Flamenco Properties appreciate that many people looking to buy property in Spain are not new to the world of buying. You have likely already had experience of property markets and real estate agents, good and bad. We will not insult your intelligence by offering you advice on how to choose a real estate agent.

Flamenco Properties advises you to pick the property you like instead of choosing a particular real estate agent, unless you really want an agent to act as a search agent, for which you will ultimately pay for because their sales fees will be higher. There are however bits of advice about the Spanish property market that you may not be aware of as you initially enter into this market:

FOREIGN BUYERS MUST HAVE A SPANISH NATIONAL IDENTITY NUMBER – NIE.
The ‘Número de Identidad de Extranjero’ NIE is a number given on request to any foreigner who intends to do some form of business in Spain, such as buying property. Your first step before anything else should be to obtain this NIE either from a Spanish Embassy/Consulate in your country of residence or from ‘Office de Extranjeria’ within Spain. An instructed conveyancing lawyer/Gestor can organise this for you during the house purchase process but it is relatively easy do get the NIE yourself. Get your NIE as early as possible info.

PROPERTY DOCUMENTS OF INTEREST TO THE BUYER.
There are several documents that you should become familiar with during your search for a property purchase in Spain and several of these should be provided by the seller and their real estate agent thus ask any real estate agent for disclosure of such documents (many agents will run a mile rather than disclose such documents even though they are public documents).

Research more about the ‘nota-simple’ document and the very important ‘catastral value’ of a property and how that catastral value affects your purchase taxes ‘Impuesto de Transmisiones Patrimoniales ITP’. Research about the ‘escatura’ and ‘copia simple’ which is the property title deeds, many properties are marketed for sale with inaccurate escatura for one reason or another, so beware of such problems. Become familiar with the Spanish catastro, particularly the online Catastro that you can view for free that shows you property and boundary details.

Flamenco Properties will not market any property that we feel has something to hide so we will not withhold such documents or information from potential buyers. We will always be accurate with property locations instead of ambiguous and inaccurate locations that far too many real estate agents adopt to try and entice you into contacting them just so they can add your contact details to the Client Relationship Management software.

CLIENT RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT – CRM.
This is a common term in the world of real estate that a buyer should be aware of. There is positive and negative points about CRM. Imagine a real estate agent looking after apartments in a large popular New York Tower with an endless waiting list for new clients wanting to be in that particular tower. All the apartments are nearly identical except for number of bedrooms or overall floor space, in this situation CRM can be very useful to buyers. The real estate agent has a database that can immediately generate a shortlist of clients whose search criteria matches exactly with the newly available apartment.

Now for the negative point about CRM. In our opinion CRM doesn’t work well at all when properties in a given area (like Andalusia) are uniquely different from each other property even different in the same street. Proof of our theory on CRM is when you see all the television property shows with potential buyers who are taken to physically view properties that CRM has suggested matches the potential buyers wish list. Only for the potential buyers to say they really dislike a recommended property or get no good feeling from the property.

For a property to feel like it’s a dream home, it has to have a soul and a good vide that the buyer feels. CRM, nor any real estate agent can quantify what exactly in a property, triggers a feeling of euphoria for a one client but not for another. A real estate agent can never truly visualise and provide you with an ‘existing property’ that matches your dreams or leaves you feeling euphoric. In truth only an architect can come close to delivery to you a home of your dreams.

So why do real estate agents continue to use CRM, we would suggest it is because CRM is used by sales professionals to mainly size up the potential buyer like a predator sizes up it’s prey. Be mindful that the Seller pays the agent fees but the seller’s funds comes from the buyers budget hence time after time we always advice potential buyers, ‘never never reveal your true budget’ to a real estate agent.

ANTI MONEY LAUNDERING CHECKS – AML.
As a potential buyer, if you are not aware of this you just possibly might find yourself in a horrible and stressful situation where you have found your dream property. Possibly even paid a deposit and then find yourself the subject of a random AML Check that can leave you feeling like you are being accused of being a criminal. You don’t just have to prove that your money is in a recognised and regulated European bank. You have to provide documents of proof of the origin or source of your funds.

Imagine you had inheritance assets from a relative in New Zealand or you worked in the Middle Eastern where they don’t routinely issue payslips nor tax returns. Potential buyers could suddenly be face with the prospect of having to fly half way around the world desperately trying to obtain evidence proving the source of their funds. All this whilst hoping to buy their dream home and move in within a relatively short period of time.

My advice to potential buyers reading this, do some research about this potential minefield and start preparing documents that prove your source of funds and all the different transfers and where the money has been saved from it’s point of origin to arriving in Spanish ready for the property purchase.

ENERGY PERFORMANCE CERTIFICATES – EPC
Every seller is required by law to provide an EPC or Certificado De Eficiencia Energética. This is rarely done until the very end of the purchase process. If you were buying a vehicle or an electrical appliance you would be provided an EPC prior to making your decision to purchase. In our opinion this is exactly how it should be done with properties however unfortunately EPC for properties are just not accurate enough to give any meaningful indication of the properties energy performance. EPC checks do not involve invasive analysis of a properties construction, particularly walls or roofs to evaluate whether they have cavities and or insulation.

If you search the internet about the accuracy of EPC you’ll similar views to ours and some even suggest that 10 different EPC checks on the same property could produce 10 different results. At Flamenco Properties we will always try to give far more accurate information about the construction of any property we decide to market.

Some may think Flamenco Properties just do not like other real estate agents. This isn’t true. There is a lady in Alora, a gentleman in Padul and another near Osuna doing fantastic as independent real estate agents and we do take note of another independent agency in Northern Granada province who clearly understand that properties need better marketing. Sellers and their properties do not need managing by sales professionals in an environment where the real estate agents need to meet sales targets whichever way possible with the main focus of the agency being to obtain sales commissions as quickly as possible.

As a potential buyer in an attractive region such as Andalusia you do need to be ready to be fairly quick to purchase but always be mindful to recognise a real estate agent trying their dark arts and sales tricks to try and persuade you into a property purchase too hastily and one you might later regret.

Each year thousands of people successfully buy properties in Spain and have no regrets becoming a part of this wonderful region and community that is Andalusia so step into the Spanish property market, tread carefully and come and join us as ‘vecinos andaluces’.