5%…!!??
That’s what you charge for your sales commission?!?
Can’t you do any better than that?
I’ve heard it all before and luckily, I’m not ashamed of answering the question because I’m easily able to show what we have in place for marketing a vendor’s property for sale in Tenerife.
Although the seller pays for the commission for an agent to sell their property for them, It could be argued that the buyer pays it.
If the seller gets back the amount that they actually want for the property, you could say that the buyer is paying for the commission – it’s almost as if buyer has paid the commission on top of the price that the seller wanted for their property, so it begs the question, is it sensible that a seller should sell privately if the ideal selling price is set and the commission is added on top of that number?
Is using a professional estate agency to sell your property in Tenerife worth the money?
Well, selling your property privately in Tenerife can be done and with reasonable preparation ahead of time, it can be done quite safely too.
To help those of you that want to sell privately here, I’ve written a short reference guide.
Professionally taken and edited photos, maybe a video, some social media advertising, good positioning in Google for the appropriate search terms so that potential buyers can find the agent that’s marketing your property and accompanied viewings to your property with potential buyers – these are all things that you’re paying for when you choose to sell with an agency.
In our office, we can demonstrate how we…no, I’m not here to bleat on about how we do it…how will you do it? That’s the question.
What are the positives?
The negatives?
What about pitfalls?
And the risks? are they high risks?
The obvious positive of selling privately, and I can really only think of one actual positive, is that you’ll be saving on your estate agent’s commission – that’s 5% of your sale price…in fact, some agents are charging 6% now but whatever it is, it’s a good saving…let’s be honest, the least expensive property that generally gets sold here is €100.000 so at the very least, you’ll be saving €5.000 plus IGIC.
That’s the positive and so now what about the risks and pitfalls?
For those of you still interested in selling your property privately in Tenerife, it can be done but it’s probably better if you actually live here.
To be honest, the risks and pitfalls of selling your property privately are not that many and probably you can boil it down to the biggest two which are the deposit and a contract.
You see, part of the buying and selling process in Spain, as you already know being a property owner, is paying a 10% deposit. If the sale doesn’t complete, this deposit is either refundable to the buyer or can be retained and the same amount claimed again to the seller by the buyer. It all depends upon who’s to blame for the non-completion of the transaction.
Whether you think the 10% deposit is fair or not, it’s the law, so it needs to be in writing that both parties understand and agree to this.
So, you need to have that information written into a contract, along with details of the buyer and seller and property involved and all the other terms and conditions.
You can always go to see a lawyer or maybe even a gestor/bookkeeper would be able to do a contract for you…but then…who holds the deposit?
Does the buyer hold it?…what happens if they decide not to buy after the contract runs out of date and you’ve organised to buy something else?
Will the buyer be happy if you, the seller, hold the deposit? – unlikely … What happens if you decide to pull out and also keep their deposit? That’s what they’ll be thinking – let’s hope you’ve got a watertight contract sorted for either of those possibilities…
If you’re thinking about selling your own property privately, one of the first things you need to think about is how you’re going to get eyes on your property…how are you going to get people walking in the door? How are you going to price the property? How about photos? – it’s all marketing.
An orange “Se Vende” sign from the local Chinese shop – that’ll do it. The only thing is, are you ready for the barrage of people that are going to call you?
They’re not going to be buyers…well, one or two might be but most of the calls are going to be estate agents looking to sell properties and miraculously they have a client for it … and also, believe it or not, there’ll be people calling to see if you’ll rent the property rather than sell it. I know, it says “Se Vende” on the sign…but they still call – honestly, so let’s hope that your Spanish, Italian and Russian are all up to scratch.
Completion at the notary might also be a bit of a stumbling block if you’re doing it all yourself.
Who’s going to get the tax figures from the town hall for the plusvalía?
What about the fact that you’ve paid a couple of months in advance for your community fees, are you going to just leave it or are you going to ask for some extra money from your buyer to refund you?
What about the electric and water bills – have you paid it up to date? Have you used the property for a couple of weeks and the bill isn’t due for another couple of weeks – who’s going to pay for the electric you’ve used and how are you going to find out how much it is?
As you can see, there are quite a few things that need to be considered and sorted ahead of time to make sure that there are no complications at the notary as well.
Selling your property privately in Tenerife can be done and with reasonable preparation ahead of time, it can be done quite safely too.
On the other hand, if you think about it…and as I mentioned earlier, maybe you as the seller aren’t paying the commission. Of course, it comes out of the sales price, so you are really paying it, but take a look at the positives that it brings you.
Hopefully an agent can show the way that they market your property to potential buyers…and no, it shouldn’t be just whack it on a website and hope for the best.
There’s loads more that goes into it than that, such as being able to track who opens emails therefore providing information about who’s really interested in what property, who comes to the agent’s website and also what properties they look at while they’re there, once again showing what attracts certain potential buyers and if when they make contact – are they serious or just looking?
Does the agent expect you, the seller, to show any prospective buyer around or will they be providing the very basic service of accompanying the buyers on the visits?
There’s so much more but, there are still sellers here in Tenerife that want to sell their own property and save on the agent’s commission…each to their own…but there are plenty of professional agents out there too that will do a good job for you and generally speaking should make your life a whole lot easier in more ways than one…all I would ask is that if you choose to use an agent for their services, please don’t go behind their back and try to sell it to the buyer that they’ve introduced…you might not like it but we’re human too…
