# Property Rental Managers/agents recommendations



## Midgeymoo (Apr 13, 2014)

Hi all,
My husband and I are doing homework- every day on all things Spain, as if we were back at school  
One of our plans is to buy to let- we would need to do this to top up income so looking to buy in the most popular areas- somewhere where it doesn't necessarily match our individual needs but suits the masses so to speak- we especially want to be able to do long term rental lets for older people.
We realize we will need a company to manage the property, paperwork, cleaning, pool maintenance- basically everything because for now we will still be in Scotland.

I believe word of mouth is invaluable- so my question is- what companies do members recommend? What companies should we stay clear of?

Thanks for reading and hanks in advance 

I was trying to link to a company I'm checking out but can't until I've done 5 posts.


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

Midgeymoo said:


> Hi all,
> My husband and I are doing homework- every day on all things Spain, as if we were back at school
> One of our plans is to buy to let- we would need to do this to top up income so looking to buy in the most popular areas- somewhere where it doesn't necessarily match our individual needs but suits the masses so to speak- we especially want to be able to do long term rental lets for older people.
> We realize we will need a company to manage the property, paperwork, cleaning, pool maintenance- basically everything because for now we will still be in Scotland.
> ...


that will depend upon exactly where you buy..... & when

from your other post it could be some years before you buy the property?

a company which is brilliant today might not be around by then!


I know a great, established, company in my town - I also know that the owner is returning to the UK to live after this summer - perhaps leaving employees to look after things - perhaps trying to do it from a distance

now that _might _work - but it might all go wrong


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## Midgeymoo (Apr 13, 2014)

xabiachica said:


> that will depend upon exactly where you buy..... & when
> 
> from your other post it could be some years before you buy the property?
> 
> ...



Thanks for replying- yes I see your point- we are talking 5 years minimum (we plan early!)
The most likely place will be in the Malaga region- coastal for holiday rents- for us we can be an hour inland as we need somewhere with land. It's daunting not knowing if a company is even legit or not.


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

Midgeymoo said:


> Thanks for replying- yes I see your point- we are talking 5 years minimum (we plan early!)


Not early enough! I took seven years from initial concept to actually moving to make sure that everything would work as we wanted it to. and it did!


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

baldilocks said:


> Not early enough! I took seven years from initial concept to actually moving to make sure that everything would work as we wanted it to. and it did!


& we made a snap decision one day & were living here less than 3 months later - & are still here 10.5 years down the line - & firmly planted 

different strokes for different folks

if I was moving here with kids NOW though - I probably wouldn't, although since my OH's work wasn't Spain-based I might still


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## Midgeymoo (Apr 13, 2014)

xabiachica said:


> & we made a snap decision one day & were living here less than 3 months later - & are still here 10.5 years down the line - & firmly planted
> 
> different strokes for different folks
> 
> if I was moving here with kids NOW though - I probably wouldn't, although since my OH's work wasn't Spain-based I might still


We only have ourselves/pets to think of- it will still be the kid's home but they will be at uni or settled in the UK, unless they fancy finding jobs in Spain- I'm easy with that.

We pretty much know exactly what we want but it's all down to inheritance and there's no polite way to wrap that up... We're due to inherit quite a bit and once that happens we can put the wheels in motion. We hope to go to Spanish lessons at the end of the year whilst learning at home. We initially will only rent when we go out and if after 6 months we feel we've made the right decision we will buy somewhere with land so we can have our chooks/goats etc. There's a lot to think about but at least we both agree on everything and we also know exactly what we don't want!


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## zenkarma (Feb 15, 2013)

It's hard to understand from what you've written here what it is you want to do.

From what you've said, you want to buy (using some inheritance money) a Spanish property and rent it out to generate an income.

If you want to convert a lump sum of money into an income, why would want to go to all the hassle of buying a property in Spain to do it? If I had a lump sum of money I wanted to commute into an income—I wouldn't be buying a property in Spain in their current property market, I'd be buying one in SE UK.

So producing an income from a lump sum doesn't seem your primary reason for wanting to buy in Spain.

The Spanish property market (in my opinion) isn't going to do an awful lot for at least 5-10 years, more likely 10-20 years, so where's the hurry to buy? Plus, it's a renters market in Spain due to the surfeit of properties on the rental market.

Why do you want to give yourselves all this hassle for so little return (ROI)? By the time you've paid out the transaction costs of buying (anything from 10-15% of purchase price), plus the agency costs of running the rentals plus the tax you'll have to pay in Spain and in the UK on the income you'll be lucky to see hardly any returns at all for the first few years.

It doesn't make much sense to me if you're funding the purchase with cash.

I'd suggest you crunch all the figures involved quite carefully indeed before you get too far down the line of doing this.


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## Midgeymoo (Apr 13, 2014)

zenkarma said:


> It's hard to understand from what you've written here what it is you want to do.
> 
> From what you've said, you want to buy (using some inheritance money) a Spanish property and rent it out to generate an income.
> 
> ...



Ultimately we want to live Spain but we need an income- I thought that if we were going to generate income from property rental it would be easier if we lived in the same country- basically buying two properties, living in one while renting out the other. I see why it's confusing, right now we know we will have three properties in the UK to rent out but we don't know if that will be enough to fund a life in Spain- we want somewhere big with at least 4 acres. Maybe we have this all wrong- I'm confused now  
Maybe we will be able to buy a property of our dreams and use the rental money from houses in Scotland as an income- we don't know how much inheritance tax etc we will have to pay. I'm going to read your reply to my husband and see what he says- thanks!


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## snikpoh (Nov 19, 2007)

zenkarma said:


> It's hard to understand from what you've written here what it is you want to do.
> 
> From what you've said, you want to buy (using some inheritance money) a Spanish property and rent it out to generate an income.
> 
> ...



I absolutely agree - don't buy a second property in Spain.

This is what we did for just the same reasoning as Midgeymoo - in hindsight WRONG DECISION!

Far better to buy in UK and have someone else manage it for you. Friends of ours do this and have then managed by a company offering 'guaranteed' rent. I think all their properties are let to the police force in Kent.

We now have a number of properties here which (a) aren't producing much income (b) aren't selling in the current crisis and (c) won't be any good for our children as I suspect they will have to go abroad to find work.

Ah well; 'best laid plans ...' and all that.


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## Midgeymoo (Apr 13, 2014)

Here's my thinking- if we bought a property in SE UK and rented it out- for x amount... OR bought a house in Spain (for the same cost) and rented it out we thought we would generate more income on the Spanish house - some rents are over £1000 a week high season- I don't know what houses in the SE UK rent out for but I will look.


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## Midgeymoo (Apr 13, 2014)

snikpoh said:


> I absolutely agree - don't buy a second property in Spain.
> 
> This is what we did for just the same reasoning as Midgeymoo - in hindsight WRONG DECISION!
> 
> ...


Does it change anything that we're not buying to sell but to rent out- holiday lets?

We're taking all this advice on board so thank you


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## snikpoh (Nov 19, 2007)

Midgeymoo said:


> Here's my thinking- if we bought a property in SE UK and rented it out- for x amount... OR bought a house in Spain (for the same cost) and rented it out we thought we would generate more income on the Spanish house - some rents are over £1000 a week high season- I don't know what houses in the SE UK rent out for but I will look.


What would your ultimate plans be for the Spanish property?

Don't forget, there is very little capital appreciation on Spanish properties unlike in UK.

Another issue is succession tax in Spain it is VERY different to inheritance tax in UK!

Yes, holiday lets would earn you more money but it's hard work and you have to buy in the correct area. You would also have to be close enough to manage it yourself or expect to loose 25-30% in management fees.


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## Midgeymoo (Apr 13, 2014)

snikpoh said:


> What would your ultimate plans be for the Spanish property?
> 
> Don't forget, there is very little capital appreciation on Spanish properties unlike in UK.
> 
> ...



One of the ideas we had was living no more than an hour away from the rental property so we could manage it ourselves- we are also looking into the most popular areas. Ultimately the property would be sold and Nick would be at retirement age and live off a pension and savings. Houses seem a lot cheaper initially to buy in Spain- we wouldn't be looking to profit on the sale but just to generate an income. Renting the houses out in Scotland wouldn't be enough, they would only allow us to buy our dream house in Spain but we still need to eat and having animals etc costs money. We are certainly not rushing into anything and will give it all lots of thought- really appreciate all advice.


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## zenkarma (Feb 15, 2013)

Midgeymoo said:


> Here's my thinking- if we bought a property in SE UK and rented it out- for x amount... OR bought a house in Spain (for the same cost) and rented it out we thought we would generate more income on the Spanish house - some rents are over £1000 a week high season- I don't know what houses in the SE UK rent out for but I will look.


You'll should generally get the same rental yield (expressed as a percentage of the capital value) of about 5-6% on a long term rental in SE UK as well as Spain. But there are many other things to take into consideration—not least of which is the transaction values (how much it costs to buy the property) the management fees (how much it costs to keep the property rented) but probably most importantly is the capital appreciation (how much the property will go up in value). You also have to consider how easy or otherwise the properties might be to liquidate the value of—in other words how easy are they to sell?

If you're looking at holiday lets primarily then yes you will get a higher rental yield than a long term let but you also get the added problems of 1/ a smaller rental window (people only generally want to go on holiday when the weathers warm thus cutting down on the number of months the property will be rented) and 2/ someone needs to manage the short term holiday rentals. 3/ The properties will still cost you money (Community charges, IBI, Basura, utilities etc) whilst they stand empty.

As I mentioned previously—you have to sit down and crunch the figures and see if it's worthwhile and doable.

One thing I will say, as I mentioned previously, given the instability of the Spanish property market—I wouldn't be looking to invest any money into it at the moment.


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## Midgeymoo (Apr 13, 2014)

zenkarma said:


> You'll should generally get the same rental yield (expressed as a percentage of the capital value) of about 5-6% on a long term rental in SE UK as well as Spain. But there are many other things to take into consideration—not least of which is the transaction values (how much it costs to buy the property) the management fees (how much it costs to keep the property rented) but probably most importantly is the capital appreciation (how much the property will go up in value). You also have to consider how easy or otherwise the properties might be to liquidate the value of—in other words how easy are they to sell?
> 
> If you're looking at holiday lets primarily then yes you will get a higher rental yield than a long term let but you also get the added problems of 1/ a smaller rental window (people only generally want to go on holiday when the weathers warm thus cutting down on the number of months the property will be rented) and 2/ someone needs to manage the short term holiday rentals. 3/ The properties will still cost you money (Community charges, IBI, Basura, utilities etc) whilst they stand empty.
> 
> ...



Thank you for taking the time to reply- we have a lot to think about


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