Assisted sales might be the answer: you can use an investor’s cash, to help sell your property in Spain.
Why not allow an investor to spend their money refurbishing your property? It makes it easier for you to sell your Spanish home quickly. Better still, you’ll probably get a substantially higher price.
You just share the upside with the investor!
We can help!
We enjoy new and creative ways to help owners to sell their property in Spain. There are many excellent estate agents in Spain that work really well with Spanish solutions and more importantly our clients.
Things to look out for in an agent:
- Communication, do they call you back.
- Recommendations, how did you hear about the agency? Remember, maybe someone is sending you to a particular agency in exchange for a commission.
- Paperwork, are they trying to tie you into a long term contract? (or worse still an exclusive contract).
- What’s their website like? Would you enquire there?
- How do they intend to market your Spanish home?
- How many clients do they have?
- Can they help on other aspects of the process? (currency exchange, translations etc)
- Gut feeling – deep down, do you feel this is the Spanish estate agent for you? I’ve heard hundreds of times, when something went wrong with a property sale on the Costa Blanca, that the client never fully trusted the agent. The time to change estate agents in Spain is before something goes wrong!!
Spanish Solutions can help you to find an estate agent in Spain to help you to buy and sell your property.
Assisted sales in Spain
Maybe not a totally new way to get a buyer to make an offer on your property, assisted sales are a very good idea, for certain sellers and buyers.
We had a client two years ago who owned a detached house in Cabo Roig. The asking price was 340, 000. The ‘valuation’ was based on the recommendation of the agency. We felt at the time that he valued it high to get the seller to sign up with him on an exclusive 6 month contract.
Problem; the client was 75, had lived there for the best part of ten years, had designed/furnished it himself to his tastes and had not spent anything on upgrades.
The pool had a leak and was a green swamp. The plaster was flaking, there has been a leak and the evidence was still on the ceiling in the kitchen and living room. All and all, there was 50,000 euro needed to bring the property up to standard.
The buyers who were interested in a property like this either hated it as the furniture and indeed everything in the house was dated and old or they thought that they would get the property for a steal.
The sellers and his family in the UK had no intention of spending the money bringing it up to standard.
Offers came in very slowly and the two offers received were of 80,000 and 90,000 below value!
The agent was no help, just thinking about his commission and not what the client wanted.
Then things got interesting!!
We found the sellers an investor, but not in the way you’d think. We negotiated a deal. Remember that as a general rule is easier for a company like Spanish solutions to get everyone to an agreement.
The investor, an experienced property flipper, agreed to put the house to a high standard in exchange for a share of the increased selling price and profit.
First we got rid of the old agent. It was a horrible agreement that they had signed but we got him out of it.
We then drew up a really good contract to protect the seller and the investor. They said that they would sell it, in today’s condition for as little as 300,000, depending on the offer we received, although the property stayed in their names. No money was spent on iva, notary fees, land registry etc – there was no need to due to the tight contract drawn up by our lawyers.
We could not have a situation where they changed their minds after seeing the job he did on the property. Again, all of this was covered.
The builders went to work and turned the property into a show house. The work only took 6 weeks but they totally reformed the place – pool, garden, painting, new lighting, new kitchen etc.
They remarketed the property at 420,000, received an offer for 400 and sold it within a few weeks of completion of the work.
The investor spent 50,000 but received as per agreement 85,000 euro as his return.
The buyers (Norwegian) got a deal – a ready-to-walk-into villa in cabo roig and a quick completion. Spanish solutions had the paperwork ready to be signed and a power of attorney already in place.
Finally, the sellers, rather than taking a hit on the property or having to do the work themselves (something they absolutely did not want to do) got more money for the property. They knew that they had found the right law office when they found us, and we helped save them thousands on capital gains tax too.
With the tightening Spanish property market we will inevitably see with brexit and other factors, maybe assisted sales can help more and more of our clients to sell their property in Spain.
As always, Spanish solutions are here to help you! Contact us know.