Overseas Property Agents Must Up Their Game to Survive

The credit crunch will forever be remembered for its negative effects, especially for its lasting effects. People will forget the positive effects, not least because they are less known about and less talked about. One positive effect is the removal of casual overseas property agents out to make a quick buck and with about as much knowledge of selling and buying property as I have about carrying out a triple heart-bypass operation (about as much as you can learn from ER re-runs).

Most, if not all of these agents have fled the market because they could no longer make a quick buck, and/or because they fell into a debt-hole they couldn't crawl out of. This is a good thing for the industry and for buyers.

However, even if they hadn't fled, they wouldn't survive in the current market. That is because another lasting effect of the crunch is the increased caution of buyers. To survive in this market the agent really needs to put in the work.

Today's buyer wants to know everything about the local market, and everything about the development, the developer, floor plans, length of season, exact and clear details of the financial arrangement they are entering into, and everything else.

Therefore agents need to do their homework in order to survive, because if the buyer is passed on to the developer to find things out, then the agent seems like one of the fast-buck brigand not to be trusted and the prospect buys direct from the developer.

The ideal situation is to have a member of staff that is responsible for each country you want to sell in, and they make it their business to ensure they have the most up to date availability and price lists for the properties in that country, as well as building a full and comprehensive knowledge base of the local area. Where that is not possible, the countries should be divided equally between staff who follow the same steps as above but for multiple countries. Creating a binder of information on each country is a good idea.

One overseas property agent who has survived the downturn and the aftermath is Spot Blue. The firm agrees that today's buyer expects more from overseas property agents, but apparently the firm has always considered it important to know the finest details of all the regions and properties they are responsible. Of course, by focussing on Turkey alone they have made their job easier.

"We always went to great lengths to know everything we could about the developers we worked with, the developments we marketed and the locations they were in. Having said that, today's buyer does expect more than in days gone by. In response to this we have begun offering full reports into all our developers from the Chamber of Commerce etc."

Spot Blue is currently marketing property in Turkey from £25,000.

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