Hola Everyone!
I thought I would let the heat die down before putting my side onto the fire. Also I have been ill for a few days - and still under the weather but work dictates I cant lie down and sleep!!!
Obviously I saw the show and to be honest whilst yes it did concentrate on the falling market, other points were mentioned although not highlighted.
Unfortunately it is indicative of the current market. People who have to sell cannot sell without lowering their prices. There are buyers around, many of them, but they are totally confused with regards to prices and true values - this is a problem to be laid at the door of the estate agents in general who have absolutely no idea of how to accurately value a property. Obviously it goes without saying Gillespie and Georgia alongside a couple of the others on this forum are excepted, but the bigger boys should take a lot of the blame for the mess the market is in.
The TMD programme is only one of many to be showing Spain in a bad light and judging from the numerous calls from the Irish end, they saw it as a true picture - bearing in mind how many of them own property over here and now have to sell!
Certainly I was hugely pleased with the amount of exposure I got - and I did not feel I showed Spain in any particular light, good or bad. An auction room is by nature very open and transparent, it is a forum for buyers and sellers to gather and trade property. It is there you will see the true condition of a property market and a true price of a property. I am pleased to say I sold one before auction, another just after, lot 1 is under offer and today I showed another in Calahonda to 2 clients, one set came to the auction, the other saw the catalogue and is very interested. I have a third set of people to view the same property next week and there is a high change I will accept an offer on it.
If they all accept, then 4 out of the 6 lots will have sold - not bad for a poor market! But then again I have far more buyers than sellers selling at realistic prices.
Having lived here for over 12 years and haveing been involved with Spain for an awful lot longer than that, I do have a good understanding of where prices should be.
Unfortunately the greed over the last 15 years has bought us to where we are now and with such a massive oversupply of units on the costas it will take years for the balance to redress itself.
This, whilst in many cases being a mirror image of the late 80 and early 90s UK property market, will not resurrect in the same way. Why? because there is no basic industry here. The labour laws are so in favour of the employee that large companies who looked here in the early 80s such as Ford decided against setting up factories here. Oh how different it would have been to have true work on the coast, not the service industry we see. The service industry thrives on other peoples money, from the cleaners of property right up to the cosmetic surgeons - then newest growth industry on the coast here in Marbella!
The service industry was the first to crumble in the UK 90s and it is going the same way here - it is a natural cull but with it goes the underpinning of money paid in rentals, to restaurants, to international schools, etc.
The effect is what we see now and no amount of bleating will change things. The negative press with regards to the illegal builds and dodgy lawyers is only a small part of the problem, the main one is the oversupply and overinflated prices. And the sooner it is out in the open an taken to task, the sooner confidence will return in the market.
It is telling that 1 year ago exactly (I check all my facts and figures) I had under 3200 individual people looking at our website. I would have had around 100 plus emails and the phones did not stop all day long. We toook on units and showed loads of property with an average of 2 sales a week. Now I get nearly 6000 people looking at the web, only 20% of the same amount of emails, much much fewer calls less staff but the same sales! Why - cos the speculative timewasters are not here now, scared off and I am dealing with sensible smart buyers who will always buy in Spain.
It will take years for the thousands and thousands of 2 bed apartments to be bought - after all how many retired people are really going to come here and live in the hills miles away from anywhere and anything? How can these places be rented out to holidaymakers? When many ex-holidaymakers have bought their own place, why whould they rent someone elses??
Who are the main buyers now? The Spanish - luckily they have money ad confidence in their own market but again they know what the prices should be!
So. a much much more complex issue that can possibly be addressed in a half hour programme, but then I guess the reality is that no one really wants to face the true reality of the market.
Us small guys will be okay over time - the larger agents will have to pare down and bring their costs back instead of increasing their commissions which is what they seem to be doing - oh and one of the reasons they have berated the programme and what I do is that they are trying to create a monopoly in my view - ie if you want to buy in Spain then you MUST pay their prices!
Not helpful for their owners who under whatever circumstances may HAVE to sell fast.
So. off my soapbox now, no doubt my comments will create slanging comments from others but there you go - I was never one to raise my head above the parapit wall and not expect to get it shot at!
Have a great evening everyone - I for one will be.