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Review of Sell Your Spanish Property

admin — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:14:59 +0000

There’s a great review of How To Sell Your Spanish Property in a Crisis on one of my favourite sites, Justin from Eye On Spain. He makes a great point, he says: “Whatever the reason for you wanting to sell your property in Spain, you really couldn’t have picked a worse time to do so, although it’s probably through need more than want.”

He goes on to add that Nick’s book is “Brilliant”. Well we thought so!

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How To Work Out What To Sell Your Spanish Property For…

admin — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:41:11 +0000

One of the most difficult things in times of fast market changes (ie house price decreases) is how to decide what to offer our property for. Price too high and you won’t get any interest. Too low and you could be giving money away. So how do you decide?

Two experts have ideas for how.

Martin Dell from Kyero.com provides this methodology, which looks sound for working out how much to buy a house for. Well you can use that same logic for selling your house. Take a look at his article ”
What Will You Pay for a Spanish Property in 2010?

Then there’s Nick Snelling, author of

How to Sell Your Spanish Property in a Crisis says: “Certainly, facing reality is a problem for many sellers in a downward market. All too often sellers over-value their properties and are then slow to reduce the price. Lethally, if you do this, you will find that you are always behind events leading you to keep adjusting your price too late for your property ever to be an attractive purchase.”

He offers 64 Golden Rules in his book to help you sell your property for what it’s worth and quickly!

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Spanish Crisis in a Nutshell

admin — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:13:22 +0000

There’s a great post on the spaineconomy blog, run by Edward ‘the bonobo’ a Catalan economist of British extraction based in Barcelona, which explains the current economic situation.

http://spaineconomy.blogspot.com/2008/11/spanish-crisis-in-nutshell.html

He makes 3 points to explain why the Spanish crisis has occurred:

1. Sudden Stop In Bank Lending In August

2. Spain’s Current Account Deficit Reducing Slightly

3. Negative Interest Rates For Far Too Long

What do you think? Tell us beow in the comments section…

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Real data for Spanish Property Prices?

admin — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 13:09:02 +0000

There’s a great post from Martin Dell at Kyero about getting accurate information on Spanish property prices, have a read here:

http://news.kyero.com/2009/2/19/finally-realistic-spanish-property-trends

The highlights for those who want it quick:

* Data on house sales in Spain has always been sketchy (or downright misleading – my emphasis)

* Tinsa, a leading company of property assessors, has compiled their own data, taking into account real figures

* Their index of property prices shows that in Jan 2009 we are at the same level as Jan 2006

* Using the data from Tinsa we will be able to see when the property economy starts to improve

So, what do you think of the data, does it look accurate to you?

Debs

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Struggling To Sell? This Book Might Help…

admin — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 14:45:57 +0000

We’re giving 5 review copies away to readers of this blog. So read on to find out more…

As you may know, as well as operating this website we also run a publishing business. Well, Nick Snelling (one of our authors with an impressive track record in Spanish real estate) approached us with a book proposal that couldn’t have come at a better time. We immediately agreed to publish him and have worked as quickly as we can to get this book in print and available to people who need it.

You can read the impressive endorsements from the press and industry experts by clicking to enlare the cover. The book went to print just over a week ago and will be available to buy via Amazon and all good bookshops within the next few days. Here are the Amazon links…

However, if you can’t wait that the few days for the print book to arrive you can download an ebook here…

Download the ebook

Now, I also mentioned we’re giving away 5 review copies of this book to the first 5 people to contact us using the “contact” link at the top of this website. So, if you want one, all you need to do is agree to write a review for the book on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com as soon as you’ve read it.

Get in touch now – as we’re expecting these 5 freebies to go quickly…

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Is Your Spanish Home Safe When You're Not There?

admin — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:31:34 +0000

Does your insurance cover your home in Spain when left unoccupied?

As the sun sets on the holiday letting season, it is likely that you are preparing to lock up and leave your Spanish holiday home during the winter months. Before you do, holiday home insurance experts www.schofields.ltd.uk are advising property owners to check their insurance and make sure you understand what is covered and what is excluded when your property is left empty.

What are the policy exclusions relating to unoccupancy? because many so-called holiday home insurance policies place difficult and unreasonable restrictions on cover when your home is left empty. If you claim and then discover you aren’t covered it will be both distressing and expensive, so verify any unoccupancy exclusions now.

It is important that you check your insurance obligations with regards to:

Maintaining a minimum temperature throughout the winter

Frozen pipes and bursts often occur when the heating is switched off completely when owners lock up and leave their Spanish homes. To prevent frozen pipes and bursts some insurers insist that homes are heated to a certain minimum temperature during the winter months.

If there are heating terms in your policy it is likely that you would be uninsured if your heating failed due to a power cut or boiler malfunction, so try to avoid policies that include them.

Draining the water/heating system when you leave your holiday home unoccupied

Some insurance policies will insist that when your property is left empty for a given period (often in excess of 30 days) you will need to turn off the water and drain down the heating system. It can be difficult to ensure complete compliance, especially during unexpected cold snaps when you are hundreds of miles from your home in Spain. Failure to comply will leave you financially responsible following water damage.

What are the security and inspection requirements?

Some insurance policies will exclude theft claims unless door/window locks meet a specified standard and shutters/grilles are installed and used during unoccupancy. Also, some insurers will not settle a claim unless there is physical evidence of a break-in, so be very careful not to leave windows unlocked on departure.

Does your insurance policy require weekly inspections? This can be unfeasible if your second home is hundreds of miles away or for those without a housekeeper.

Check the small print
Certain restrictions can leave your holiday home uninsured when it’s left unoccupied. To avoid having your claim declined due to some clause in the small print that you were unaware of, take some time to review your holiday home insurance small print.

Schofields www.schofields.ltd.uk provide holiday home insurance in Spain that provides full cover during unoccupied periods or when let.

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Dangers Of Having Money In The Banks Right Now

admin — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 18:04:29 +0000

You don’t need an expert to tell you that right now is an

absolutely incredible time to buy property, housing prices

are dropping every day and its reported we’re still not at

the bottom of the slump, average house prices could still

drop a further 10% in January alone, which means it will be

even better next year. The question is now not why to

invest, but how!?

Andy Shaw is a self-made property millionaire and I’ve enjoyed reading his book and this report, so I thought I’d share it with you too. He often says most of success is down to our psychology

and many people who know they should be investing in

property are having a tough time getting started and keeping

a positive mindset amidst a very severe economic downturn.

With the clouding negative influence of the mass media’s

hysteria and often irrational fear from friends, family,

colleagues and your mates down the pub, its highly

understandable why most people easily fall into paralysis

when it comes to investing.

During uncertain times people turn to the experts for

guidance and leadership, and this is where we can help…

Andy has produced a special 22 page report which was

intended for paying members of his website.

The report is a response to the current market conditions

and gives invaluable insights exactly what’s happening, the

impact on property and what this means for the property

investor. It also gives some insight to normal people like us!

If you’d like to see if you should have your money in the bank -

or somewhere else, then click here an have a good read.

I’d love to know what you think of it and if you want me to find

other reports like this? Let me know in the comments section below.

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Lessons learned when renting out a Spanish property – Part 2

admin — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 09:56:12 +0000

Part 1 of this article on Renting Your Spanish Property covered understanding your costs and what fixtures and fittings to include…

Key holding and property management

The first consideration should be finding a property management company, especially during the early phases to supervise furniture deliveries and access for tradesmen. Some of the most successful people that rent do their own marketing, through friends and family and the volume property rental sites and only use a local service provider for cleaning, maintenance, meet and greet and key holding. Meet and greet is potentially the area where most people fail as a friendly and informative meet, with good information provided, can start a happy holiday experience and try to provide a basic pack containing tea coffee milk water etc.

When selecting a property management company you should see a number of providers and find out, how long they have operated, are they registered legal business, with the necessary insurance cover and you should check their references, perhaps visiting a property they already manage. Ask how many properties they manage, with how many staff. Problems normally occur with the smaller providers at peak time as 2 people can easily manage 100 properties in November but what about a peak Saturday in July. They should provide a contract which explain the service level ALL of the charges and include out of hours cover, ideally with a landline and mobile telephone numbers.
Do they promote your property for rental as an extra, or as part of the standard service? If yes via what media, get examples of their marketing and costs but check that it is not an exclusive contract in which you have to block out weeks and pay them if you obtain your own rentals.
There are some organisations now promoting guaranteed rentals income, or refunds against fees or if they fail to find you rentals and may start by giving you a first booking. Using the old adage there is no such thing as a free lunch, check their terms very carefully, check how long they have been established, as they will always require you to pay for their services in advance.
If you have a garden maintenance is key, is this included in the management fee, is it maintained by the urbanisation, is the pool maintained on a contract and are the cleaners qualified and insured.

Marketing your property

There are hundreds of websites promoting thousands of rentals just do a Google search to see how many. In our own property we have succeeded in renting via some of the larger rental sites, where they charge an annual fee, typically £140 and some success from the larger sites that charge a percentage of the rental fee. The Our Property Guide service includes more tips and details of the better sites and how to get more visibility on the search engines. These sites work because they spend thousands of pounds on getting their site on search engines ranking pages on Google and Yahoo Again do your own research, talk to people already renting and look at similar properties, look at their calendars, descriptions, and photographs and compare them with your offering. Most sites include statistics on the number of people looking at the property, check these regularly and remember that the key booking time is immediately after Christmas.
Invest in your own website, with your own unique domain name that you own for example apartment-in-villamartin.com, as this is essential for local and network marketing through friends and family. This isn´t expensive as there are lots of template providers with easy to use tools DIY cost £35 or developers that will charge around £100 for a site with area details and a calendar and Our Property Guide provides a lot more information on this. You can refer people to a site created on the main rental site but the issue with this is they reach a site on which they can immediately find details of competitive properties and immediately compare price.
Just having your own website will not generate bookings as you have to get people to look at your site so unless you are willing to spend on promoting the property to search engines, you have to promote your own site and there are some low cost ways to achieve this .Promote your website by using advertising in the local papers, notice boards in clubs and supermarkets. Promote through your work colleagues and friends and family and get some cards and a simple information sheet printed up with the web address on.
It is important to use information on the local area on your website and promotional material ideally take your own photographs including the pool, beach, golf course and even restaurants and local shopping ideally when there´s sunshine and a blue sky and when they are not too busy.
You need an informative welcome guide as this will enable the renter to get the most from their holiday from day 1. Happy renters will return and tell their friends and this is a vital part of marketing the property. Just some of the information in this guide should include details of the property, terms and conditions of the rental, information on the resort and the area. , Details of the local shopping areas, markets bars and restaurants and ideas for days out and this information should be kept up to date. What can the children do if it´s raining and what to do if section including tips on security and emergency contact number. Last of all a facility where they can provide feedback as good feedback is important to future renters.
To get more information on welcome guide ,to get more tips on renting your property, plus find out how The Our Property Guide Service can help you get more renters.

Visit our website www.ourpropertyguide.com E-mail info@ourpropertyguide.com

Roy Howitt, Managing Director, InspectaHomeSpain

Website www.inspectahomespain.com

Forum www.thesnaggingforum.com

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Spanish Interannual Growth of 0.9%

admin — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:28:28 +0000

The Spanish economy registered an interannual growth of 0.9% in the third quarter of 2008, nine tenths less than in the previous quarter. Data from the INE.es
- The quarter-on-quarter growth stands at –0.2%, three tenths less than the growth registered last quarter.
- The annual and quarter-on-quarter growth data coincides with that published in the Advance Estimate for the Quarterly National Accounts published last 14 November.

- National demand slows its contribution to aggregate growth by 1.4 points (from 1.5 to 0.1 points), while foreign demand increases its quarterly GDP contribution five tenths (from -0.3 to 0.8 points).
- Employment in the economy decreases at a 0.8% rate, indicating a net reduction of 145,7 thousand full-time jobs in one year.
- Unit labour costs decrease four tenths, down to 3.6%, standing two tenths above that of the GDP deflator.

Putting this into the European context, European Union GDP slowed its growth from 1.7% to 0.8%, as a consequence of the common slowdown of its main economies. Among these, of particular note are, on the one hand, Holland (from 3.0% to 1.8%) and Austria (from 2.0% to 1.5%), experienced growth above the Spanish GDP, whilst Germany (from 1.9% to 0.8%), France (from 1.2% to 0.6%), the United Kingdom (from 1.5% to 0.3%) and Italy (from -0.2% to –0.9%) experienced growth below this. In the case of the Euro zone, aggregate growth decreased from 1.4% to 0.7%.

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Other Useful Sites

admin — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:45:56 +0000

Our contributors are great people take a look at what they can do for you:

Martine Cherry – from www.dreamspain.net – Martine can help you buy or sell a home in Murcia in Spain

Roy Howitt – from www.thesnaggingforum.com – Roy can help you with snagging for your new home – he has plenty of useful reports over at his site

Yolanda Solo – from www.spainsurvivalmanual.com and the author of Spain: The Expat Survival Guide

If you want to become a contributor then get in touch.

Some interesting sites I’ve found over the weeks:

www.propertyjedi.com

www.loveproperty.org

www.4wallsandaceiling.com

If you have a business that focuses on selling / buying property then post your site in the comments below.

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