Spanish conveyance Solutions SpainWhen selling or buying a property
Traditionally when selling or buying a property an estate agent is used. When selling your property in Spain you can consider a number of options to ensure your property is marketed as widely as possible.
Selecting the best place to source a property or sell a property can be difficult and you are often reliant on contacting a remote service which you cannot check on a day to day basis.
It is a good idea to obtain in writing what service you can expect, what advertising will be put in place and what fees apply.
Estate Agents
In Spain it is not normal for an agent to hold selling of a property as a sole listing. Whilst Estate agents will ask for sole distribution rights the reality is they will almost certainly use other agents to source buyers and the split commissions on sale with one or more other companies.
Because the market for the sale of Spanish Properties is an international one Estate agents may specialize in gaining buyers from very specific countries. One agent may only deal with buyers from the UK others may focus on the Scandinavian or Eastern bloc regions. Agents in Spain will work closely with other agents to ensure the property is advertised to as many nationalities as possible.
Some agents will focus on selling to the local market and some will only focus on selling to the international one.
It is now a legal obligation for the estate agent in Spain to declare what level of earnings they will make from the sale of the property. Fees will range but average fees are 5% of the sale price secured.
Newspapers and magazines
In each region of Spain there are magazines or newspapers which focus on the area in which they are published. These tend to be free newspapers that make their money from advertising either as classified ads or by square centimeters. Both estate agents and owners direct can advertise and buyers can search for suitable properties. Newspapers do have the advantage that they are focusing on quite small geographical areas if either the buyer or seller wants a more focused campaign.
Spanish property Portals
In Spain most agents are connected to or link into property portals. Portals are developed and owned by a third party and each agent pays a subscription to the Portal to allow them to both advertise properties they list to the wider market, or to access buyers that are currently in discussions with another agent.
Some of the Portals are for businesses only and cannot be accessed by Private Buyers and others are open to buyers direct as well agents themselves. Some portals like Eye on Spain provide access to buyers to property searches as well as providing general information on all aspects of Spain.
Direct sales
In Spain a few websites exist that allow owners to list their properties themselves. In these instances a subscription is paid to the website but the owner deals with all potential enquiries themselves and has no commission or fees to pay from the sale price.