Local agents

I thought it had till this morning when someone came over and said 'werent you the one off the telly!' Was well chuffed til she started going on about wish you were here holidays then I realized she thought Judith Charmers..................

Could have been worse....Eric Bristow springs to mind.........................

You CANT have detoxed that quickly, impossible unless you only had 2 beers! 

So.. is it nearly all agents that have responded to this thread? lol

Not many other views.

Laury

Hi LAURYC,

I would take that as a positive and a negative.

The positive side of the fact that there are not many replies is that the majority of the people on the forum have joined because of problems they have had in purchasing property.

If there are not many people on here that are commenting about using the local agents then that probably shows that there are not that many people on here that have been treated badly by us independent guys.

In essence most people who use the local agents should not need to comment as they should have received great service.

On the negative side,it may show that the majority of people that purchase in Spain use the big boys and therefore have little or no interest in this thread as there time is taken up with the problems caused by them.

I take the last point as a negative as because as a local agent we spend all our days listening to the problems caused by the big companies and trying to rectify the problems caused.

In this current climate the smaller agents are dissapearing faster than"a virgin on Prom Night".

Considering we have to work so much harder at creating a personal service and a greater awareness of the pitfalls i hope you agree that this will be a crying shame.

When you sit and watch the comments on here regarding "i went on an inspection trip and it was terrible with............................

And then the next thread is "i am going on an inspection trip with......................................(same company)

As someone that tries to give the best care and attention possible it is like rubbing sand in your eyes whilst reading this,and this goes for all the smaller agents that contribute on here for no gain.

Regards

Georgia

You raise some good points there Georgia... or should it be Georgio to avoid confusion?

It could be that my point about local agents has been proven which is excellent apart from the fact that people STILL book inspection visits with the big boys.

For some reason, the belief is that the big boys are more trustworthy just because they ARE big.

Well hello... that doesn't compute according to all the forums.

Our accountant has a property down Cabo Roig way and when I was asking him about it, he said it was easier to book an inspection trip with someone who could sort everything out easily.   (Rolly eyes here, bigtime).

Some people are very strange. They don't seem to heed the warnings.

Laury .......... with an "a" ending and not a "o".

Hi Laury,

I agree that it is easier to have everything done for you and not one agent would disagree that inspection trips are useful,most of the agents big and small do them,as do we.

The difference is that the larger agents are often tied into the bigger developments and as a rule will try to sell new where they get the most commision.

Without trying to advertise,our trips are paid for by you and that way you can dictate what you do if you have had enough one day,fair comment,if you want to look at resale fair comment,if you want to look at polaris,fair comment if you dont,fair comment,if you then do decide to buy we will refund the costs that way you are not pressured and we are not under pressure financially to sell our choice rather than yours.

Anyway without bleating on too much the choice is there and really if you make the choice then you have to live with the results.

You will have to have a word with Mr Bush regarding the spelling of my name it's the state in the USA  that my grandfather came from so not much i can do about that(although Georgio sounds quite sexy)

Regards

Georgia

Funnily enough it is the U.S. Georgia that always springs to mind when I see you.....  My brain goes off on a tangent singing "Geoooooooorgia? Geoooorgia"

I appreciate your point about inspection trips.

Our first trip to the Costa Blanca was with Parador and we asked for resales. Nearly ended up with Torre Alcantara first phase right next to a new flyover that was never in the pipeline to our knowledge.

In the two years since, we have done our own travel arrangements and arranged different days with different agents.

Each trip we ended up with the same bunch of agents and a different bunch of properties.  Really super people, the lot of them. Dunno how we missed you. I don't remember any in Guardamar but there again we always went through websites initially.

Laury

Is it just me ......has been known(!) ......but have just been reading on a different thread about fees for after sales service with one of the bigger co's (think it was Masa). They helped with bank a/cs etc & support through the process. We had all that with a local agent for free. Did I just get lucky?

We have free follow up too.

Our local agent is still checking our house for us on a regular basis to make sure the works are going okay. He is English but he actually works for a Spanish agent.

I think Parador mentioned £300 or something if we wanted them to keep an eye on the new builds ... or something like that..

Laury

Annie said: "We had all that with a local agent for free. Did I just get lucky?"

No, you got clever, by using a local agent. Of course, the service they provided to you was not free as such. The seller paid for it out of the commission that the agent made on the sale, which is why they charge more than UK agents, but also do more work for it. The big boys just charge both the seller and the buyer, and invariably do far less work than the local guys, and certainly with a far poorer attitude.

On other threads people have often asked questions about lawyer's fees when selling their property, which always baffles me, because there's basically nothing for a lawyer to do for a seller. I understand if you are not able to be present for the sale, you may need representation, but most of what you need to do can be done by the agent, since you are already paying him, and it will benefit his/her client anyway, to ensure for example the plus valia is paid etc. But again, the big boys are unlikely to lift a finger for you as a seller, so again, you're better off marketing your property with a local agent.

IMHO!

I think we got lucky by being introduced to a local agent in the first place Roberto & not getting involved with 'the big guys'. To be honest we couldn't have gone on any of their inspection visits as we had no option but to take our two children with us (no family back up at that time). The local agent we found didn't mind us bringing them  (think he found out to his vast relief however, that they are good kids LOL - brave man - could have been a nightmare for him!!). We ended up buying off plan (this is a couple of years ago) & have been as happy as pigs in the proverbial with our purchase .

Will look to buy something bigger in a few years & will try to find a good local agent to go through (probably Gillespie as he's in our area & gives good advice - thats if I can work out which shop he's in )

We used a local company found through the NAEA in the UK.,euro select estates they included all legal fees in the purchase of our new home and have become good friends I would highly recomend .They were even  there for us recently when our home got burgled at no cost!!

As ever Roberto,Spot on!

We consider all the running around ie;banks,solicitors,NIE,notary etc......... as part of the service so why charge for it.

Like you say if we have been paid by the seller within their fees you are in essence being paid twice for the same service.

The only thing i would quibble with is saying that agents charge more than in the UK, the fact that more and more good agents are charging the same rates now as their uk counterparts,our commision for resale is 2% and i know Rixxy and Gillespie charge about the same,so no big killings there just good honest service.

Times are changing and hopefully more people will come to realise this and head away from the big boys charging up to 18% to finance their latest yacht!!!!!!!!

Regards

Georgia

Wow! 2%??? How do they do it?! Until now Gillespie was my favourite estate agent, but I think you just joined him on the podium! Do you want to list a studio in Torremolinos, just in case one of your punters fancies heading south? I'll do the viewings, you just send the client. Unless of course you fancy a trip down here?

I heard a rumour recently that some English agent near Nerja was charging 30% commission!!! I don't really believe it, but you never know......

Hi All

We also went for a guy on his own when we bought after already been on a non productive big boy inspection trip. He LISTENED to what we were looking for and the area we wanted and so a sale was much easier for him than the inspection trip taking us to places we had absolutely no interest in at all. He kept in touch right the way through the long awaited completion and did a great job above and beyond the call. No extra charge. His reward? Obviously the recommendations he will get, especially from me, to others who are looking to buy. Now that's good business sense, if only the big boys could look at the big picture. Whoops am I giving them ideas now ??  

Hi Roberto,

We charge  the 2% commision for several reasons,firstly because it attracts more people to the shop and creates brand awareness,also we would rather selll 3 vilas at 2% than one at 6%,i realise that we have to do a lot more work for our money but in the end we have a bigger customer base and the more happy customers we have the more people they will tell(hopefully).

Abiout 65% of our business are referals and this helps us get through the sticky patches when the market turns.

It also helps the overall picture as it does not inflate prices and create a false economy as is happening at the moment.

Your place is a little far away for us but good luck with selling it.

The biggest commision level i have come across so far up here is 22% and that needless to say is one of the "big boys".

Candyfloss-love your Avatar,that is one of my favourite films.

Regards

Georgia

Hi Georgia,

We have a saying here too. 6% of nothing is nothing. Totally agree with you. The majority of ours is also referrals and good service.

BTW After a long day selling houses there's nothing like a night in with Danny Dyer

Sorry mates,

Danny Dyer is the georgeous guy in the film The Business, cracking film, all about marbella playboy scene and drug smuggling. You've got to watch it. He's also been in a lot of other films too. Is Harry On The Boat is another good one.

How about starting a thread on film reviews?