Forum Replies Created
Hi Scott,
Thank you very much for sharing your experience and cautions about investing in Espana. It is great to hear from someone semi "local" that has first hand experience in the property market.
Purchase tax is quite common in many countries including Australia, interesting that it is calculated on a valuation 6 years ago rather than current valuations. Do you have any idea how a Spanish bank would value the property if we wanted to get a mortgage for the property? Would that affect the purchase tax if the bank's current valuation is lower?
Are community charges for condominiums or free standing properties as well?
Is VAT charged based on annual rent received, or total value of the property? Very interesting if annual VAT is 21%…if you hold a property for 5 years that money would have bought you a second property! How does the government plan to convince investors to come over and buy properties if the VAT is so high? Could that be why the marketing campaign is aimed at Russia and China where people are unable to do due diligence due to language barriers?
Excellent suggestion to live in Spain for a long time first before committing to property
Merry Christmas!
Yen
Thank you so much for your help, Jamie
I'll cross post my comments from the other forum as well. All suggestions and feedback would be valuable for me to build a business that succeeds and can help others.______________________________________________________________________________________
Thank you very much, Jamie REA is my biggest competitor as they have the highest market share, and they do provide a very good service. Although they are very expensive, most PMs advertise there because REA gets a lot of traffic and the website is well maintained. Plus they have lots of resources for investors. The only way for me to compete is to differentiate my service, and to provide greater value for money for my clients.
One way that my website will be different from REA is that anybody can post an ad. REA only allows agents to advertise properties, which is a business model that serves them well (exclusivity for agents). Their main focus is property sales rather than rentals. About 40% of investors choose to self manage, which essentially shuts them out of advertising on REA. Domain allows investors to advertise without an agent, but the fees are quite expensive. Anybody can advertise a property on Rent With Pets, individual investors with very few properties can pay for each advertisment. PMs and agents can subscribe monthly to advertise unlimited properties for no extra charge, and also have a page to advertise their business. For the investor that wants to advertise for "free", they are encouraged to hire one of the PMs with a subscription, or ask their own PM to subscribe
Yes REA and Domain have a "pet friendly" filter that is very helpful for many people. However some pet friendly investors are reluctant to use it. The filter doesn't allow them to specify what animals would be considered so they are afraid of getting too many enquiries from people that own pets which are unsuitable for their property, which they feel would waste their time. If REA decides in the future to provide additional filters for "pet friendly" properties, then they could become really tough competition!
The ability to check property alerts/ real time demand for a certain type property by postcode, and the price that potential customers will pay is another way that I can differentiate my service. Any suggestions on how I can provide more value for investors, or differentiate my service are most welcome. Thanks!
Edit/Delete Message
