Arguing about all sorts: the third year of our Spanish adventure

When we first bought the casa, I had all kinds of plans regarding how I wanted it to look. Every month I'd buy the magazine ‘Casa y Campo,’ and I dreamt of rustic furniture, putting in false beams, painting everything cobalt and terracotta, with flowers everywhere, vegetables growing at the back and a shaded ping-pong area at the back (to appeal to holiday-makers). Over the years, the house could certainly have featured in the magazine - some French holiday makers said it had a lot of soul, and everyone who went there thought it was beautiful. However that first year we couldn't afford to be perfectionists. We had the walls painted white; that would do - it was what the Spaniards did anyway. We would have to wait until the next year to bring the alegria of beautiful blues, yellows and reds and to trawl rastros to find old wooden tables and chairs, throws  and paintings which made it a really special home.
Luckily for us, I was good at time management and 100% determined to get the house up and running to let that summer. There was no way I was going to forego a summer's worth of bookings through the lack of a swimming pool, which was the final job that needed to be done. So as soon as the inside of the casa was finished and they builders had rendered the exterior, I managed to persuade Benji not to desert us – he was talking about another job he had to go to and suggesting they install the pool in the autumn. Adrian didn't care, but I did.
'No. We would lose a lot of money that way, Benjamin,' I pleaded. 'Por favor, do us this favour. You know you don't want to leave us yet,' etc. etc. 'Please stay on and do the pool straight away.'
My charm offensive worked and he agreed to stay for the month of June, excavate and build a swimming pool, set up the pump and finish the patio around it. The only annoying thing was that we’d ordered some posh border tiles, to give the pool the wow factor and paid a 50 euros deposit, only to be told that they would now take six weeks to be ready – too late, as we had to get on with finishing the pool. When we asked for the deposit back, they simply refused. It didn't matter that they'd told us it would take two weeks and then added a delay of six weeks. There was nothing for it. We had to forget about the 50 euros and settle for a contrasting tile we could get hold of to act as a border. In business you can't always be a perfectionist.
We also had to trust Benjamin to do the finishing touches after we left for the UK around the 20th of June, as by then we had taken bookings from mid-July. Simon and Charlotte would check it was all done and that it was clean and tidy before the first tourists arrived. We'd also instructed a local woman to do the cleaning and handovers and got a young neighbour to maintain the pool.
By accomplishing this, we were able to rent the house for the peak months that year, bringing in more or less what it had cost to install the pool. 

To see our current properties for rent take a look at the following. There is plenty of availability from September onwards at discounted rates: 

http://www.homeaway.co.uk/p86636

And also another of our completed projects:

http://www.homeaway.co.uk/p475271

At this point the property market in Spain was still riding high and many British settlers had plans to renovate houses and let them out to tourists. It was already becoming clear that the market was getting swamped and supply was outstripping demand. 
My friend Jenny's husband, David, mentioned that some friends of his were going to follow this blueprint and were in the process of selling their family home in Britain. The innovative plan was to buy two houses close together, live in one and rent the other one out to holiday-makers.
'Tell him not to do it!' I advised David.  I knew that the current holiday-home owners in Adreimal, where they intended to buy, were struggling to rent out their houses. The people whose houses didn't have a pool - and there were a few - couldn't get anyone at all to book. Even with a pool they would be lucky to get six or seven weeks of bookings in the summer and nothing the rest of the time.
I was persistent:
'Tell them they' ll never earn enough to live on. What they should do is use half of the proceeds of their house sale on deposits on houses in Wales.' (they came from a town I knew well)
For £90,000 they could put down six 15% deposits on houses costing £100,000 each (they’d also need a bit extra for legal fees, initial maintenance, furniture and so on). But I explained how they would then get a regular income from the difference between the mortgage and the rent. 
David promised to relay this message to his friends.
Sure enough, a year later they arrived in Adreimal and it turned out they'd followed our advice to the letter. 
'Ah yes, David mentioned you to us. He said you came from Wales too,' the man said the first time we met him in a cafe one morning. 
There was no word of acknowledgement or appreciation of our advice; advice which was to eventually make 100s of thousands of pounds and which prevented them from experiencing financial ruin and penury as they would have done had they stuck to their plan.
A bottle of wine wouldn’t have gone amiss. 
A few years later we met Jenny for coffee in Adreimal and they were there too. Adrian went to get the coffees.
'I'll get Jenny's' he whispered to me, 'but I'm not bloody getting theirs!'
I always found that situation really tricky - when you wanted to buy your friends' drinks but you didn't want to get them for the rest of the party. But it stuck in our craw that they had been so ungrateful. We didn't ask for much - a thank you and a bottle of wine or a cup of coffee...
'The rentals are going really well,' the man said at one point.  'We've done really well out of these interest rates. We've got ten houses now and that's bringing in thousands every month. And what with the capital appreciation, I've been pleased that our plans have worked out so well.'
Some people just can’t do it; maybe they like to always have the credit for their successes.
I’d noticed the same pattern in the past; I advised one friend to get rid of the second car in the family and I pointed out how she could share lifts with her husband some days and on others he could cycle to work to keep fit, because he was interested in that. She categorically refused and argued that the second car cost them peanuts to run. I pointed out that it cost a minimum of £400 per month, with the cost of depreciation, tax, insurance, MOTs, repairs and fuel, but she would not have it. When, a few months later I discovered that she had got rid of the second car, I said, ‘Oh, you took my advice then?’ to which she replied, ‘No, I was going to do it anyway.’

To see our current properties for rent take a look at. There is still one week available in the second property during the summer holidays (10th to 18th August) and plenty of availability from September onwards: 

http://www.homeaway.co.uk/p86636

And also another of our completed projects:

http://www.homeaway.co.uk/p475271