Sounds easy enough...

...but it's not!  The market is tough and it's not easy selling your property in Spain at the moment.

Maybe you've managed to sell yours and you've got some advice or you need some help selling yours.  Post your comments here or start a new thread.

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I have a two bedroom apartment in Calanova Golf , La Cala  for sale. It is due to be  completed in Oct.2007. I would like to hear from anyone else in the same situation in this development. 

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the re-sale market in costa del sol, has been very  slow for some unknow reason (from my point of view), I have been marketing my off plan purchase for the 12months before completion as it was bought purely for investment, I have recently completed due to no sale, but am still desperately looking to sale,even at the cost price to my my money out, if anyone is interested, pls contact me- development is in Estepona.

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The real problem at the moment is the amount of new developments in different parts of Spain, plus, possibly the most important point is that agents are getting upto 10% commision on sales of off-plan developments as against 2-3% on resale. So you can see where their interests lay.

The problem is trying to find agents willing to give resales their full attention.  They are out there I'm sure.  The other real issue is the value of the property being sold. There is so much information and so much to compare with that buyers are in a strong position, however, most, unfortunately for the resellers will opt for the more affordable off-plan, therefore causing a vicious circle.

What you have to do is sell the benefits of a resale, such as established urbanisation, established facilities etc.  What most people don't take into account when buying off plan is the time it takes for the urbanisation to establish and become what they dreamt of.  I know if I was retiring I would buy a resale, not wait a few years to see if the developers are going to start building or not. Plus living on a building site for a few years can't be what we had in mind.

Just my pennys worth.

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Last time I spoke to an agent about their commission on off plan it was significantly higher than 10%. Only agent to my knowledge doing resale as low as 3% is Viva and they are also quite highly geared towards Off Plan. Apart from the obvious benefit of resale that it is an established community, not a building site etc is that you can actaully see what you are buying and this is very often what home owners as opposed to investors are looking for. Because of the number of properties for sale on the coast at this time the immediate benefits of off plan (i.e.100% CAPITAL GROWTH DURING CONSTRUCTION PERIOD - sorry that was said in an ironic tone!!) are no longer there. Plus the purchase expenses are higher with off plan. In addition to the 7% IVA there is a 1% Stamp Duty on the Title Deed with brand new property - on resales this tax does not apply.

Sarahazama I can put you in contact with a reliable agent in Estepona if you wish. Have no idea what they charge commission wise, but must be competitive as they do a lot of business and they get a lot of repeat clients.

They also do rentals and dont know whether you had considered renting yours out while waiting for the market to turn. If not might be worth considering to at least get it to start paying for itself.

Rgds

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Can anyone recommend any good publications, magazines, newspapers, web-sites (besides the fine EOS site of course) which have provided good responses to their property adverts? Am thinking of selling a property on the Costa Del Sol and would like to give it a go myself. I generally have had good luck using a small local agent - but as times tighten up, would like to save the commission. Any advise/info would be greatly appreciated.

James 

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This message was last edited by JeansSis on 5/16/2007.

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Hi SolJames guess Janice is right Sur in English or Euro Weekly - only thing is that in the Sur there are shedloads. Guess only you can decide the practicalities for viewings etc and whether you have someone to give access. Possibly trry the Spanish ones too La Tribuna or Gaceta but you will be targeting Spaniards - dont know if thats what you want. The positive with an agent is that they are going to have walk ins etc and no language barriers as normally they have cunning linguists on the team who can communicate with all nationalities. With the Brit publications you are limiting your market and its possibly a bit hit and miss. Lots of the emerging market nationalities starting to spend their new found wealth on the CDS - Latvia, Estonia, Russia, Bulgaria to name but a few.

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Mucho apreciado for the suggestions JeansSis and Smiley. I didn't make it clear in my first post - but I was thinking of focusing my advert money in the UK. But you do make some good points Smiley.

I will take it all under consideration - carefully weigh the pros and cons of each avenue - make my decision ............ then will just do whatever my wife tells me.

thanks again.

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Could try the auction house Direct Auctions. Sales commission is 2.5%. They will give an honest appraisal of your property and advise you free.

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Note your comments about Direct Auctions - they advertised free auction entry  (January Sale)  in Sur some weeks back - I have now have  my property listed for auction - so I am hopeful it will sell at the March auction.

This message was last edited by cerrillo on 2/8/2007.

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Good properties at a competitive price are still being sold....... 10 % comission.... in very few developments nowadays... most of them pay 5% and there are the other, with apts of two beds going for 460,000 €  Most of the clients are in the 200,000 thousand euros area and there is demand for country properties and commercial also.... but the properties MUST be well priced... in that shows the advise of the selling agent so you have atractive properties to offer. If the development pays 10 %.... most probably their product would be very difficult to sell due to its price.

I know it is hard to accept a setback in one´s investment... my own apartment is worth less than a year ago, but at least I have my house and not shares of a liquidated company...... Anyway, I strongly sympathise with the people that was left with the "un-selable rocks".

There is an oversupply of properties now on the market...... they will go in time, the building has virtually come to a stand still and all these properties will be sold.... there is still people contacting and generating "tours", people is calling, contacting and generating appointments...... it is much harder now, most of the time you share that 5% with the listing agent.... it is a question of having patience.... I am sure there are THOUSANDS of European that want to come where the sun heats.

With regard to the charachteristic of a "buyers market"...... yes, there is...... but for the good properties it is a sellers market as there is still a demand...I just had an 800,000 offer on a vila listed for a million rejected by the vendor, maybe for diferent reasons, but the demand still exists.

In the IN system, that interlinks several local agents there is 4700 properties listed.... on an area with perhaps a million and a half residents? I think ther is not such a "big crisis".... I just think that the pace has come to a more relaxed one......

Cheers,

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I am wanting to get a little more pro-active in selling an apartment in the Southern Costa Blanca and have been looking at several web based `agents` & advertisers. Has anyone had any experiences, good or bad, with these types of businesses? Another problem I have is the property, I beleive, will appeal to a Spanish buyer as a residence as apposed to a holiday home - all the web advertisers seem to target the Brit market only. I have the property marketed with two agents at present, but would also consider adding more.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Cheers, Mike

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Mike, I'm a firm believer in targeting the Spanish market, for the simple fact there's more of 'em than us here! When you say you want to be "pro-active", I guess you mean cut out the middle man and handle your own enquiries? Do you speak Spanish???? If you do, or have someone on hand to help, it should be pretty easy to find what you're looking for. Just change your language preferences in Google to Spanish, and go find yourself some sites the same way you found the ones you're already using! Sorry, I don't know of any specifically, but you may find this one useful: http://es.kyero.com/ it's also available in English and is pretty well known I think.

Good luck!

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Roberto,
Thanks for the info, I may as well give it a go!!

Mike

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