Nervous about Property Investment in Spain or frightened of Spanish Estate Agents!
For all the right reasons buying a property in Spain is still one of the best decisions you will ever make in your life.
For the vast majority of “house hunters in the sun”, it will change their tedious daily lives on an unimaginable scale, for some it will be a nightmare of Hitchcockian proportions and for the rest it will be a hazy fusion of the two.
For the past seven years I have lived and worked in Spain, the southeast corner known as Murcia Province to be exact. In that time I have joined that growing number of British asylum seekers desperate for a new uninhibited life abroad in the sun. We are known collectively as Spanish estate agents; most of us are no different to British estate agents, just a slightly darker tinge of brown. We look healthier though, and dress a little more casually than our UK cousins and the hot weather brings about a slow swaggering movement common in rare reptiles of the Galapagos Islands.
Nothing really to be afraid of then? Sadly, and for some strange reasons, many of which I do not understand or even contemplate, this prolific species of sun stroked lethargic purveyors of Spanish countryside are viewed with the same amount of suspicion as a hoody with a wheel brace in his hand standing next to a BMW in the middle of a dimly lit sink estate in Peckham. I have to admit we can look a little shady at times, we tend to wear sunglasses some, if, not most of the time, I blame it on the weather, we do spend an awfully large part of the day stumbling over building sites in 120 degrees of intense heat trying to keep our clients from falling down uncovered manholes. But our sunglasses are as essential to us as an Audi A3 is to our UK counterparts in Surrey.
For as long as the British have been looking to own a Spanish retreat we have existed. Whilst looking for my own property in the early days I found indigenous Spanish property agents where unable to comprehend my requirements, they wasted too many days of my life ineptly pushing me from one crumbling wreck to another on various demolition sites, smiling and gesturing airily towards buildings so ugly and uninhabitable that it scared my wife and dogs out of their wits. I, like so many others decided there and then that I could do it so much better. I found genuinely nice properties of all kinds and presented them stylishly in my windows and website, I wrote the descriptions honestly and carefully so as not to misrepresent them and I slept at nights in the knowledge that others coming to Spain on my property inspection trips were not going to have be frightened out of their wits too.
Lets be honest, Spain isn’t the Wild West and we don’t have to raucously gallop towards the horizon in order to stake our claim on the first lump of unfenced land the size of Wales that we come across. Spain is a contributing member of the European union, it has adopted the Euro, improved it’s road network beyond recognition, the locals welcome us more than the British welcome their incomers, I could go on and sometimes do about the Spanish health services lack of waiting lists or the low cost of living but I really don’t need to. Spain is the most popular holiday destination for most northern Europeans; they wouldn’t come here in there millions if they didn’t like it.
Finally the day arrives, usually following a gratifying summer holiday on one of the Costa’s, or, most likely, you return to the UK to discover a hoody has nicked your BMW along with your collection of Coldplay CD’s, you decide enough is enough, you would rather be mugged by an Estate agent in Spain than hang around in Britain and wait for Gordon Brown to appear at your garden gate with a wheel brace. Flights are booked agents are contacted and before you can sing Viva España you find yourself in a silver people carrier sitting next to what resembles a reptile in Ray-Bans parked perilously close to a Spanish manhole. Before you step out of the vehicle, look at your estate agent, say to yourself, “he must have been in my position once” - the odds are he was, just 3 weeks before, then, carefully get out of the car. You may even see your dream home in the sun, you may not. My advice, without exception is find a lawyer, if you don’t buy a property you will need one to sue the Spanish estate agent for negligent parking. Alternatively the lawyer could act in your defence when the Spanish estate agent sues you for failing to pull him from an uncovered manhole. Well I did say the reptile had only been in the job for 3 weeks he’s still not used to driving on the right and he was wearing very dark sunglasses.
Ken Whettall is a freelance investigative writer with years of experience in
Spanish Real estate market. For more information on investment property in Spain,luxury and holiday villas in Spain
and townhouses for sale in Spain, he recommends you to visit http://www.propertyshopsgroup.com.
For the vast majority of “house hunters in the sun”, it will change their tedious daily lives on an unimaginable scale, for some it will be a nightmare of Hitchcockian proportions and for the rest it will be a hazy fusion of the two.
For the past seven years I have lived and worked in Spain, the southeast corner known as Murcia Province to be exact. In that time I have joined that growing number of British asylum seekers desperate for a new uninhibited life abroad in the sun. We are known collectively as Spanish estate agents; most of us are no different to British estate agents, just a slightly darker tinge of brown. We look healthier though, and dress a little more casually than our UK cousins and the hot weather brings about a slow swaggering movement common in rare reptiles of the Galapagos Islands.
Nothing really to be afraid of then? Sadly, and for some strange reasons, many of which I do not understand or even contemplate, this prolific species of sun stroked lethargic purveyors of Spanish countryside are viewed with the same amount of suspicion as a hoody with a wheel brace in his hand standing next to a BMW in the middle of a dimly lit sink estate in Peckham. I have to admit we can look a little shady at times, we tend to wear sunglasses some, if, not most of the time, I blame it on the weather, we do spend an awfully large part of the day stumbling over building sites in 120 degrees of intense heat trying to keep our clients from falling down uncovered manholes. But our sunglasses are as essential to us as an Audi A3 is to our UK counterparts in Surrey.
For as long as the British have been looking to own a Spanish retreat we have existed. Whilst looking for my own property in the early days I found indigenous Spanish property agents where unable to comprehend my requirements, they wasted too many days of my life ineptly pushing me from one crumbling wreck to another on various demolition sites, smiling and gesturing airily towards buildings so ugly and uninhabitable that it scared my wife and dogs out of their wits. I, like so many others decided there and then that I could do it so much better. I found genuinely nice properties of all kinds and presented them stylishly in my windows and website, I wrote the descriptions honestly and carefully so as not to misrepresent them and I slept at nights in the knowledge that others coming to Spain on my property inspection trips were not going to have be frightened out of their wits too.
Lets be honest, Spain isn’t the Wild West and we don’t have to raucously gallop towards the horizon in order to stake our claim on the first lump of unfenced land the size of Wales that we come across. Spain is a contributing member of the European union, it has adopted the Euro, improved it’s road network beyond recognition, the locals welcome us more than the British welcome their incomers, I could go on and sometimes do about the Spanish health services lack of waiting lists or the low cost of living but I really don’t need to. Spain is the most popular holiday destination for most northern Europeans; they wouldn’t come here in there millions if they didn’t like it.
Finally the day arrives, usually following a gratifying summer holiday on one of the Costa’s, or, most likely, you return to the UK to discover a hoody has nicked your BMW along with your collection of Coldplay CD’s, you decide enough is enough, you would rather be mugged by an Estate agent in Spain than hang around in Britain and wait for Gordon Brown to appear at your garden gate with a wheel brace. Flights are booked agents are contacted and before you can sing Viva España you find yourself in a silver people carrier sitting next to what resembles a reptile in Ray-Bans parked perilously close to a Spanish manhole. Before you step out of the vehicle, look at your estate agent, say to yourself, “he must have been in my position once” - the odds are he was, just 3 weeks before, then, carefully get out of the car. You may even see your dream home in the sun, you may not. My advice, without exception is find a lawyer, if you don’t buy a property you will need one to sue the Spanish estate agent for negligent parking. Alternatively the lawyer could act in your defence when the Spanish estate agent sues you for failing to pull him from an uncovered manhole. Well I did say the reptile had only been in the job for 3 weeks he’s still not used to driving on the right and he was wearing very dark sunglasses.
Ken Whettall is a freelance investigative writer with years of experience in
Spanish Real estate market. For more information on investment property in Spain,luxury and holiday villas in Spain
and townhouses for sale in Spain, he recommends you to visit http://www.propertyshopsgroup.com.
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Source: http://www.articlealley.com
Source: http://www.articlealley.com
Labels: real estate
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