64 Golden Rules to Sell your Spanish Property
March 17th, 2009
There’s no way of selling your home in Spain without spending money. As a bare minimum, you’ll pay fees to the notary and probably some capital gains tax. Whether you advertise the property yourself or use an estate agent, attracting buyers will probably be the most significant cost involved.
Having just finished reading Nick Snelling’s “How to sell your Spanish property in a crisis”, I recommend the first expenditure you make is the 15 quid to buy the book.
The author clearly writes from first-hand experience of the Spanish property market, because the book is a refreshing, “no fluff” pragmatic step by step guide.
The book is 150 pages long, is well structured and an easy 60 minute read. A couple of tips from the book demonstrate the value contained in each of its “64 Golden Rules”.
Golden Rule 21 – Take your own photos of the property
Why would you do this when using the services of an estate agent? Shouldn’t that be part of their job?
The answer is that it will take multiple days and many, many photos to produce the best shots of your property. An estate agent will only have one or two time slots to take photos on your behalf – and those days might be overcast, or the time of day too bright or too dark.
Thanks to digital photography, you can take hundreds of photos every day for two weeks and then select the best 10 or so to be used in all your marketing material.
Golden Rule 39 – Incentivise, charm & encourage your agent
What!? While there are more and more ways to sell a property yourself, the fact that you are considering selling at all in the current market indicates that you’re going to need all the help you can get.
If you do decide to use one or more agents to assist with the sale, don’t do it grudgingly, make it easy for them to prioritise the sale of YOUR property.
Aside from this kind of practical advice, the author also deals with the realities of bank repossessions and property auctions, and offers a well-informed summary of why the Spanish property market is in the mess it’s in.
All in all it’s a fine piece of factual, authoritative writing which blends harsh realities with a light touch of optimism.
You can buy Nick Snelling’s “How to sell your Spanish property in a crisis” from Amazon.
This isn’t a paid review and we don’t make any money by recommending this book.
Martin Dell, Kyero.com
