and confidence that they are dealing with a professional who knows what they are doing and in who´s hands they will be safe.

Good agents tend not to negotiate much on commission because they work hard for the money they earn and they stick with a sale through thick and thin to reach a good outcome for their clients. They also do not ask for exclusivity. Exclusive and non exclusive commission rates used to be common place and you paid a different rate depending on which you chose. If you agreed to place your property only with one agent, they would reduce their commission a little but in the current market place, exclusivity has no benefit to the seller. It does however have a great benefit to the agent as he does not have to match competition from other agents or have his performance judged against other agents . So if you are offered such a deal, ask yourself what is in this for me and why does this agent want an exclusive?

All good agents give free advertising on their website and a selection of linked websites plus free advertising signs to put up on the property. No agent should ask for money up front for advertising even if they say it will be deducted off the commission you pay at the end and above all, any good agent should be happy to spend time with you and discuss the sale, then give you time to decide what you want to do. Never be rushed in to putting your house on the market and take with a pinch of salt the old tale “I have just the client looking for this type of property”. Occasionally you can be lucky and have an instant match but generally it is just a come on to get your property on their books.

THE BAD

These are the agents who have little regard for the best interests of their clients. Their aim is quite simply to make money. They may be very personable but make no mistake they see you as a walking euro sign. They disregard the law, they disregard the ethical and moral code of estate agency and they will literally do what no other living creatures will do in order to get a sale. Some of these agents will hunt down house buyers. They seek them out in tourist areas, spot them looking in agent windows or hang around hotels they know are used by other agents for their clients when on a buying trip. I have had one of my clients approached when he went to the toilet by such an agent who wanted to give him his card. Not perhaps the most suitable venue to try and do business but this is the level that bad agents will stoop to.
This style of agent tells their sellers not to bother about the legality of their house, that house is the same as all the others. They tell them not to bother with a lawyer as they just cost money. They want to do business with as little paperwork as possible and preferably on a nod and a wink. In many cases, they could not advise a client because they do not know what is correct or what is required by law.

Dealing with a bad agents is not good for you as a seller, because their lack of professionalism and their disregard for the law will show to the purchaser and if they fail to advise you correctly, you could encounter problems down the line even after the sale is completed and the last thing you want is someone chasing after you several years after you have sold.

THE UGLY

To me the ugly are the agents who try to maintain a façade of respectability when underneath lurks something quite different. They are deceitful, manipulative and calculating. Their one and only aim, like the bad agents, is to make money.

They will twist the truth, using such terms as Eco House to describe a property with no main electric or water connections. They will take commission from both the buyer and the seller, often trying to hide what their commission actually is by asking for it in cash and telling you that will save you money when in fact what they are asking you to do is commit a criminal act. They will ensure that their name appears on as little of the paperwork as possible and that they are responsible for nothing in the transaction.

These agents will blatantly lie to you and say that the market is buoyant and they are selling lots of houses in order to get your property on their books. When, sadly we all know that the market is far from buoyant and in order to achieve a sale, agents have to work very hard indeed. They target clients with a weakness, those who have a need to sell urgently due to old age or ill health and they talk them in to believing that their only hope of selling is with them.

At Cadizcasa we do not believe in overpricing houses, it only prevents the house being sold. When asked to market a property, we look at many years of data for that area, we look at current prices, we compare your property with others of a similar type and we are able to do that as we have a large portfolio. This helps us arrive at a true market value for the property not a figure we thought up on the way back to the office in the car. We do market valuations for the UK and American courts. In addition we look at the Catastral record for the house and we visit Urbanismo at the Townhall to find out exactly what the state of affairs is, so we can give you accurate information and flag up any possible problems before a potential buyer even comes to look at the house. If you are aware of any potential difficulties you can deal with them and your knowledge and confidence with help to reassure a potential buyer.
There are small signs of a turnaround in the market and for the first time we are seeing people interested in investing in Spain. We have people wanting to buy small businesses with a view to developing the business and building a life in the sun around it and that shows great promise for the future but we have a long way to go before we can establish a strong and constant market and the people who will do that are the good agents.

People were looking for ways to keep their nest egg safe for the future and many believed there was nothing safer than bricks and mortar, especially bricks and mortar with some sun thrown in. Why did they choose Spain? Well, there were three main choices at the time, France but the weather was not so good and property prices were higher, Italy but the bureaucracy was enough to put most off and good old Spain where it was easy to buy, the Spanish were very welcoming and without much effort you could make a very nice little life for yourself and live off your pensions when the time came.

Added to the heady mix were programmes about foreign travel. We all remember Judith Chalmers on Wish You Were Here and even the most staunch couch potato found it difficult not to pick up a travel brochure after Miss Chalmers had visited and by her presence endorsed the country. Even the traditional Sunday papers started to add travel supplements to their usual offering and new magazines specialising in overseas travel and investment started to appear on the news agent shelves. Our love of all things foreign was fuelled by Floyd on the Med showing us around Spain and making us think this was the place to be.

On a more mundane but nonetheless important level, the exchange rates were excellent and you could buy a property off plan and sell it on the day it was completed for a good profit. The tax rules also were more favourable then and many made a bit of cash just buying and selling new properties.

We had the desire to do it and we were being told at every turn that we were doing the right thing so it is no surprise that so many people invested in buying a Spanish property. Whether you wanted it to live in it or just use it for holidays it made sense in those days to put your hard earned cash into some bricks and mortar in a country you thought you knew.

All went along swimmingly for about 10 years and then there was an almighty bang! The bubble which had become more inflated than a pregnant whale´s belly, popped and we all landed in a pile of brown sticky stuff.

Why did it go bang? Quite simply the world turned upside down and people got the jitters. Our economy took a bashing and our exchange rates plummeted. The terror attacks in America and the UK meant that people were not so keen to travel and suddenly they started to remember that foreign counties, even the ones we knew and loved were just that – foreign. They wondered where the terror threat would end, how it would affect the economy etc. The financial pressure changed how people thought and all of a sudden they were more concerned with keeping their jobs and paying the mortgage on the house they lived in than buying foreign property. We went from being a county of spenders to a country of savers something which had not really been seen since the second world war.

The market for overseas property plummeted accordingly and the glut of properties already built lost their value over night due that basic economic thing called supply and demand. When you have lots of the first and none of the second the thing that gives is the price. Prices tumbled and negative equity soon came in to being to a level never seen before in Spain. What should have been a sound investment turned in to a bad investment which will take several years to regain its true market value and a large amount of patience and nerve is required to get us through these difficult market conditions.

The moral of this story – no matter how good things are always remember that they can change overnight so be prepared for anything.