You want to buy a property in Spain- save a lot of money to make our dream come true. We search the Internet for offers in our financial range on various sites. We meet many fantastic offers at very good prices and locations. It is best if the agency is serviced in our native language. It seems to us that it is the agency, that is the perfect shot, we arrange the date of arrival and the viewing of the property. Everything looks beautiful, we are sure that we will be the happy owners of our dream house in Spain. Suddenly, upon arrival, it turns out that our offers never existed in the first place. A dishonest agency attracted us to Ghost Offers, hoping that we would choose something from other offers anyway. I will describe to you our story of how we flew to Spain, deluded by ghost offers.
Ours story
We have been preparing for 3 years to make a decision about the region and the town that would be the best for us. We travelled to the Costa Blanca several times a year, we checked how the restaurants work not only in summer, but also in the off-season, if there were a lot of tourists, because our assumption was to buy an apartment for vacation rental. On many portals intended for direct rental from owners, we checked price lists, rent and the opinion of guests about the area. We found a lot of real estate agencies; our choice fell on one of the companies we thought had the best deals within our budget. For a good year or even longer, we checked their offers several times a day, many offers were available for a long time. In July 2016, during the vacation, we decided to contact the Agency to see a few offers from our list. We had an appointment for Tuesday, where we were informed on Monday evening that the agent cannot see us because she is with other clients in Majorca, and so our vacation ended and we didn’t see any offer. In September 2017, seeing that our selected offers were still available, we contacted the agency again to arrange a reconnaissance. We came to Spain in early October for a few days. All the offers that we were interested in before arrival was sent to the agent, including our budget and requirements. The stairs started before we left Ireland, I remember standing in the queue to board the plane and reading an email that they were very sorry, but some of the selected offers are no longer available, 4 out of 12 selected. The next day we had an appointment to see the offers, the agent picked us up from Maciek’s parents’ house. The most unprofessional customer service I’ve ever seen, in the car we got a few sheets with a minimal description and one photo of the property. We drove to the first property selected by the agency, but the door to the apartment wouldn’t open, so we saw nothing but the building from the outside. The next few offers presented to us had nothing to do with our previously selected properties and did not meet our requirements.
We clearly indicated that we have absolutely no interest in Torrevieja, so I do not understand why the Agent was taking us there, the more so because the offer significantly exceeded our budget. One of the main conditions for the property we wanted to buy was that there was a pool available so I don’t understand showing offers without a pool. We set our expectations clearly and asked her not to waste our time on offers that did not meet our expectations. After seeing a few offers, I asked the agent if we could see the offers that we had selected from her side, and I received the answer: “I’m sorry, Mrs. Ursula, but they are no longer available” but hot deals come off quickly even in 1 day”.
I am asking how it is possible: is the hot offer one that is available for over a year. I did not get an answer to this question.
Unfortunately, the sad conclusion from our history is that dishonest agencies attract customers to ghost offers, hoping that customers will choose another of the offers presented. I follow the offers of this agency all the time and I use this practice to this day.
Fortunately, there are also ethical and professional real estate agencies. During our search for the dream apartment, we contacted another agency several times, which helped us check offers that were not offered by their agency. They always provided us with information without any problems. In October, when we came to look for real estate, we visited them to thank them for their help and to settle the bill for the work done. We wanted to repay them for their time. The agency staff welcomed us very warmly. They agreed to accept the small gift but refused to accept the money. They didn’t want anything for the work they did for us. During our visit, they showed us a few offers, although most of them did not fit our budget, only one met the budget criteria so we decided to see it. Although it was not as attractive in the photos as we expected, after crossing the threshold of the property and entering the balcony, we knew that it was a dream come true. A few weeks later, we became the happy owners of the apartment. In fact, they met all of our expectations.
Our history proves that not every agency uses unfair and non-ethical methods, but we must be vigilant and research the market ourselves before we make a decision.
