Is Now The Time to Buy or Sell ??

"If offering offer 50% of the advertised price and as sure as eggs is eggs dont buy new.'

Helpful if you could clarify/expand !

Most sellers will only be insulted if you offer 50% of the advertised price.  We sold a cortijo in 2008, when we had decided on what we thought was our very lowest price of 115,000 euros (it had previously been on for 180,000 at the peak).  Already by then, the market was dead.  When someone offered 105,000 euros, we thought 'what the hell' and sold it.  A few weeks earlier someone had offered 90,000.  We told her that if she wanted a house with land and a pool only 20 minutes' drive from the coast, her budget wasn't suited to it and that she needed to go further inland, where there would be something for her budget, probably without a pool, and with a more extreme climate.  Offering 50% of a massively discounted price will get you nowhere. As many buyers may have already halved their asking price, there is no way on earth they are going to accept what would be a quarter of what the value was estimated at at the peak.  We're back to the vultures trying to go in for the kill, but they're not very clever vultures. 

I am still considering buying in Spain but as well as working out if prices are at the bottom my other concern is the health of the management companies, is there a big problem with owners in financial difficulties not paying service charges?

 your peak price is academic and as long as you keep refering to it you'll always feel that you have lost out.

The way to look at your property is simply this:

The price you paid for it and its value now.

i.e. you paid 35000, I am selling it for 75000, I will make a profit of 40000 - costs.

The way your looking at it is the following: I paid 35000, It's peak price is 130000 but people are offering me 80000 for it! forget it thats 50000 loss!,no its actually 5000 more than its acutally worth.

Why didnt you sell it at its peak? cos you didn't know it was the peak and that is why your beating yourself up about it.

If your in it for the money then its purely an investment in which case you work out the return in % using my example and youll see that no Bank will ever pay you that including the years you lived in it.

Greed is its name.

What I am saying is that not all sellers are desperate and not all buyers are king.  It depends on the individual situation.  As a potential buyer you will get nowhere if you go in too low with an offer.  Maybe you can send off a lot of ridiculously low offers and see if someone bites but then you're just trying to get what you consider to be the 'best bargain,' rather than the property that would suit you.  I've often bought my clothes and shoes on that basis, in the Sales, and usually they then don't fit properly.  And don't any man now dare say I am not allowed to use that example as this is a Forum presumably set up for both women and men and I won't object to any football analogies.

 yes but do you sell your trousers bought at sale price later at a profit?

If not then its a bad analagy, as the person looking for a deal in property is buying to sell later at a profit if they go in that low.

In my experience, selling a property in Spain and assessing whether you are likely to make a loss, a profit or break even is never simply a matter of looking at your purchase and selling price.  A lot usually happens between these two points:  to make the calculation you need to look at how much you have spent on improvements, maintenance, interest payments and how much you pay in tax at both points; also, if you have rented it out, you might be able to knock off the rental income you received; if you've lived there or gone on holiday, you might like to factor in what you would have paid otherwise had you rented.  And the list goes on and the assessment becomes more complicated.

I also object to being told I am 'beating myself up about' the price I got for my cortijo.  I couldn't give a bee baa boo (as we say in my household, honestly - and with no reference to anyone's nom de plume on this site).  I've got bigger fish to fry and we broke even on the sale, more-or-less (I couldn't be bothered to do a thorough statistical analysis, as it isn't important to me).  I think I've also just been called 'greedy.'  Thanks, person-who-doesn't-know-me.  It does make one wonder about projection again.  Maybe a certain person would have been so gutted themself that they assume others think the same way.

Personally I wouldn't now buy in Spain purely as an investment (as I have done in the past) as the situation is too volatile.  it was reported today that the financial situation with the Spanish banks needing a much bigger bailout than expected has led to an explosive political crisis in Madrid. That doesn't sound too good.  I would advise that others only buy in the way that Tamara has, knowing that you really love the house you've viewed and thinking that the price is fair and you can afford it.

 get back to you tomorow.after I have digested all the insults.Ever heard of generalising?

God your insecure, I was reffering to people in general not you in particular, you idiot I dont even know you so why would I call you anything.

As regards to greed, another genralisation, it is, pure and simple.

and if your that blase about money why didnt you sell it to the girl for 90K? So you wouldnt have taken 180k for it then either?as far as  frying bigger fish , haha why didnt you go fry them  istead of writing tosh in this blog.

(I couldn't be bothered to do a thorough statistical analysis, as it isn't important to me)

if you had you may have sold it at the right price ha ha lol must be a virgo

I'm very fortunate that I, unlike many others, do not have to be selling at the moment. As Eggcup has pointed out, I would be extremely insulted if someone offered me 50% of my asking price if I were selling. Or, to be more precise, if my estate agent passed that offer to me.

Baa baa , you seem to be accusing of Eggcup of greed, but those people who are trying to profit from those in very difficult situations are the greedy ones. 

Baabaa, I don't see that Eggcup has insulted you - but you have insulted her, by calling her an 'idiot'.

I don't see what's wrong about saying to someone that the insult they've levelled at you might be more appropriately levelled at themself.  Talk about twisting the truth.  What Baabaabing wrote is in black and white and the sequence of comments is clear for anyone to see.  From this, it is evident that he/she is the one who has made the personal insult.  If one doesn't like to be on the receiving end then one shouldn't dish it out in the first place. And now I also get called an idiot.  What a puerile, unimaginative and unncessary load of name-calling; it's not a way that I am going to adopt.  Cut it out and behave yourself as I do on this site.  Try and be constructive and not destructive.  Nothing I said in my post merited a personal attack against me, suggesting I was beating myself up over money and using the word 'greed' about me.  All I suggested was that if this was the way BBB thinks, it might say more about BBB than about me.;

And thanks aly_not_in_spain for your kind words.  It's not the first time people have started to abuse me on this site; it's a real shame.

A good test before you post - don't write what you wouldn't say to someone in person. It is OK to have a different perspective but insults weaken your argument - I speak from experience!

On the actual question raised by this thread I would say if you don't have to sell don't. If you want a place in Spain now may well be a good time to buy but I would not buy as an investment.

@ antonio 1:  My (limited) experience suggests that how well a community is run is what determines the level of debt. Our debt is lower than it was 4 years ago

"you idiot I dont even know you so why would I call you anything"

Has anyone else noticed the contradiction in this sentence?  And BBB has now threatened to sleep on it, presumably tossing and turning all night trying to dream up new insults to level at me.  Well, I'll give him a hand: if he wants to continue the idiocy theme, he could use: imbecile, ass, plank (I like that one), berk, wally, prat, plonker, moron, twit, fool, cretin, simpleton, airhead, twerp... Oh, the joys and richness of the English language.  Or he could give me some Spanish ones: idiota, imbecil, tonta, estupida - I don't know so many of those; maybe others can furnish some more?  They could come in handy for rowing with Spaniards. 

Of course, I think there is a more sinister side to all this namecalling.  I think it is a way of bullying others into agreeing with you.  This might work in the playground, but although many of us adults don't want or look for conflict, being British, we owe it to ourselves not to be silenced by this kind of underhand tactic. 

So many of these threads deteriorate in this way and as davmunster so rightly says, if you wouldn't say it to someone's face then don't say it on this Forum.  Bear this in mind BBB in the morning when you launch your riposte and keep it civil.

Baabaa, you claim you were 'generalising', but then wrote 'you idiot'. And you now say that you were not saying Eggcup was 'greedy' because she made a loss. Well, I don't see that Eggcup told us what she paid for the property, so how do you know she made a loss?

Ooops, I accidently deleted my post... will try again later, great thread !

This message was last edited by thermalsocks on 24/09/2012.

Hi Guys,

I suggest the thread needs to get back a bit on focus !!!

Thanks,

Harry

 "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.”