This message was written by me, Ian!!
26 Sept. 2024.
Quite a lot has changed in the past 20 years, since we established Comaskey Properties in La Zenia, Alicante.
People are asking all the time if it’s true that Ian joined the army, the UFC or the circus. The truth is a little less exciting. We are living quietly in Cabo Roig, away from the limelight! As much as I try genuinely to not give away too much information, here is a little summary of the past couple of years.
Firstly, thanks to our terrific team at Spanish Homes Online, Equity Release Spain, Spanish Solutions and Dolphin Properties. Amongst many other tasks, they are running our social media these days and doing a great job. They post regularly there but I dont.
I just don’t do that stuff as nobody really cares what I think about any issues of the day.
Comaskey Properties, La Zenia
Most people know that I no longer own Comaskey properties. We need to find a way to get out there that I am still involved in real estate in Spain. Facebook and LinkedIn are therefore a necessary evil!
We sell more properties, both Investment and regular sales, through social media in 2024 anyway. For this reason, our websites are a little behind where they should be.
Some of our favourite clients are wondering what became of Ian and Lynne Comaskey, where we are and what we are doing these days.
I am no longer at the coal face of the operation and that suits everyone just fine. A collaborator of mine met one of my long-term employees this week. Ana in Spanish Solutions informed him that my lack of daily involvement is good for them. It means they can get a lot more done! Fair enough!
Just like in the past, most of our business interests revolve around Spanish Solutions. What a great cornerstone that company was and is.
We have a new and improved 100m office in La Zenia, above the Chinese shop. The original office just couldn’t handle the volume of clients dropping in for advice.
I use the company for all our deals. Our clients still have access to the banks, notaries, Pedro Molina, Rafael Hernández and the team meaning that if an idea passes the “Spanish Solutions test”, it works. We introduce clients to Spanish Solutions for all sorts of tasks and as Ana pointed out, the fact I am not there means more stuff actually gets done. My involvement is tweaking the system and leaving Rafa to take care of the operations.
Ian Comaskey property business.
Now and then I wake up in a cold sweat thinking I am back selling houses in Comaskey Properties. Worse still I dream of attending “A Place in the Sun” in London or some other city I never felt comfortable in. No disrespect to Tom in “A Place in the Sun Currency” but thank the stars, those days are in the rearview mirror.
I personally haven’t sold a property since 2018 and that suits me. Adam and Kevin have sold hundreds, and that suits our buyers who still have access to our expertise. I sold our very successful company, Comaskey Properties more than five years ago and again that is fine by me. We sold the premises, the client base, the goodwill and everything else including a Five-year non-compete agreement which was fair. It could have worked out better, but really, I got out at the right time. How the company is being run is no longer any of my business. I would prefer for the clients to get a better level of service, but I can’t influence that anymore.
We sold 3,500 houses in 16 years back in Comaskey properties. Now, because of that, clients constantly contact us for buying and selling advice, which we are delighted to help with. Unfortunately, I have no relationship whatsoever with Jemma, John and Adam who I sold the business to.
I am a director, advisor and investor in a couple of estate agencies.
Adam Cook and Kevin Hanlon run our two big ones;
Estate agencies
Just to give you a feel for how good things are, we sell more now, with half the staff size of the Comaskey Properties days. For example, the guys sold nine properties this August 2024. Agents in Spain tell little white lies all the time about how busy they are. What I just said here is totally true though and represents a turnover of 2.5 million euro in one month. It may not sound like Donald Trump’s levels of real estate activity, but when many other Spanish Property agencies are closed and on the beach, and I was in Canada for the whole month, it is not bad!!
We sell houses often within days of listing them, put together rent-to-buy deals and sell investments.
We have portfolios for sale that are worth many millions. Dolphin Properties even had another estate agent ask us to sell her house on her behalf this month. She knew we could sell it quicker than she could. Of course, we are thrilled with these sorts of developments.
The relationships that Adam and Kevin have built with other local agents are the key here. We are transparent and clear with our commission and we operate not just with the ‘will this deal pass the Spanish Solutions test’ but also, will this deal pass the litmus test, otherwise known as ‘common sense! If a deal fails one of these, we walk away because we don’t need it.
Anyway, the sales team is on fire and it’s all down to Adam and Kevin.
Dolphin Properties, Villa Martin.
We have been friends with John Price in Dolphin for nearly 20 years. Like what happened to myself in 2018, John just burned out a few years after me. We were chatting one morning about how John could potentially get out. I advised him that he needed to find an agent he could trust to continue looking after his clients the way he had done since 2004. At that exact moment, in walked Adam Cook and the deal for Adam and me to purchase Dolphin Properties was done a few days later. We love having John around to deal with any issues we have but the day-to-day operations of Dolphin properties are very much handled by Adam. We just finished a huge refurbishment in Dolphin and it is worth calling in for a free coffee to meet the lads and have a look around.
Again, to be clear, I have no involvement in any way with Comaskey properties. Nothing apart from my name being over the door.
I can be reached for a chat or a free coffee anytime through Adam and Kevin at La Zenia, San Miguel or indeed the Dolphin office in Villamartin.
(Maybe soon at the Cabo Roig office too, who knows?)
Equity Release in Spain.
When I “retired” from property sales back in 2018, I discovered amongst other things that thousands of expat property owners in Spain are crying out for some liquidity from their homes in Spain. The banks can’t help so we decided to invest in private Equity Release deals with our own money. That model was of course unsustainable so we decided to bring in outside investment. The current business model continues to shock investors, wondering if it is too good to be true. Well, it’s not. Our investors get double-digit returns and our sellers love us. We had one client, for example, tell me in all seriousness that we had saved her life.
Again during the quiet month of August, while I was 6,000 KM away on a deserted lake, often with no Wifi, Richard managed to put together another two deals. Well done
Richard, again he works better when I am not in the way. Equity Release Spain or ERS, have teamed with large investors in Madrid and we now can build legal, tax-efficient funds for our major investors. We can sell portfolios from 100,000 euro all the way to 5,000,000 and higher. They can manage the funds too and we also offer investors JV deals, so we put real skin in the game.
For now the website looks like this.
https://equityreleasespain.com
Solving other people’s problems.
Again since taking a back step, I found myself speaking to clients with all sorts of issues, often not their own fault. I would often use the line “If you have money and a problem that money can solve, you don’t have a problem”.
What if you have squatters, an expensive divorce, a planning permission issue, a house that needs refurbishment, an inheritance tax bill and you don’t have money? These are the sorts of solutions we put together every week.
For example, a couple of days back. We agreed to buy a property from a lady who has squatters claiming the contract they have is with her. She denies this and we believe her, 100%. My opinion is not what counts in court. The squatters are paying rent to “someone” and the owner is not seeing a penny. She has engaged with two lawyers, an ex-policewoman and who knows how many others, but nobody did anything concrete. We sat with our client, explained how we could help, and offered her a variety of solutions. We found one that works. She gets paid a guaranteed amount, Pedro Molina takes care of the eviction and we help the current owner to flip the house in nine months or a year. Everyone wins, except the squatters!
We get a request every single day and there are only so many we can deal with ourselves. Investors are always welcome to get in touch.
Surgery eventually.
The directors of this company, Surgery Now were unable to work together when they contacted Spanish Solutions back in 2021. As we do, we helped them to sort out everything from their legal structure, to their pipelines and sales scripts and especially their finances. I got involved as a director myself shortly afterwards as I love the idea of taking clients who are on long-term waiting lists from Ireland to Spain to have their Surgery here.
A wonderful concept and a great idea, but it just couldn’t work for me from a business point of view. We hope they are very successful but I no longer work with them.
If you, are anyone you know, is on a long-term waiting list for any sort of procedure, get in touch and I’ll pass your details to the relevant parties. I take zero commission and this is just a service I’d like to mention.
Conclusion.
Anyway, that is the update. Spanish Solutions still looks at deals all the time. I often explore new ideas and revisit old ideas like franchising our systems, offering paid consultancy and more. Myself and our team are having a stress-free fun time helping people. We do more and charge less than any other company we have ever met!
Thanks to everyone who puts their trust in myself and especially those who trust our great team.
Ian.
(yes, I really did write this and I didn’t complain once!)
