| Our Story... We are professional property developers, established for over ten years, buying and selling property in the north west of England. Three years ago we decided to purchase property abroad. We overpaid for a house in Spain, we were told property was appreciating by 20% capital growth per year; all of this was false information. The true fact is this, due to the high number of new developments, the Spanish market is saturated and owners are now facing negative equity. We then decided after many months of research, that Turkey is the best place to invest. We purchased two properties off plan, with a view to selling then upon completion. This time however we purchased them at the right price, in the right area, off the right builder! Why don't we use an estate agent?.. We have discovered to our despair and utter disbelief that the majority of overseas estate agents and developers are conning British buyers and sellers. How are they doing this?... Estate agents in Turkey will charge the seller between 1.5 % and a staggering 6 % commission for selling a property. What they do not tell you is this; let's say for example the agent values the property for £100,000. They will actually advertise it for £110,000, earning the greedy agent a massive £11,500 (based on 1.5% commission). The seller and buyer will never find this out because the agent will firstly sell the property to a relative or friend and then to the end buyer. This will happen on the day of completion. Even the lawyer might be in on the con. This is in fact the way it is done in Turkey, and in many European countries. So in actual fact both the buyer and the seller are being ripped off. These people are getting away with this because they build up a strong trust relationship, which is false and they have hidden agendas. In addition due to the distance factor, it is virtually impossible to keep track of negotiations. Our personal theory is simple, these European countries are cashing in on the British property interest, and we are very easy targets. Bearing in mind that the interest from the UK in homes in the sun, has only materialized in last ten years, most of these estate agents abroad were previously farmers and fishermen, they have landed on a highly profitable way of earning money. They have been corrupted by money and are motivated by greed. These agents only need to sell one or two properties per year! Customer satisfaction and repeat business is not a priority. The fact is that there are now hundreds of estate agent shops in every property hotspot in Europe. Learn from our mistakes, do not be conned. Beware of Several Middle Men... We also urge you to be cautious with British based agents. We purchased a property in Spain through one of the bigger know companies. We later discovered that you are not even dealing with one middle man, in our case there were five middle men involved, all of which got a big slice of our money. In addition, the price we paid was above market value. If you don't deal in property in the place you are buying, you will never get a true feel for the property market. Again, we got conned. However, we like to put it down to a valuable lesson learnt. |
