We´ve been holding back on the banks recently, our solicitor advises us not to say how we feel about their role surrounding the uncertainty in the property market in Spain. We think this is watered down enough to give you and idea of why nobody can deal with Spanish banks for repossession property and still keep us out of trouble!
Buying repossessions has proved to be stressful and in most cases fruitless exercise. This is our experience on how one of the main Spanish banks operates. We still sell hundreds of properties in the region yearly- we know how to do it. We don’t sell mortgages so why are they trying to do someone else´s job?
We deal with Bankinter (you won’t believe these guys…more on this to follow next week), Caja Murcia, Banco Sabadell and most recently CAM bank.
Banco Sabadell, a few months ago, bought CAM for one Euro, about what it was worth but Sabadell told us that they would sort out the administration problems of the Alicante lender. Comaskey Properties always want to get the best value for our customers so we signed up to be a property seller for the bank. Simple enough, until you go to buy a property.
Pick any one of the properties on a banks website, say a two bedroom apartment in Villamartin advertised at 55,000 euro. We tell our buyers to offer less than the asking price, when we think the repossession is overvalued, so lets say you go in with a fair offer of 50,000.. cash. You’d imagine they would take your hand off- not so.
The ordeal begins with keys- it take two days to get into the house and usually they can be viewed only between 9-2 Monday to Friday- forget about weekends, evenings and bank holidays. Nobody knows how much it can sell for. Mortgages are almost impossible to take even though in many cases there already is a mortgage on them. The offer can take typically a few days to be refused and they never come back with a counter offer … Why not try “You can’t buy it for 49,000 but you can get it for 50,000”- like what salespeople would think to do.
It gets better, if the offer is finally accepted, the bank will also offer the property to any of their investors at that price agreed with you and if one or more of these insiders agrees to buy at the price you´ve negotiated, all bids are put into a bucket and one is pulled out- presumably “the lucky winner”. Are you following this?
So, now can Comaskey Properties take the deposit?? Well, sort of. We can take a fully refundable holding deposit which the buyer can have returned to them at any time if and most likely when the clients ask for it back. The buyer is in no way committed to buy, this costs us a deal, costs the bank a sale and confuses the buyer.
How many basic rules of sales here have been broken here? Why is it so confusing? How many chances do you want to give an investor to NOT buy property? All the bank succeed in doing is confusing the buyers, not helping them.
Surely you only create doubt in the buyers mind when they realise how inefficient you are? This in turn makes US look inefficient.
Do the banks not feel they are missing out on a buyer or two (hundred) by not making it easy to take these properties off their hands?
How can the bank value these properties- We sell hundreds of properties in the region, why not let COMASKEY PROPERTIES sell them all?? They are charging too much for their houses. We´re usually miles cheaper. Paying a top estate agent (ok, like us) or one of the decent agents here a couple of % commission to shift everyone of these liabilities (how can they refer to them as Assetts?) would surely represent a good investment on the part of the banks?
Why, oh why do the banks try to do someone else´s job. They should let Comaskey Properties value, package and sell all of these houses and get out of our way.
You want to know where the problem is in the Spanish economy… two places, one of them is the front door of the banks. (Our solicitor said he needs to proof read the piece we wrote on the other problem area in Spain!!).
If you are thinking of buying a Repo and go through an ordeal like this, check with us- we´re probably selling the one around the corner for 25% less and with 100% less stress.
We´ll have more bank stories over the next few days if our lawyer says we can go to print on them.
Buying repossessions has proved to be stressful and in most cases fruitless exercise. This is our experience on how one of the main Spanish banks operates. We still sell hundreds of properties in the region yearly- we know how to do it. We don’t sell mortgages so why are they trying to do someone else´s job?
We deal with Bankinter (you won’t believe these guys…more on this to follow next week), Caja Murcia, Banco Sabadell and most recently CAM bank.
Banco Sabadell, a few months ago, bought CAM for one Euro, about what it was worth but Sabadell told us that they would sort out the administration problems of the Alicante lender. Comaskey Properties always want to get the best value for our customers so we signed up to be a property seller for the bank. Simple enough, until you go to buy a property.
Pick any one of the properties on a banks website, say a two bedroom apartment in Villamartin advertised at 55,000 euro. We tell our buyers to offer less than the asking price, when we think the repossession is overvalued, so lets say you go in with a fair offer of 50,000.. cash. You’d imagine they would take your hand off- not so.
The ordeal begins with keys- it take two days to get into the house and usually they can be viewed only between 9-2 Monday to Friday- forget about weekends, evenings and bank holidays. Nobody knows how much it can sell for. Mortgages are almost impossible to take even though in many cases there already is a mortgage on them. The offer can take typically a few days to be refused and they never come back with a counter offer … Why not try “You can’t buy it for 49,000 but you can get it for 50,000”- like what salespeople would think to do.
It gets better, if the offer is finally accepted, the bank will also offer the property to any of their investors at that price agreed with you and if one or more of these insiders agrees to buy at the price you´ve negotiated, all bids are put into a bucket and one is pulled out- presumably “the lucky winner”. Are you following this?
So, now can Comaskey Properties take the deposit?? Well, sort of. We can take a fully refundable holding deposit which the buyer can have returned to them at any time if and most likely when the clients ask for it back. The buyer is in no way committed to buy, this costs us a deal, costs the bank a sale and confuses the buyer.
How many basic rules of sales here have been broken here? Why is it so confusing? How many chances do you want to give an investor to NOT buy property? All the bank succeed in doing is confusing the buyers, not helping them.
Surely you only create doubt in the buyers mind when they realise how inefficient you are? This in turn makes US look inefficient.
Do the banks not feel they are missing out on a buyer or two (hundred) by not making it easy to take these properties off their hands?
How can the bank value these properties- We sell hundreds of properties in the region, why not let COMASKEY PROPERTIES sell them all?? They are charging too much for their houses. We´re usually miles cheaper. Paying a top estate agent (ok, like us) or one of the decent agents here a couple of % commission to shift everyone of these liabilities (how can they refer to them as Assetts?) would surely represent a good investment on the part of the banks?
Why, oh why do the banks try to do someone else´s job. They should let Comaskey Properties value, package and sell all of these houses and get out of our way.
You want to know where the problem is in the Spanish economy… two places, one of them is the front door of the banks. (Our solicitor said he needs to proof read the piece we wrote on the other problem area in Spain!!).
If you are thinking of buying a Repo and go through an ordeal like this, check with us- we´re probably selling the one around the corner for 25% less and with 100% less stress.
We´ll have more bank stories over the next few days if our lawyer says we can go to print on them.
