Hey, maybe y’all can give some unbiased advice. My wife co-owns a €1.4 million villa in Spain with her grandma. The property has been on the market for 2 years. I’m inclined to believe that the realtors are incompetent and that something is being done wrong. Am I crazy, or is something wrong here?
There’s an older lady who’s a family friend who currently manages the property and deals with the realtors on my wife’s behalf. She’s lovely, but not an expert in this, by any means. We are told by her that an appraisal late last year upheld the €1.4 million valuation, but to be fair, neither of us have seen that appraisal.
The property is currently listed by several realtors in the area – namely, Villa Iberia, Inmo Palafrugell, La Clau Brava, Espigul, and Cala Maset. My understanding is whoever manages to sell the house, gets the commission.
The house is in the Platja d’Aro region and is ~350 m2 in size, with 4 bedrooms and a large outdoor pool, a short drive away from the beach.
Is the price way off, or is something else wrong? Surely 2 years is too long for selling this! Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to give some advice.
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The house is in the Platja d’Aro region and is ~350 m2 in size, with 4 bedrooms and a large outdoor pool, a short drive away from the beach.
Spain has a huge coast line. Being ‘just a short drive drive away from the beach’ isn’t really a unique selling factor there. If you’re in the first row, with sea view and a nice scenery around that might be a different story.
Looking at the size (350m2) and the pool, I think it depends a lot on the quality and age of the building.
As far as I know, Spain isn’t at the high end of real estate in Europe, so 1.4 million sounds like a certain degree of luxury to me. But just from the stats you’ve listed here no one can judge whether the house is worth it or not.
If it’s indeed worth the amount, then I think it’s normal that it takes some time to sell. Luxury is a smaller market with fewer people able to afford it. So if currently no one is looking for houses in that area, your price basically doesn’t matter.
I would suggest getting your hands on the appraisal. Also, realtors should provide you with “Comps” (comparisons for other similar properties that have sold recently [last 6 months up to 2 years]).
From those you should have a better idea if the property is priced correctly.
Yeah, we’ll try to get the family friend to send it to us, for sure
What could the family friend have to gain if the property doesn’t sell?
She gets a 10% cut for managing the property for all this time, and paying out of pocket for various repairs. As a result, she unfortunately has an interest in seeing the sale price be as high as it can be. She lives in the villa next door.
Do the agents think the price is too high? Did they give you estimates? I would ask them what reasons they think it hasn’t sold.
Bona sort.
I don’t know the area, but real estate is pretty common across the world, so some questions you’d need go ask are:
- what does demand look like? Are similar places selling, or is it a slow market?
- is this purely a tourist destination or is it an area with lots of jobs nearby?
- how are the pictures in the listing? Does it attract showings, or are people skipping over it?
- if it’s currently a rental, does it rent well or are there a lot of empty periods (i.e. how attractive is the property)?
It could be that the price is off, marketing is poor, or the market is just slow. Figure that out and you can hopefully fix the problem.
