Monday, June 29, 2009

Contact Details and Related Sites

Sometimes you need a little recap on how to get in touch with us and what we can do for you. We have so many ways to keep in touch with the Valencian and Spanish property market and I thought I would just let you know here. So here are the various ways to keep in touch. Make sure to subscribe, sign up or become a friend at all of these sites and you will not miss a thing.

Facebook: You can go to our Valencia Property Facebook page and become a fan. This will aggregate all entries into various other sites and you can keep up to date with Valencia news. As soon as we hit 25 fans there I will change the page address and update you

You Tube: Our video page has just got a new look and this is where we upload many of our videos about life in Spain and houses for sale in Spain. Subscribe to the feed and you will not miss any.

Google Reader Feed: Not necessarily us but news from Spain we find interesting. We generally put up four or five stories a day which include news, blogs, events and tweets.

Twitter: Personally you can follow me and my life at @grahunt on Twitter. The new company account concentrating on property news is @valprop. If you don't have a Twitter account then go here to get one. Think Facebook a few years ago.

Valencia Comment: Our other blog(On Wordpress) which concentrates more on Spanish property news and lifestyle.

Signup: Go to this blog or the Houses for Sale in Spain Blog and you will get a pop up with the opportunity to sign up to our mailing list. Do it. You will then get important news as it comes up and the best opportunities pointed out to you.

Devanio: This blog will be developing over time and is a coverall for all of my activities in Spain. Business ops, internet news, social media news and loads more opportunities are there.

Mail: You can email us on grahunt@gmail.com and you will have an answer very quickly.

Phone: Yes this still exists and you can get in touch with us on +34 961662892.

Post: If you really like the old methods of getting in touch then send us a letter to the office at Valencia Property, C/ Valencia 57, 46185, La Pobla de Vallbona, Valencia, Spain.

Why would you want to keep in touch? Well a few examples.

  • One client was watching a property and noticed it had been reduced in price considerably. He immediately put an offer in and was able to secure it at a price well below market value. A good job because in the two days following there were eight other serious enquiries at this price.

  • Another client was able to secure a great rate on money transfer as they found on Twitter a movement in currency that only lasted a day. The transfer was worth almost 2000 pounds more for them compared with doing it a day later.

  • Clients already here have been to events in Valencia due to keeping an eye on our feed of Valencia news.

  • Other clients found that the definitive list of Spanish Twitterers was very useful as it has put them in touch with people giving them the services they need and given them some great information along the way.


So sign up and things and you will find that you are much better informed. Also if you have an RSS feed reader you will also find feeds at all of the sites to sign up there. I appreciate your interest.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Spanish Banks and Current Offer

A little video report I put together yesterday about Spanish Banks and their current lending practices. Enjoy it and if you need more information about anything to do with Spanish Mortgages or Loans and Spanish Bank Repossession Offers get in touch (See the header at the top of the page)


Thursday, June 25, 2009

#Twain: Twitter Users in Spain

Twitter Homepage Example

Twitter In Spain (#Twain)

I was thinking what to call this but contractions like Spitter didn’t work. Finally let’s go with Twain (Twitter in Spain) to distinguish it from Twanish (which would be Twitter in Spanish which is a whole different area) So what is Twain? Twain means people who Twitter from or about Spain. I have recently been running a series of introductions to Spanish Twitter users on my blog here(www.houses-for-sale-in-spain.net) and it was suggested to me to introduce Twitter to the users of www.thisisspain.info as a way to get to know more about the country.

So What is Twitter?

What are you thinking or doing right now? That is the basic question. It is a way to tell everyone about what you are doing at the moment. Well that doesn’t sound very exciting does it? It isn’t but what you can do with Twitter is stunning. Twitter is becoming the default news site for breaking news in the World as people post links, photos and opinions on news stories and help keep others informed of what is going on.

You want examples;

A few months ago a plane ditched in the Hudson river in New York and one of the passengers Twittered the experience. The news was on Twitter 20 minutes before any of the news wires and photos and video used were taken by people with mobile devices and uploaded onto Twitter before the news media had the story.

In Iran the news blackout meant that the best way to get news out of the country was by Twittering events as this was much more difficult to control. (Today they have turned off mobile comms in Teheran as a result) The support of people’s avatars going green meant the story was not allowed to die. In the long run it make not make much difference but surely it is not long before the first social media driven revolution

Well known people and celebrities are using Twitter to keep in touch with their fans and directly communicate with them. Ashton Kutcher (Who I would not recognise if he smacked me in the mouth but I believe to be the hubby of Demi Moore) was the first Tweeter to get to 1 million fans and is now at 2 million. Oprah Winfrey Twitters (Or her helpers do) Lance Armstrong Twitters and Andy Murray is quite a prolific Twitter user.

Why is Twitter great? Many reasons but here are a few.

Choice, you choose to follow the updates of someone and they may well follow you back (How can you use that in your business?)

Cost. What if all of your friends followed you and therefore you could direct message them by Twitter which costs nothing rather than using a text from your mobile?

Potential. How many people can you meet if your interesting Tweets are retweeted (Sent on by those who receive them so that their followers can see the message?) Imagine that Ashton Kutchner (Whoever he is) found your Tweet interesting and sent it to 2 million people to look at!

Search. Twitter is Google in real time. You find the latest news about anything you search for. It is a glorified search engine. It has limitations of course as a search engine but it cannot be denied that it is hugely up to date. If you are Twittering about your favourite football club regularly you will build up a following as long as your content is good.

Twitter in Spain or Twain then.

If you are interested in what is going on in Spain, how people are living here and what is being said about the country then you cannot find a better way to do this than Twitter. You can search for a city, region, business, property or whatever you want in Spain and you will most probably find it. How you then keep that information is important too and that is where RSS comes in. You can keep your searches and follow them daily on an RSS feed through Google Reader or your mail programme. For more about that you can mail me on grahunt@gmail.com and I will direct you to a video about it.

So anyway just for starters here are 50 Twitterers based in Spain that you would do well to follow. If you haven’t got a Twitter account then try www.twitter.com and sign up with a username and password then search for the following people. They are in no particular order of relevance and also without any criteria for following one more than another if you are interested in the country. Of course you can follow me on Twitter at @grahunt. Most of these people Twitter in English, the Spanish list is obviously different but that is another blog post altogether.

(And for the rest of my contacts and anyone in Spain who is not on here do not take offence. You can add yourself below in the comments.)

1) @grahunt This is me so obviously the most important Twitter User in Spain.

2) @thisisspain The host of the blog where this article first appeared is Steve twittering from Fuengirola and Torrevieja about Telecoms and Football
3) @BarcaFan Simon is a University teacher from Barcelona who has an excellent blog and forum about Spanish football
4) @bencurtis. Ben and his wife Marina run the excellent Notes From Spain website and also Notes in Spanish for those of you who want to learn some of the language through great podcasts
5) @DreamingSpain Amanda is a guest house owner in Córdoba who really gets Spain.
6) @cmrlee Guest blogger on one of my other sites Valencia Comment, Chris is a cyclist who runs the excellent website Cycle Tour Spain
7) @mikecj and @juliecj Blogging for a living from Lanzarote and teaching people how to monetise blogs.
8. @sscullion Living in God’s own country of Asturias and loving the rain up there.
9) @Tomraftery Featured blogger on various websites blogging and tweeting from Seville. Made famous when he got a job offer through Twitter and accepted it last year. Tom works in Green technology
10) @AlexFayle Blogging from San Sebastian and teaching you how to simplify life and get rid of someday syndrome.
11) @Ryanopaz Blogging from Terrassa in Catalunya, Ryan talks about wine and helps wineries make more money through social media.
12) @Luzbego Teaching English to the Spanish in Madrid and doing it well with a nice blog too
13) @Matthewbennett Our Murcia representative twittering bilingually usually so you can work out what the Spanish one is from the English one at roughly the same time.
14) @RandomGoodStuff As the name suggests brings a cornucopia of random stuff from the web for you to look at. Based in Valencia
15) @Guide2Valencia Magazine based site around Valencia with info about what is going on
16) @ValenciaBlog The Valencia bias continues with great photos in the blog and information about activities in Valencia
17) @peppersantblai A donkey blogging for Mallorca. The better half of @RogerSwain I believe
18) @gospain Writing about Spain for About.com and recently Twittered the Camino de Santiago
19) @LaBarceloneta Musings on life the Universe and everything from Barcelona
20) @BarcelonaFlats As the name suggests Twittering from Barcelona about all things financial and providing great flat rentals in Barcelona
21) @alanuci Provides rants to rank with the best of them down in Alicante
22) @lifeingalicia An occasional Twitterer Martin gives loads of great information about Galicia on his blog
23) @thebadrash Tom Clarke is again in Barcelona and runs an excellent political blogsite too.
24) @VoicesEnEspanol Twitters in both Spanish and English so you can practice but also has a very interesting background on the Twitter page
25) @jonholl Teacher in Madrid who Tweets very interesting info about Spain
26) @toptapas Tweets about ham from Andalucia
27) @torretwit Not exactly in Spain but has property in Torrevieja and house in Norfolk but lots of good stuff and RT’s about Spain
28) @Somethingcakey Doing interesting things with cakes in Andalucia
29) @BullRunning As the name suggests all the news from Pamplona about the running of the bulls this summer
30) @PamplonaMan For organised tours of the bull running in Pamplona too
31) @visitseville If you want to follow a whole city!!! News and views from Seville of course.
32) @RondaSpain Andy runs an expat newspaper in Ronda and has loads of good content for anyone thinking of going down that way
33) @justinaldridge Runs the website eyeonspain and does loads of interviews with people making their life over here.
34) @pittkethley Fiona writes a lot about Cartagena. One of the most prolific Twitterers in Spain
35) @bungeespin Steve is another prolific twitterer using social media to promote his online business.
36) @justinparks (Justin has reminded me I had forgotten him) Excellent social media news from Southern Spain. Not much info about Spain yet but that will come.
37) @gabriellaopaz I have already recommended @ryanopaz and had a great joint interview with them this morning. If you need to know more about Spanish Wines these are the people to follow
38) @KeithSpitalnick For all of you news about Currency Transfers and the Exchange Rate. Based in Marbella and Tweets regularly about the Costa
39) @the_alchemist73 New tweeter based in my old stomping ground of Gijón
40) @thelawinspain As the name suggests links and articles about legal matters in Spain. Interesting links posted.
41) @maackers Drinking beer and hanging out in Valencia. Internet professional.
42) @linnetwoods One of the most prolific Spanish based Twitterers (41000+ Updates) living on a schooner off the Balearic Islands and doing quizzes for people every night more or less. A writer by trade.
43) @abroadinspain Tales from an American living in Burgos of all places as he teaches English and blogs. At the moment he says it is hot hot hot.
44) @spanishman Stan the Man twitters from the Costa Blanca and wears the Suit Of Lights so beloved of Spanish bullfighters on his profile page.
45) @benicassimfest All the news about the big music festival coming up in Benicassim as it does each and every year. Think Glastonbury with sun sea and sand and with a distinct lack of mud and you just about have it.
46) @lifemax_europe Oh that’s me again so you really should follow. Especially if you have high cholesterol or depression issues.
47) @Valprop My latest alter ego twittering more about real estate in this area
48) @retiringoleway Based in Jumilla in inland Murcia, Sue has just written a book on the area and her experiences.
49) @nicchick Entrepreneur around Marbella area with flair. Networker extraordinaire.
50) @rojasjoan Most tweets are in English but the bio says “Editor of La Casa Rojas, an On-Line Magazine which features original articles, written and recorded by authors from all over Hispanoamerica and Spain”

Doing research for this and the other articles I found that it seems to me that many people in Spain do not get Twitter. They just use it to try and get some reply from a celebrity also on Twitter. Remember, use it to communicate and post good and relevant content not to get desperate attention. These people all get Twitter and use it right.

Twitter itself is not the greatest webpage in the World. To get the best user experience download Tweetdeck or Seesmic Desktop. They are “Twitter Clients”, programmes specifically thought of for using Twitter. In these programmes you can more easily see Direct messages to you and replies made to you that everyone else can see too known as @replies. If you are really keen you can also have more than one account through them and post from your personal and then business account for example.

So get yourself a Twitter account if you haven’t got one by going to www.twitter.com and signing up. Then click on everyone here and you will get loads of great information about Spain each and every day. Also answer their tweets and create your own content and you might well find you have new friends all over the Peninsula.

Regards
Graham Hunt
http://www.houses-for-sale-in-spain.net
http://www.valencia-property.com

Saturday, June 20, 2009

A Special Post - 300 Up

There are some milestones in life that are to be celebrated and others don't mean that much in the grand scheme of things. However today's post is the 300th on this blog. So I thought it was time to look at what has happened in the time that this blog has been up.

Well the Spanish property market has crashed and burned and has gone from the boom to end all booms to the inevitable bust.We are still mired in the problems created by the banks and their ridiculous lending criteria but things are beginning to look very much up.

When this blog started at the start of 2006 with this news and were featured just after that in The Guardian Newspaper For anyone listening at the time we were telling you that the price rises were not sustainable but not many people were listening.

We were then featured in other newspapers and talked about the carbuncle that was and is Marina D'Or Our charity project which we continue to work with was featured in the Costa Blanca News and we warned about sharp practices on the roads (We were also warning about sharp practices in the Estate Agencies.

A bit later we continued our quest, alone it seems, to put a lid on prices after a particularly stupid owner put up their price. This seemed to be a trend over time as people just didn't take heed that the top of the market had been reached. A great feature appeared in the Sunday Times with a glowing report on Valencia by Spanish property Insight owner Mark Stucklin.

Time continued onwards and we stuck to our principles. In March 2007 I produced the first draft of the Definitive Guide to Buying property in Spain which sold really well and later i started giving to everyone who wanted to buy in Spain as it helped so many people so much.

October 2007 still had strong sales as can be seen in this post For good priced properties this has always been the cae. Only if you are overpriced and in the wrong place will you not sell. We then stated our current position and how we were working for clients. The info there is still extremely relevant

We started podcasting in 2008. This meant you could listen to loads about Spain while commuting as you can get it through iTunes. Check out the VP Audio podcast for old episodes. Our You Tube channel also started to be used more but that has really exploded as we moved into 2009. It now has an excellent overview of what you can do and see in Valencia.

I decided that it would be better if everyone knew beforehand who they would be dealing with over here so moved into online networking and social media too. You can find more info here Follow me on Twitter for example and you will find out lots of stuff about Valencia and great links to news about Spain and more specifically Valencia.

As the crisis really hit home I started up another website which is being ultra successful in terms of visits. You can visit it at Houses for sale in Spain and I started a series of things you needed to know ranging from Holidays to Food and more. This one is about Bridges

Now what am I doing? Well I am currently doing a load of interviews in preparation for an audiobook and ebook about coming to live in Spain and Working in Spain. It will provide a road map for your transition over to Spain and will also have a bonus audiobook called The estate Agent Chronicles which will tell you how to get the best deal and avoid the scams that are prevalent. Stay tuned for more information.

So for now follow me on Twitter go to the Valencia Property Facebook page and become a fan and get here to Valencia to live a great lifestyle.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Ronaldo, Kaká, The Beckham Law and Spanish Tax Rates

So why are Real Madrid able to buy players for a ridiculous amount of money? There is one reason that is obvious, a reelected megalomaniac chairman who refuses to see his mistakes of the past. The main reason though is the "Beckham Law" whatever Ronaldo insists about dream to play for Madrid etc...

What is the Beckham Law then? Well have a look at this Wikipedia description. It means that your tax rate can be set at 25% for six years rather than a higher rate of tax such as that in Italy or England. With high tax rates at 50% maximum in the UK expect to see a flood of players opting to go to Spain rather than the Premier League stating that it has always been their ambition to play there, they have been fans since the year dot etc... They are lies. It's all to do with tax. They can earn the same money and be 50% better off.

How does this effect you? Well if you come to work in Spain earning a high salary with a Spanish company then you can opt into the Beckham Tax Rates for up to six years. You need to spend over 183 days per year in Spain, not a great hardship really. So if you are planning to come to Spain then think of setting up a company here beforehand and then give yourself a contract here.

Saturday, June 06, 2009

Valencia's Central Market

There is no more pleasant a way to spend Saturday morning than having a stroll around Valencia's Central Market followed by a coffee at one of the Cafe's surrounding it with some tapas. So this morning we went down there and took some photos and a video to prove it.



It is a really great place and finally after I don't know how many years there is no scaffolding obscuring the views inside and it seems ever so light and airy now it is restored. Enjoy the video of another great thing to do in Valencia.

By the way, I have just updated the website www.valencia-property.com with new properties and lower prices on some. Check out the Featured Property on the homepage at 265k.

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Telemarketing in Spain


Why are Spanish telemarketing companies so awful? Spain used to be a paradise for those of us sick of receiving offers for double glazing in the UK from faceless companies. However there are now loads of companies phoning innocent victims, me, up every day with pointless offers. Now seriously I know the people working there have to earn a crust and unemployment is very high but just a few things to bear in mind when you ring me if you want to have a hope of selling me something.
1) When YOU ring ME don't immediately put me on hold. You will get hung up on
2) Don't tell me the offer is for businesses in La Pobla de Vallbona (Where I live) It's a lie, I know it, you know it and the phone, which is just about to be hung up, knows it.
3) Don't tell me you can get me great ratings on the first page of Google. So can I as long as the search term keyword is "Small transylvanian squirrels eat large ghetto" I will hang up
4) Don't mention the words Movistar, Telefonica or orange. I will hang up.
5) Ask for me by name or my business. Do not ask for one of my clients from years ago as you have been for a couple of years now and each time I have told you to get my number off that database. You still haven't done it therefore guess what will happen. I will hang up again.
6) NO You cannot arrange to come and see me at your convenience I am very busy and even if I weren't I will still hang up.
7) Securitas Direct! I bloody well represent you so stop ringing me up as if you don't know me from Adam.

Do you get the idea?
I just wish the telemarketing companies did and I had the gall to pretend not to speak Spanish.
What are your experiences with telemarketing?

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Today is a new day, the sun is in the Sky. I wake up this morning and greet the new day.