Estate agents

[Gemstone]

Maybe this is not the right time for me to be selling my house in these terrible times, but would love to hear of anybody's experience with selling, which estate agent and whatever you would recommend, many thanks.

[denandrose]

Hi Gemstone,
We  sold our 2 bed apartment In April 2019 through Victoria Immobilaria on Altomar 2.  It took just 4 weeks to sell it from putting it on the market to accepting the offer.
They were excellent. They took brilliant photos, then we had 4 viewers in the 1st week , one of them bought at the full asking price, we did have 2 bids and accepted the 1st one.
Their fees are similar to others. It was not  a holiday home and we did make it very presentable for photos and viewings.
Would highly recommend.

[wilson]

In 25 years of owning and selling property in Spain i dont think theres ever been an ideal time. The market fluctuates like a roller coaster. I think the price realised just needs to be what your happy with, hindsight is a wonderful thing, shall i hang on or sell now. Ive also used Victoria and found them very good. There are a couple i wouldn't touch with a barge pole as the only priority is they're commission not achieving the best price for the client.

[John H]

I've got to say I'm 100% with wilson, its two years since we sold ours and couldn't believe that attitude of the agents.

We went down to one of the agents in the commercial centre and told them we wanted to sell......we described the property and they said advertise at X to achieve Y.....I know we all value our own property and I told them I thought their figures were on the low side.
They agreed to come to the house straight away and take a look.....they loved it, the first thing they said was “you can tell that this has never been rented out” “it’s immaculate”......they told us about the condition of some of the properties they were marketing, pretty grim!
So I asked in view of their visit what would the figures be......I was told as quoted in the office because it’s only the cheap ones that are getting “hits” on the website and being sold!!

I thanked them for their visit, jumped in my car and returned to the commercial centre to see agent number 2.......I think they’d attended the same course on how to be an estate agent, their indications of advertise at X and achieve Y were exactly the same.....again I invited them to come and look.....within half an hour they were at the house with the same glowing adjectives....again I asked in view of their visit what would the X & Y be......as I now expected the figures were the same.

I thought I’ll give it one more go and visited Novadesta........he wouldn’t give me any figures until he’d researched and visited the property which he couldn’t do until the following day.
He arrived at the time agreed and the first thing he did was tell us what a special property we had, on the whole of the Novamar phases there were only 10 like it and what a brilliant aspect it had.....we knew we’d bought it for a good reason!!
He was extremely complementary on his internal inspection......we than came to the crunch....advertise at X to achieve Y......Y was 10% higher than the other agents had said.
We liked his enthusiasm, the research he had done and importantly we thought this guy will sell the house.

We agreed a fee.....it was less than the commercial centre guys said they wanted....I must admit I hadn't attempted to negotiate the price that the guys at the commercial centre wanted .....and signed the paperwork.
After 6 months and no sale we thought that possibly the guys at the commercial centre had got it right re the price and we had a chat to Novadesta re lowering the price, they told us in no uncertain terms not to....”it’s a great house waiting for the right buyer”.

I’m pleased to say a short while after they found the right buyers and the sale was completed very quickly.

Subsequently two of our friends knowing I’m a bit of a “nerd” and knowing how I research things listed their houses with Novadesta, both have sold very quickly.

I've no idea how Novadesta are performing at the moment.

We did think about listing with more than on agent in order to get maximum exposure, however seeing as we wern't resident at the property we only wanted one company doing viewings.....only one company to have a word with then if we found that the property hadnt been secured correctly after viewings.

We also asked our solicitor, who we had used for 16 years or so to handle the sale for us, despite horror stories others had told me about how long it can take to get your 3% retention back from the tax authoroties ours was paid back into our UK bank account direct from the Agencia Tributaria around 6 months after the completion of the sale.

If you are selling up and leaving Spain and need to transfer the proceeds of your sale back to the UK do not let your Spanish Bank or UK Bank do this without comparing the same transfer with someone like Transferwise, we used Transferwise and realised over £2000 more than our Spanish or UK bank would have delivered to our UK account.

Hope all goes well for you Gemstone

Just to add, a friend sold in early Summer and achieved full asking price.

Regards all

John

[Chris C]

Another vote here for Victoria. Fiona is very helpful and I think she was one of the first agents in the area back in the mid ‘80s

[Kjetil]

With out a doubt Victoria. They are super qualified, have very good service. I once payed to much for a service when buying from them (that I never would have figured out by myself), and when everything was finished i visited the office and I got an envelope with almost 1000 euro.
We use them for taxes, key holding etc, and they are the best in my opinion. They always go the extra mile for the customers.

[Blue and white stripes]

A friend sold via Levington Realty and was very impressed. They helped the sale through despite various difficult buyers. Many years ago I dealt with James Mackintosh at OPI who was excellent.

[ian-steele]

beats PURPLE BRICKS

[Gemstone]

Many thanks to all of you replied, most interesting and appreciated.

[DaveG]

It may be a good time....................El Pais today

https://english.elpais.com/economy_and_business/2020-12-15/the-coronavirus-exodus-spaniards-looking-to-buy-larger-homes-outside-the-city.html

[Tony Gillam]

Not that many of the houses in GA would fit the criteria plus, unless permanent remote working is feasible, its catchment cities are only Elche and Alicante and perhaps, moving down the scale, Santa Pola. Notwithstanding the more recent price rises, I'm glad I sold when I did.

[wilson]

I would disagree Tony, cant speak for all of GA but on my street of about 50 properties in 2004 approx 90% were UK/Eire owners. I would say there are now about 10 of us left, all of our immediate neighbours are Spanish who have moved out of  the city tower blocks and bought a nice house near the coast but still within easy reach of work, just look at the growth of schools in GA catering for new resident families. I think 
this reflects the reduction in expat retirees owning property that led to a lot of price instability.

[masmu]

I know I am resurrecting an old post but thought our very recent experience in selling in GA might be useful to someone.

We bought our casa in lower Monte y Mar, from new, in 2006 and had years of lovely long holidays there.  We had always planned on putting the house on the market in 2021 but for various reasons, including the uncertainty of future travel, decided to bring that forward and went out there last October for 10 days (our first trip back for 12 months) to set the wheels in motion, arrange carriers to bring back some of our personal things, arrange to sell our car, and prepare the house for marketing (lots of trips to the bins and charity shop).  It transpired that we picked the 'perfect window' to get out there.  When we flew home in early November it was to a 14 day quarantine and then joining everyone else in the UK in Lockdown Number 2.

Everything was then handed over to Rosa Delia Sanchez, Inmuebles Global Europa. A local Spanish Estate Agent.

We were not really expecting anything to happen quickly because of the limited viewer market (little international travel, internal borders closed). However there was an encouraging number of viewings and some offers - below the asking price, which Rosa advised us not to accept. 

Early this month we got the offer we had been waiting for and yesterday, 3 weeks from that offer, the sale was completed.

Rosas service was amazing. She is knowledgeable, professional, thorough, trustworthy and honest, working in our (the sellers) best interest at all times, and keeping us up to date every step of the way.  Very important at all times but even more so when we were here in the UK, 1500 miles away. Yesterday she was WhatsApping as things happened at the Notary, even sending us a photo of the buyers holding the keys to their new home.

We just can't thank her enough for everything she has done and would have absolutely no hesitation in recommending her to anyone wanting to sell or buy in the area.

[Blue and white stripes]

Thanks - I have recorded her details for future reference.

[chris and jackie]

Mamsu , how did you get the signing of documents completed if you were unable to return to Spain?