Buyer Beware

Today I have discovered a website that offers a service “Buy and Sell Privately...Commission Free” the idea is that a vendor signs up to the website for a fee of 150€, then their property can then be listed on the site, the vendor has to provide the description, and the photos, as this website accepts no responsibility or liability for content.

At first glance this appears to be good value for the vendor, however if the property is not sold it will still cost the vendor 150€, this doesn’t appear to be much and the website administrator will say the fee is to cover administrative costs.

This month we are in the process of uploading 33 new properties, if we followed their format of charging 150€ for each property, this month we would earn 4,950€, that’s 59,400€ a year for just providing a website.

We wouldn’t have to go out and take photos of properties, take measurements of rooms, or write up descriptions, as the vendor does it all. We also wouldn’t incur over 3,000€ in advertising costs with property advertising portals

The concept is brilliant; latch onto people’s general misguided mistrust of estate agents, dedicate a website to bad mouthing them, have comments written by the people paying (150€) for the privilege of being on the site also bad mouth estate agents, then sit back and take the money at 150€ a time.

Let me remind you, there are many responsible estate agents out there, this type of company is only offering a website, albeit well optimised, what you wont find on this type of website a No Sale No Fee notice, and at the time of writing there are no testimonials for any property sales.

So why do we say Buyer Beware? The main attraction for the buyer is that the vendor should offer the property at a lower price, thus making it a better prospect for the buyer.

Gazump, a British word that is all to common in the British housing market, there is no word for it in Spain, it doesn’t exist, there are safeguards (a Spanish law) written into contracts that make the vendor pay back (the original buyer) twice the deposit if they renege on a contract.

Do you know what his law is called? Do you know how to have incorporated into any dealings you have with the vendor? The vendor certainly won’t mind if they are free and unaccountable to conduct business around this law.

As the prospective buyer your criteria are, price, type of property and the area. You have to make your own appointment, it would be nice if you could view more than one property while you visit Spain, but you will soon discover that this type of website covers all of Spain so your criteria will be compromised.

More bad News, when following up with my research I discovered that this particular website has written articles, it tells the vendors how to use and exploit the estate agents knowledge, and how best to sell their property, ie improvements to be made etc, however I have issues with some of the comments, on the question of neighbours, “it can be tricky if you have an existing problem! So be honest, but perhaps (if you are pressed for an answer) talk about the nice couple across the road that you often have Barbeques with in the summer, and just gloss over the immediate neighbours and their drum kit!! And whatever you do...No.1 rule - DO NOT GOSSIP!”

As you can see this type of website has no real interest in you the buying public, I’m sure someone will find a property through this type of site, but they will be very few and far between.

We at Custom-4u pride ourselves in working for you the buyer, this month we had a couple from Norwich view 20 properties, we matched their criteria for all the properties, none of their precious time was wasted, and they viewed over a period of three days. This would not be possible with the type of website above.

A last note for vendors, (1) We do not tie people into contracts, (2) You are free to advertise your property with other estate agents, (3) We advertise your property at our expense, (4) No Sale No Fee.