Looking to buy a 4+ bed villa in Carvoeiro

[jonc]

Certainly the process is different to the Uk but that is not necessarily always a bad thing. One big difference in Portugal is that estate agency is regulated / licensed. I found in the properties I viewed that the agent knew more about them than a Uk agent would in relation to the neighbours, unlicensed goings-on etc. It seems they are required to do more background checks before marketing a property. In the Uk you are more likely to get shrugs and responses of 'I'll have to ask the vendor'.

In the end, perhaps we were lucky in that a property we viewed in the summer ended up falling into our price range. We might also have been helped by having a specification which severely limited what we would be looking for.

The agent we used was very helpful and did a lot of running round for us - nothing seemed too much trouble. Happy to pass his details on if anyone is interested.

Jonathan.

[Globetrotter]

So, you found a house? Great!

Mrs. B, I agree completely with you. I found it very frustrating about the lack of a multiple listing service and the need to interact with so many agents, as well as the territoriality involved.

[MrsB]

Glad to hear you found somewhere, Jonc.

I'm sure if you go out with very specific requirements, the personal approach is fine, indeed I should imagine it's highly useful just before you close the deal. However, if I was trying to sell, I would be concerned that my property wasn't getting marketed as efficiently as I would like. With so many properties for sale and the difficulties faced by people buying from overseas, agents should be using the internet so much more. In the UK, you can now pinpoint most properties on a map on-line usually with satellite or even 3D view - absolutely brilliant. Globrix is even better than Rightmove - try their 'search by map' tool.

The only agent I've spotted going some way towards this in Portugal is Remax who use Google map on some of their properties, so it clearly can be done over there too. But it's clear that there's a big opportunity for some enterprising Portuguese company to embrace similar technology and really make an impact on the property market.

[joanne]

Did you try Mark at Palm?

We have bought and sold with them and they were and are really helpful, not pushy gave us lots of details, told us where things are etc, then we viewed with them.

We did find a couple of the others very pushy, think you just need to find a company who you are comfy with.

[MrsB]

Have you had a look at the Palm website recently? (And let's face it, websites are the first point of contact for many overseas buyers these days) I wouldn't be happy trying to sell my property on there at the moment. 140 properties in the villas section spread out over FORTY SEVEN(!) pages. They seem to be arranged in ascending price order regardless of location - there's no apparent way of doing any simple sort process such as just the Carvoeiro ones, or the three bedroomed ones.

It's not alone in being off-putting = the Quinta da Palmeira website isn't much better. Again properties put on there in no particular order with completely banal descriptions, although to be fair to them, unlike most of the other Carvoeiro agents, they are marketing their properties in the Overseas Properties section on Rightmove, which, as I'm sure Globetrotter will agree, is a BIG plus. We love the look of Algarvian properties, but let's face it, they all start to look pretty similar once you start trawling through dozens and dozens of listings, and as I've said before, without having some idea of the location, how on earth do you start differentiating between them?

All I would suggest to any vendors reading this is that they might like to take these comments on board when they appoint an agent. With so many properties for buyers to pick from, I would want to maximise my exposure, and not just hope that the agent chooses my property as one of his selected viewings for someone who managed to find his office. If vendors start get pickier about who they use and what they want them to do, the agents might up their game.

[joanne]

Well he sold our Apartment for us in this climate in a couple of months, we had a quick look at the sites, went into them all, got the details of the ones we liked and drove round, any we liked we rang the agents and went to see them, we had no problems at all.

Joe

[davepp]

Look at portuguseshomes.com..easy to use

[suziebear]

dont you mean portuguesehomes.com!!!!

[davepp]

Too quick on the keyboard...yes, www.portuguesehomes.com.

[Lulu]

Hi

Just wondered if you are still looking for a 4 bed property, as we have one to sell.

[jonc]

Thanks Lulu,

No, we are sorted now. Expecting to complete this month.

Jonathan.