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This article was submitted by Darren Ward of Santa Ana del Monte Property Management. Santa Ana del Monte Property Management, Jumilla, Spain offers a complete range of services to guarantee that your property investment receives the best possible care and attention, so you can be assured that your home is managed, secure and in 'a safe pair of hands'.
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"The Cost of Price - The Price of Value", profound words once written by John Ruskin that measures most requirements in life.
As most, when we chose to re-evaluate our lifestyle, a whole host of considerations took place. What direction our lives would take, where would we relocate to, how would we adapt etc etc. Once we started to develop a strategy, we set off a chain of events that would ultimately lead us to Santa Ana del Monte, Jumilla, and ultimately, develop the business that we are proud to manage today.
The location - very easy, away from the madding crowd of coastal regions, rural Spain with access to some Championship Golf Courses, and in the middle of a renown wine region. Wow , sun-kissed verandas, Sangria on the porch, a leisurely game of golf with fellow residents.
Now our property was chosen, the excitement, anticipation and the desire to relocate was now in place, but in the back of our minds grew a cell of concern. All those nagging doubts began to materialise. Have I made the right decision?, how will we cope?, the what if scenarios. Let me explain further.
Buying the property was easy now in hindsight, but the support and maintenance, now that was a different matter. How would we keep it clean?, how will we keep it secure?, who was going to maintain it?, what if we need remedial work completing and so on and so forth. The answer seemed an easy one at first, all the Agents appear to offer Property Management...but they are all based on the Coast, in Alicante, Torrevieja, Murcia and further a-field. We were beginning to hear bad stories as well, would they really drive over an hour to clean our property, how frequently would they do it, would they rent it out to their own friends and family without our knowledge. We were beginning to hear all sorts of tales that grew that cell of concern further.
Then it got worse, television started pushing programmes aimed at overseas property investors and how they were being targeted by professional gangs of thieves targeting new urbanisations and people exactly like ourselves who were about to furnish these properties with brand new goods...and guess what, most would be empty for most of the year. So what good was a company looking after my property over 60km away. So we said..why not do it ourselves!
Santa Ana del Monte Property Management was born from that moment on. But what did we have to offer???, a background in Global Service and Support Management was a good start. Friendly, reliable people living within the urbanisation was another. People you can trust to manage your property whilst you're away, why not, all our neighbours entrust us with their keys in the UK. Therefore we looked at all our concerns and eradicated them by setting up a business that addressed the whole solution. So then came the big question..what do you charge for peace of mind and here's where we turn to John Ruskin. And please keep this in mind when anyone offers you a service, it helped us to keep a level head.
"There is hardly anything in the World that someone cannot make or provide a little worse and sell a little cheaper. People who consider price only are this man's lawful prey.
It is unwise to pay too much, but it is also unwise to pay too little.
When you pay too much, you lose a little money..that is all.
When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing or service you bought, was incapable of doing the thing you bought it to do.
The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot. It cannot be done.
If you deal with the lowest bidder, it's well to add something for the risk you run.
And if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better"
So, through key Forum's such as Eye on Spain, who's ethos runs similarly to ourselves in providing important information and services to the mass we decided to offer this business service to residents and owners of property on Santa Ana del Monte, Jumilla Urbanisation.