Friday, February 27, 2009

Brilliant Views 180º in Olocau, Valencia



This property is excellently presented and this is one of two videos about it. Find the other on our YouTube site and find the property itself here on our homepage for Valencia Property.

Only 230k or nearest offer and you have yourself a really nice place overlooking the beautiful Turia River Valley. Houses for sale in Spain don't come any better viewswise.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Photo Scandal in Spain. A Bit Cheeky


The Spanish Tourist Board has done it again. They have been caught out using photos from the Bahamas to promote Spain. The image here, taken from the Guardian newspaper is being used in the campaign but unfortunately it was not actually a lovely beach in Spain.

So have you got any good photos of Spanish beaches to share with us all?

And a question, any idea where the photo below was taken?



This blog holds the original

Friday, February 20, 2009

I Have Found a Bank that Will Fund You

If you want to buy a house for sale in Spain things have been difficult recently. You may have noticed that there is a bit of a credit crunch going on at the moment. This week I have been speaking to banks for clients who want to renegotiate their mortgages because they are finding it hard. The banks have had differing points of view from, let them lose the house to we will do whatever we can to help up to a point.



Today I found a bank that is still lending to non residents meaning I may not have to totally refocus the website and business model to only take cash buyers. I will keep the name under my hat but suffice to say if you are a viable client and you need a mortgage of up to 80% maximum of valuation then I may well be able to get you the finance lacking in the market at the moment. You will have to link yourself to the bank in terms of credit cards, direct debits and insurance but at least you will be able to buy the house or flat.

One caveat of course is that Euribor is currently around the 2% mark, do not expect anything less than Euribor plus 1.75%-2% as the banks themselves get their money by offering rates to investors much higher than the 2% Euribor rate. See the graph above for the lemming like jump the Euribor has taken recently.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Telefonica Versus Graham. Graham Wins

Well if you read my blogs last week about the national disgrace that is Telefonica you might be surprised at the news that i have now got my clients ADSL Broadband Internet connection through Telefonica even though the stupid company stated that the lines were saturated, they couldn't do it and it was impossible.

I thank you for the applause. If you want me to do the same for you I will only charge 200 Euros, a straitjacket, three bottles of rum and a wig after I have again torn all my hair out.

A little victory in life's great tapestry but we should all celebrate our small victories I think.

And why could I do this, because I learnt Spanish. You can too if you go to this link (Oh and if you get a bit bolshie on the phone and at the same time have the patience of a Saint.)

Banks, Interest Rates, Mortgages and House Sales

I am closely working with some banks at the moment renegotiating people's loans so that they get a respite from the payments which rocketed last year and stay that way until the next revision, 12 months after the last in Spain as Trackers don't exist.

All banks in Spain generally lend money at a rate above Euribor, the European base rate. Euribor today stood at 2.08% and traditionally here banks lend at around Euribor +1. However no banks are lending as i said in my last blogs, they have no money as interbank lending has collapsed due to the lack of confidence in the market. The only funds coming into the market are coming through government guarantees on bank securities they are selling abroad backed by mortgages. Can you see where this is going? In order to sell them they are having to offer around 5%. The other source of income is from depositors' cash which they can only attract at around 4-5%. Therefore all money they are borrowing they are getting at rates well above Euribor. thus they will not lend it at Euribor plus rates or if they do the plus is now +2% or more.

What does this mean? If you have a mortgage in Spain then make use of it, remember the mortgage stays on the property not with the person here. If you are selling a house make use of the property having a mortgage on it at a good rate because that is now a major selling point. Without that mortgage it is virtually inconceivable that you can sell to anyone other than a cash buyer because the banks will not give out new mortgages. The only downside, let's see if your bank will finance the buyer, even if they have excellent credit history and a lovely high income.

Monday, February 16, 2009

My Spanish News Feed

I thought a few weeks ago that it wouldn't amount to much but now I really like adding in interesting Spanish news into my feed reader. So here is the list of my shared items which is updated every couple of days with comments on what is happening in Spain. If you have any suggestions for blogs that may be interesting or you want your blog including just comment on this item and I will have a look at it.

By the way there are a few items that have nothing to do with Spain but are good things to think about.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

This is What Valencia is Really Like Then!



The tourist board at Valencia have put together a new video to promote the City. It is presented like a film. Have a look and comment.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Renting and Purchase Options

Suddenly there seem to be a lot more visits from people wanting to buy a house for sale in Spain. Not only that but there are more people looking for rental and also rentals with an option to buy at a later date if and when the banks start getting their act together and lending again after they extract themselves from the mess they have created.

This week therefore at Valencia Property, apart from being with clients looking for properties, I have been phoning sellers to ask if they would consider the renting with an option to buy further down the line and the response has been surprising. Over 50% of those that I have phoned have said yes after asking what is involved in the process. So just in case you have a property that you could rent with an option to buy here are some of the ways it can be done.

The basic premise is that somebody is interested in your property but cannot purchase currently for one of many reasons, ie Waiting for sale on their property, waiting for banks to start lending, needs greater time before proving income to the banks or going through the process of getting residency in Spain to get a better mortgage deal. If any of these apply, or maybe even a couple of them, then they might be interested in renting with an option.

The contract that is drawn up can have many variables but the base of it is that they pay an agreed rental for an agreed time and within that period of time they have an option to buy the property and the right to equal any offer that comes in on the property. Sometimes there is a guarantee on behalf of the owner to stop marketing the property for a set time so the person renting can settle, in one of our contracts they were guaranteed eight months in the property without any change of ownership. This gives the tenant a feeling of ownership in the property.

The good point for a potential purchaser is that an agreed price is set now and they can buy at that price at any moment. If prices drop then they can renegotiate the price in the future if they wish. The other good part is that if prices rise then they are guaranteed being able to purchase at the agreed price within the duration of the contract. The owner gets a price guaranteed during the contract and has the obligation to sell at that price if the tenant wishes to purchase. They also have a guaranteed rental and a person living in the property who is more likely to look after it as they have a stake in the future of that property.

The contract is a bit more complicated than normal as it requires lots of negotiation on behalf of tenant and landlord but here at Valencia Property we take care of that negotiation for you.

If you are an owner of a property and ant more information then send me a mail on house@valencia-property.com or phone me on +34 961662892. If you are somebody looking for a rental, a rental with option to buy or a purchase then also get in touch in the same way and we can advise you.

Monday, February 09, 2009

More on Telefonica

So today the person on the other end of the call centre line informed me that a technician had reported to them on the 27th of January that there was no adsl available in the area. Absolute rubbish from Telefonica as usual as the neighbour has adsl broadband. Not that any of their operatives had told me this last week i all of my calls of course.

So now I am travelling up there with a representative from Vodafone at 12pm to see if they have sufficient coverage for their dongle based system to work. Broadband speeds through the mobile.

Now the worst thing is that I also phoned a local Wimax company that are setting up in La Pobla at the moment and it just so happens that the woman I spoke to lives very near the house in question. She says that Telefonica do have broadband there but they haven't got enough capacity to provide it to the number of people who live there now and they are not willing to invest. I knew they have broadband in the area because I have 3 or 4 friends within a couple of hundred yards from this house and they all have adsl broadband.

I therefore asked to speak to someone in charge at the call centre to put in an official complaint and guess what, you can't, the complaints procedure is by fax.

I HATE TELEFONICA.

Sunday, February 08, 2009

What you are not Looking For



If you listen to almost all of the news and views spread about the World economy at the moment there is nothing but doom, gloom and despondency. However what you are not seeing is what the news agencies, papers, TV and people in influential positions do not want you to se. Business is still happening, people are still buying and as Richard Branson said in Davos last week, fortunes will be made in the current crisis. Just to illustrate that point, watch the video and see what you make of it. It has nothing to do with Valencia property, houses for sale in Spain or anything of the sort but you might well get the point.

Friday, February 06, 2009

Telefonica Doing My Head in Again



I have a new client here for Valencia Property at the moment and I am setting up everything for them including a phone line. I asked for it 10 days before they arrived and now they have been here for five, still no phone line. So for the last four days I have been ringing Telefonica. I have a business line so i have to ring from that. This connects me up automatically with the Negocios (Business) section. The required line is a home phone, residential. Therefore they cannot help me, even though they can but more of that later, and they have to put me through to their residential section. What happens? The call gets cut off. So on the third day and on the point of throttling my phone, one of their operators tells me that oh yes we are having problems transferring calls from one department to the other. (Let me remind you at this point what Telefonica is, (THEY ARE A TELECOMS COMPANY) So they tell me to phone 1485 which leads me to exactly the same problem.

Anyway, today, the 4th day of my odyssey, I start getting really tired of them cutting me off and not calling to do the urgent installation, oh yes on Tuesday one of the operators who cannot do anything, did something and put an urgent request through to the residential section but that hasn't produced any result yet. So I stop the operator in mid flow and say
"Look, you are about to cut me off I need another number to ring"
"We don't have one but if you are asked for the number to type in when you ring up in the options type 999999999 and that will take you through to the residential area."

Just a couple of questions
1 Why didn't they tell me this five years ago never mind three days ago?
2 Why can't they patch a call through to their own offices?
3 Why are the a virtual bloody monopoly?

So I get through o the right department, result, and they ask me the obvious question,
"What, they haven't called you yet then?"
"Er no, if they had I wouldn't be ringing you"
"OK I will mark it down as urgent."

And so the story goes on. I just love Telefonica

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