Advertising with or without calidonas help?

I can see the subject of selling getting bigger and bigger on this forum and think to myself is this going to have a negative impact on all of us? Is it going to lead to a barrage of apartments going up for sale and nobody going to be a winner, the obvious effect will be that the prices will get cheaper and cheaper the more that hit the market.

There is no denying that these are worrying times I am no big business man and purchased when using the equity in our house seemed a good idea, I also do not have an endless pot of money.  The point is, is an influx of resales going on the market in the best interest of all concerned i.e people selling and people staying, the more "for sale" signs up the less chance anyone has of selling and the more you will need to reduce the amount,also the bigger the impact on potential rentals and the complex becoming a ghost town nobody wants to go to a resort surronded by "for sale" signs so everyone is a loser.

Calidona lets face it have done nothing to help any of us, after they have sold a  property to you they dont want to know, reading all the threads it seems to be a constant battle with them over the slightest thing, it was for us. Yes we have dealt with the odd employee who has been helpful, In our experience Florina, Andrea and Roman but they can only do so much. I am sure that if this development had been in the UK the office of fair trading would have been swamped with calls regarding the after sales care. Apart from the ongoing lies regarding completion dates and start dates for phases and the commercial area I have not seen a single piece of advertising (in the UK at least) for Roda. Bill boards in Los Alcazares and promotional videos for potential buyers are of no use to me. We are on phase 2 and have been renting out for 12 months it is even more annoying for the people on phase1 who have been up and running for longer.

However all said and done one thing we all seem to agree with is the fact that everyone still believes in this development, it seems even the people selling up dont really want to get rid, every time you visit you understand why (at least the muppets at calidona got somthing right.)  We had approx 20 rentals last year (our 1st year of advertising) which I thought was OK but if Calidona had done some major advertising, by now I am sure this would have improved. This without a doubt would be beneficial to owners AND Calidona,  the benefits of some sort of advertising campaign would really kick start this complex and it leaves me gobsmacked that the people in charge have not addressed this yet (like I said in my view run by muppets.) 

Having read Lisa Monas thread on Corvera it makes you realise that there is strength in numbers. We advertise on various websites and the average yearly cost on each site is approx £70. Although I have no knowledge of the advertising world I would be interested to know, if enough owners were interested how possible a task it would be to have some sort of advertisment campaign ourselves? Are there any owners out there involved in this business? £70 or £100 is a small amount but multiplied by enough people becomes serious money. I realise this is Calidonas job but will it ever materialize and I think under the current climate drastic measures are needed for all concerned. Do you try and jump ship now after all your hard work and lose out or think of ways to make what we all know to be a lovely top class development succeed. One thing is for sure in a couple of years when the economic climate has stabilized you will be reading about Roda wishing you still had a property there.

Lets try and bombard this site with positives not negatives. Any other ideas?

Cheers Rory.

Great contribution Rory thank you. I have been thinking about how to advertise to EURO customers bearing in mind the current ER in an effort to boost the rental income.

I work for an international company and have colleagues in most EURO countries. I am asking them how best to reach golfers and young families in their area and they have come back with some good ideas, websites, magazines for adverts etc. I am currently putting together costs. If there is anyway of sharing these costs and benefits with a group of renters I would be pleased to do so.

We are also on Phase 2, over there in Jan and March, just PM me if you are there at the same time and interested in having a chat.

Rory and Vercol,

Well said, you both seem to have summed up everything I've been thinking for a while. 

These are worrying times, but let's face it, we can't all jump ship even if we wanted to - the demand simply isn't there, although I don't blame anyone for trying.  I think some sort of combined effort by owners would be a great idea, of course, it would be helpful if Calidona had provided the facilities they had promised but we have to deal with what we have and some sort of collective advertising and marketing campaign would help in raising Roda's profile.  I know there are some websites out there which are actively promoting Roda but the more marketing the better.   

We would be very keen to join in some sort of collective advertising and marketing campaign, we're out at Roda for the AGM in March, would it be possible to discuss this then?

Jane

At last!!  Postings with the offer of helping others.  This is what this forum is about!!

I, myself am not bothered with renting out my apartment at the moment but I understand why some people do.  It would be a boring old world if we were all the same.

The one thing which I am sure we all have in common is the will for this resort to survive.  I love Roda, the journey has not been without problems but there is nowhere else I'd rather be.

For those of you who wish to advertise, I can only advise to bombard Calidona for the facilities we were promised when we bought.  If we did have restaurants, shops, tennis courts then the resort would live up to its reputation.

There has been a lot of speculation on this forum, especially from "those in the know" about facilities, but I have seen no sign of any of them.  I know we have entered a very difficult economic climate but it would be great if we seen some effort made by Calidona to at least brighten up the gloom.

Just my thoughts.

I've been keeping in touch with progress at Roda and your postings and if it's of any help to any Roda owners I would just maybe ask if you couldn't do what we have started through the Corvera owners.

It's saddens me to see you are ahead of us and in many ways showing us the faults and problems in advance.

130 owners joined together on Saturday for a meeting and I feel so much better now, meeting up with other owners, exchanging information and ideas.

I would be more than willing to help anyone that would like to start a private Roda owners group.

Best Wishes

Lisa

As you know Lisa, through our private correspondence, we have had the same owners meetings happening over the last 2 years for UGR La Tercia owners - in fact I think we were the first to do this - we have had now had 3 owners meet ups in the UK coverning all sorts of subjects to do with the buying process and I know that these groups have been well received..  It has been a great success as far as we are concerned and  is ongoing.   

As an owner on Phase 1 at Roda Golf, we, along with many others,  have truly been through the loop with purchasing and setting up properties and dealing with Calidona.   I know that good relationships between various owners have now been forged, especially on the Phases that have been completed and released and I personally have received terrific support from other owners and hope that I have reciprocated when appropriate.  So, I guess our input is invaluable to whatever you are proposing.  However, we do have a Phase 1 and 2 Comunidad and the President and Administrators seem to cope very ably with the day to day running of these phases.

Are you an owner on Roda as well or do you just want to replicate what you have done for Corvera owners or are you starting up a new forum for golf developments in the region?

With best wishes

Sandra

Vercol, Jane/John,

I agree any amount of advertising has to be better than what we have now, I agree Kroda, about bombarding Calidona with E mails to provide the facilities we were promised but as we are well aware they do things at their own pace.

Lisa, I am not quite sure what you are saying in your reply, are you offering to take this on board if there is enough interest? You mention doing it through the Corvera owners? I realise that you have been contacted by many owners at Corvera and to add to these numbers with Roda owners would hold even more weight, but our issues would be different to yours and feel that we may end up pulling in different directions. This also may be a non starter because there has been many views but not many replies on the thread so it is difficult to judge what sort of interest there would be. I was just trying to get some ideas thrown into the pot and bring a bit of positivity to the forum.

Rory.

I would like to connect with anyone that's started a Roda owners club or group so that Corvera owners and Roda owners can swap information and experiences.

I agree our situation is different in that no stage at Corvera has completed yet but I think if there's a way to connect we may help each other from a support point of view. For instance if a Roda owners meeting is held in the UK it might be of some benefit for a Corvera owner to attend and vice versa.

It's the same developer and I think some of our challenges may be the same.

What do you think. It seems Sandra may have some ideas?

Lisa

This year is going to be more difficult for rentals with the euro rate etc and I agree with the comments regarding RODA´s own advertising as the only thing the promote locally is the golf course

If would be interesting to know how the people that are using RODA´s own rental scheme are doing and how that is being promoted

I agree that the resort is good, there are exellent facilities locally providing you have a car and that owners are a lot better off compared to some other resorts like Polaris World HR that is out in the  stcoks with very limited facilities

The biggest issue with having a group of people jointly promoting rentals is agreeing the rates because a distressed owner will get desperate and heavily and even if you check on sites now you´ll find the prices to rent the same type of properties, for the same weeks, vary from 140 pounds to 350 pounds per week.

People discount in the low season when unfortunately your costs are higher as people use the central heating and AC fo heat so remember this

It normally takes about 18 months to build up a rental reputation, returning clients and referials, you need to cost this in when you buy a property, and you have to treat it as a job. There are some techniques to improve your position on sites with search engines plus some good sites where it is free to advertise

Finally make sure that you have a tight control on your costs