ANY PROBLEMS WITH BUYING RESALES ?

This message was last edited by JeansSis on 5/18/2007.

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We went down the off-plan road over 2 years ago with Palmera (have been on threads about that previously and now looking for deposit back) but we leave 2morro to have a look at resales in Spain, so just to say we haven't given up hope,thanks to this forum (hopefully) we will be wiser this time??Looking in Murcia,Costa Blanca South regions,but just booked an apartment in La Manga and have a hire car booked,so not beholden to anyone!!So any estate agents who want to help us look,send pm,but only honest ones allowed

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Just because it is a resale does no mean you will not have problems. We bought one recently (we were told resales were safe) and it did not have a licence of occupation. Fortunately our lawyer did his job well. My advice is do not give a deposit of any kind until licences are all checked out by lawyer.

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Good luck with it Mags.

The only things to look out for is ensure there is a first licence of occupation on the property. In fact ask the agent if the proeprty has it before you bother viewing! Unfortunately most agents wont know and will therefore have to call the owners to ask for it.

Also you can ask for a copy of the nota simple. This is a transcript of the escritura and all spanish buyers ask for this before making offers. On this will have the vital info of the proeprty address, owners details but most importantly the square metres of the proerty. Many units are offered as one size but are something else in actual fact and this will affect any mortgage you may need to get.

Other than that have fun, drive around and see the areas you like then go to a local agent. Also remember tuesday is may day bank hol here and even monday some places will be closed

The bliss of living in Spain!

Oh, and its very very hot now so remember a sunhat!

 

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Took ages finding this thread,but eventually got there!!started a new thread to say what I did! regarding off-plan/resale,went midway,bought a property that is built,but with roughcasting on the outside and inside to be finished! Can wait a few months for that!!In La Marina area

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I have just returned after a 4 day visit to the CDS where i spent 3 packed days with different agents trying to find my ideal property. I must have viewed at least  30 properties whilst there. I have now drawn up a shortlist of around 8 properties even though none of these tick all the boxes of my ideal property. What i have learned though is the areas i would like the location of the property to be in.

After reading so many of the posts on this forum i discovered i should look with the smaller independent agents to try and find my property. Two of the developments i got taken too by different agents. I was assured the properties i would be viewing are exclusive, only to get outside of the property to find i had already been taken there the previous day.

Now i am back at home i thought i would spend sometime today going through the properties i looked at and also to back on the internet to see what else was for sale in the areas i was interested in, only to find two properties i was shown, one of which made my shortlist was 30.000 euros cheaper with a different agent. This does not give me any confidence in the whole system of buying and selling homes in Spain. I mean how annoyed would i have been to have offered near the asking price of this property and would they have told the owner they charged someone 30.000 more than it was on sale for with a different agent or do they just pocket the difference. The difference being over 10% of the asking price. Is this a normal practice in Spain? or was i just unlucky with the agents i picked? the other thing that made me suspicious was when taken to the double viewings the agents  were keen to find out from me how much i was offered the property for the day before.

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I think agents put on what they can get away with.  When I put mine up for sale (if I was there permanent I wouldn't use an agent) they told me they would put 12 to 14 percent on top of the value.  For example, I was looking for around 130,000 for my apartment.  They told me they would ask 145 to 150 thousand euros.  I said it wouldn't sell and they said they would drop it 5 or 10000 to get the sale.  To my mind, asking a realistic price in the first place would have been better.  I haven't marketed it yet and am going to wait and advertise it through companies that charge a fixed price and I can show people around when I am living there.  I would rather put it on the market at the correct price and drop the price by up to 5000 myself rather than let the agents make such a big commission even though I doubt I would have had any takers at all at the price they would be asking.

No wonder the resale market is in the doldrums. 

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What happens also you say you want one price for it they stick on there hefty commision, but then its offered to all the oher estate agencies through the "infocasa" system, who then stick on a further commision, so they can make something out of it as well. At four or five of the appointments i had when we arrived at the property we was met by an agent from a different company to show me around. In fact at one viewing there was 3 agents and myself the buyer viewing a property. If they all want a slice of the cake how much have they bumped up the price to give the vendor what he was asking.

 

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One agent we went with in Murcia region Was going to sell us a Parador resale, so decided to check Parador website and was nearly 6000 euros cheaper! which isn't megabucks, but would assume agents got commission from sellers?? Anyway went to 2 small agents, one in La Marina & one in Quesada which were brill, so bought through one, but would recommend both at this point, but will wait and see how everything goes with the completion etc.....

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i had that scenario as well. Looked at a brand new development and was offered several apts at 290.000 only to be shown one the next day which was a resale priced at 299.000 with not so good views.

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Just had an email from an agent i was out with last week, saying one of the apartments that she knew was my favourite the owner has informed her he will take 50.000 euros off the price if i can do the deal this month. All that has made me feel is i can go in with an even lower price as he must be desperate to sell or the agent was trying it on in the first place. I can see i am going to have some fun in the next few days.

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I agree in part with what Bobaol said about agents, but in their defence, it's not always their fault. Sometimes sellers mess around, giving different prices to different agents, upping & downing their price with changes in the weather or whatever (Spanish sellers mainly). What most sellers tend to do is tell the agent what price they want, net of any commission, and the agent adds on more than their usual fee in order to allow room for negotiating, knowing that the seller won't budge (again, Spanish sellers mainly). If they happen to get a buyer willing to pay the asking price, they're quids in. Whenever I am selling, I tell the agent how much I want, and ask them how much commission they will add to that. If it's more than 5%, they don't get to list it. If I want 130K, they will get 6.5k which is quite enough to cover their costs and make a tidy sum. If someone makes an offer, we split the difference. It works for me, and everyone is happy. I've tried signs in the window, local newspaper ads, internet ads, but have always ended up selling through an agent, and don't resent them making a bit of dosh for bringing the buyer to me.

I think variations from one agent to another as Samson has found are not uncommon, but such large variations can only be due to agents adding on rather than "sharing" commission, which considering they do very little, is hard to justify, and basically just greedy, and as Bobaol said, can only be bad for the market in general.

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In the old days when prices were low, it was the custom for the owners to ask a net price and then an agent to add the fee on top - usually whatever they thought they could get away with!

Nowadays and really from the last 10 years, prices on the CDS have been high enough to incorporate commissions. With the advent of the speculators driving the prices upwards, the larger agents would negotiate the commission and terms in their favour on the basis of the volume they could sell. Developers have been to a degree in their hands, at their mercy and the big boys (who are evidently not as big nowadays) know who they are!

In todays market small as it is, many smaller agents are having to work together, and I have know 3 or even 4 seperate parties all each with their 5000 euros on the net price. HOWEVER the real problem is that no-one has much of a clue how to accurately value a property.

In the UK agents work on a sales comparable system, ie if next door sold for 250k with a conservatory, then yours without one would be around 10k less. It would be pretty accurate, a buyer could still make an offer and the bank valuer would use the same method for his survey, although I have been advised by Smiley that there is a database now of prices which the banks now use. Im talking about the old days before I came to Spain.

In Spain, the dreaded 'listers' go around (all mainly commission based) and ask an owner what he wants. They dont care about the price as they are expected to bring in volume on the basis that they only get paid once a sale is made. The owner says well next door is selling for xxxx euros (not SOLD I hasten to add, but selling!) and so thats what I want. Or he will say well I paid x for it, costs are x and I want a profit of x.

Lister says ' well matey, our commission is 5% plus 16% iva (vat) so we will just add that on top and a little margin to take into consideration negotiating and put it on the web.

hey ho - long yawn as it sits there amongts the others for 3 years minimum!

And so you will find varying sales prices for similar properties or higher prices for worse properties so on and so forth.

One day I am going to produce a booklet, like the car one with actual selling prices per property per area.

Even the respected kyero website works their figures on ASKING prices and not true valuations. A TRUE valuation is a bank valuation - and we work a selling price from there. Selling fee included. Always.

Okay thats enough now, off the high horse now (no pun intended) but it does wind me up and tars us good guys with a bad brush when buyers are continually flannelled in this way.

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Slightly off topic (sorry) - there was an interesting article today in the 20 minutos free rag that is dished out on the street around here, about the latest fad in the big cities (Madrid, Barcelona, even Malaga) for "micro-mini-pisitos" of as little as 15 square meters, going for 100,000 euros. That's 6,667 euros per square meter, in a market where the average is closer to 2,500 per sq.m. These pads are of course illegal, since no habitation licence will be granted for anything less than 25 sq.m, but it just goes to show that there's no hard and fast rule in a free market.

I'll keep an eye out for Rixxy's Little Black Book of Spanish Property Prices.

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Roberto - if its a little black book youre after then im afraid mine is a veritable tome!

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I agree with bobaol about just advertising the property at the correct price in the first. At home here in Northern Ireland what is happening at the minute is, listing properties below the expected price, my nieghbours house went on the market several months ago at £245k, they were really hoping for £270K, it is now sold for £287k. The agent was obviously confident as he offered to sell at 0.5% commission under £270k or 1% if he got them more! BTW an almost identical house next door to them was sold November last year for 211k after going on the market for £165k. So that's an increase of £76k or nearly 30% in 5 months, which more or less confirms the 61% annual growth for property in Belfast quoted in the Spring 07 Jet to Let magazine. I am very keen to move to Spain and although the market should cool down a bit eventually, I'm afraid of selling too soon. My next trip over is 18th July for 2 weeks, staying with friends in Castello De Rugat for a week, then a Hotel in Denia for a few days and finally Albir in a B&B for a few days. My intentions are to finally at least nail down the area or if I fall in love with a property, get home, put my house on the market and just go for it.

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Just come in from the bright sunlight and read "staying with friends in Castello De Rugat " as Castillo de Rugrat, which sounds like a big medieval kindergarten to me!

Sorry for the irrelevant off-topic post - it just amused me.

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http://www.eyeonspain.com/spain-magazine/contract-resale.aspx

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