All the latest news from Valencia Property

I had the pleasure of taking photos yesterday at a lovely house in La Eliana and a strange attic in Valencia. There are a couple of pictures here and the rest of them will be up on the Valencia Property page later. Meanwhile some details of the house in La Eliana for sale.

The military operation that was Monday came off quite well. This is what happens when there is a signing. The organization required depends on many factors of course; Easyjet arriving on time, the banks having all of the cheques ready and, in this case, making sure that people do not get locked in their toilets, cars starting up and working properly, everybody turning up at the Notary at the right time and having the right paperwork in place, the lawyer having done his or her job and so many other little things to arrange.

Temperatures have stayed high in Spain until the last few days. The summer took time to warm up but stayed a long time this year. For the first time last night in a long time I heard the soothing sound of rain on the roof as I drifted off to sleep. So what does this mean for anyone coming to look for a property for sale in Valencia?

If you are thinking of moving to Spain then this interview with me may interest you. However remember that if you are from Widnes, Aberdeen, France or Croydon I am sorry but "it is what it is". So what tips do we have in the video? Learn the language, plan your move to Spain, have the right mindset and immerse yourself in Spanish language and culture. Don't worry about the crisis, it exists but it is to your advantage because everybody else is scared, you aren't.

I spent the weekend away at a conference in Malaga but today I am back in Valencia and ready to go. So what does a Monday back in Valencia after three days away look like? 1) Contact Citibank for a client about their glacially slow process of allowing a mortgage. 2) Ring and hopefully visit a couple of attics in Valencia for a client.

After reading all about the UK citizenship test, and also having failed it miserably, I feel that it is time that Spain also had a pointless piece of bureaucracy as we don't have nearly enough red tape here at the moment and we need to create jobs by making people fill in pointless tests. Here is the link to the response to the test by all of those who failed it.

One of the things that we have discovered over the years is that the initial impression of a property is everything. The initial impression that most people have of our property is generally through the individual property page on Valencia Property. Therefore getting good photos and presenting them in an appealing way is important for any estate agent.

I have just been reading an extraordinary story. The only strange thing for me though is it puts figures to something that I already knew, ie in the vast majority of cases you should not buy property from banks. Here is the question. Two similar flats in the same block, same size and everything. One is available for sale for 110k and the other for 160k. One has just sold. Which one and why?

Of course if you look at the actual price the house is not the lowest in Spain because it is so large but this house for sale in Sagunto is the cheapest house for sale in Spain, or at least in the Valencia region per square metre. It also runs successfully as a "Casa Rural" making a decent income each year and this summer it was rented for 16 out of 20 weekends with a couple of full weeks thrown in for good measure.

This has been an enormously busy week. Lots of clients coming into the region looking for property and many new properties up for sale and rent. So here are a few of the new properties on the site and the links back to them to see all of the photos. Firstly another property in La Pobla De Vallbona with the huge advantage of living a few doors away from me ;-).

Yesterday I was in the Santander bank with a client opening a bank account. The reason we finished up there involves the incompetence of another bank, Banesto, of which you can hear more about here "Why There Is No Hope For Some Spanish Banks". Anyway something really funny happened. Or rather it is funny if you know anything about Spain.

We have a client who wants to sell his property in Serra because he has his eye on a place in the UK and doesn't want to lose it. Therefore he has come up with a novel idea for selling his property in Serra, novel for this area of Spain anyway. He is placing a minimum price on the property and inviting offers on it. The best offer taken by the 17th of October will get the property, as long as the buyer is able to complete very quickly after that date ie nobody who needs to sell their place beforehand or who is saying "if" I get a mortgage.

Is it possible to buy a view rather than a house. Today I was at a house in Calicanto that we have for sale and the house is absolutely fantastic in one sense but I suspect anyone who buys it will be buying the view. The house itself needs work but if you are ever washing the dishes in the kitchen you will have the most fantastic view.

So my week went like this, Thursday, clients, Friday clients followed by football, Saturday morning clients, Saturday afternoon, clients. And it will continue, Sunday morning, pool party for soon to be 7 year old, Sunday afternoon, clients, Monday morning, clients, Monday afternoon, clients. Tuesday, catching up and birthday of 7 year old, Wednesday clients. You get the picture. A bit busy at the moment.

I work the Valencia region of course but also have many other contacts and properties for sale all around Spain. I have just been passed on the details of a place that looks excellent and below you can see the details. 3 bedroom 3 bathroom Townhouse for sale in Playa Flamenca (ALICANTE) Spacious 3 bedroom 3 bathroom townhouse on the inside of a gated community with communal pool and indoor pool area. Walking distance to many facilities and right next to Saturday market of Playa Flamenca.

Not the usual style of post here today as this is an advert. However it is an excellent advert. A rather cool advert for Ray Bans. Take a look it is well worth a couple of minutes of your time. I have also added into this post some links to other posts on the blog about Fiestas, Fallas and Tourist Attractions in Valencia. Enjoy.

In the last blog post I talked about why you probably don't want to buy a repossessed home through a bank in Spain. This is true for about 95% of that type of stock but every now and again some interesting ones come up. This is because you need to understand the different types of property that the banks have on their books and how they came to have them.

A new report that ADICAE has produced (The consumer organisation protecting people from abuse by banks) reported in Global Edge here, shows what banks are doing to overvalue the properties they have in stock and then try to sell them by offering 100% mortgages over a period of up to 50 years while not offering mortgages to people on properties that are not in their portfolio, ie the general market.