[Anonymous]

The offices which have opened over the past four years are the ones now reported to be in difficulty.

http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_11519.shtml

[Anonymous]

Chris McCarthy of Viva Estates has confirmed that they are “closing a number of office locations over the coming weeks”.

[katy]

Charlie they are not closing offices down through lack of business. They are restructuring 😉 No staff will lose their jobs (probably becasue they have already jumped ship!!)

[Fuengi (Andrew)]

Really????

anyone know which offices?

[Anonymous]

Well it does’nt say what offices, but the MD of Viva has posted this elsewhere:

Dear Festival and Patrick

Having had your posts forwarded to me this afternoon, I thought it best that I respond personally.

Yes, as part of a general restructuring and a whole new project for VIVA in the future we are indeed closing a number of office locations over the coming weeks.

We have always hoped to be a very open and transparent company, and usually outline our corporate affairs and plans in our HOT Properties magazine every month, and will therefore be announcing our expansion and change plans within HOT Properties over several coming issues / months.

We believe our future will be as exciting, interesting and filled with growth and commitment as it has been these past 10 years that we have been in business.

What I would say, as it is probably of interest to you, is that our closure of several offices has most to do with the different way the market works today, as opposed to when we opened our 15 offices between 7 – 10 years ago.

We are not laying off any personnel whatsoever, we are not reducing our services or coverage of the market, we are indeed to expand all of that, which will become evident as I said in forthcoming issues of HOT Properties and in our general promotional activity through September and beyond.

I hope that answers your question clearly.

I hope that you will also appreciate there is more to come, as there ever has been from VIVA over the past decade, we may have made some mistakes along the way, we may not always have been everyone’s cup of tea lets say, yet have always been here hopefully seen as – open, transparent and committed – to the coast throughout that time, and we sincerely hope to be here for another 10 years also.

Best regards,

Chris McCarthy, Managing Director, VIVA Estates.

[Anonymous]

@katy wrote:

No staff will lose their jobs (probably because they have already jumped ship!!)

…………or despatched to the likes of Romania/Bulgaria to open new offices? 😀

As so much business is now internet-based, I seriously wonder if they will simply re-deploy staff to deal with internet enquiries via their website.

[Inez]

I think they are going down the networking with other agents route!

I have been contacted a couple of times by their networking department offering wonderful properties for my clients.

With

wait for it

No I said wait for it…
….
…….. 10% commission to split 50/50 each way!!!

Of course I agreed!!!!! 😯

[Anonymous]

Sorry to shoot the rumour down in flames that all estate agents on the CDS are going bust but the last 2 weeks have been the busiest we’ve had in over 4 months and other local agents (that are actually remaining open in August) are saying the same.

We believe that the re-sale market is picking up again. Think that the bad weather in England has had some effect but also many vendors are now being realistic about what their property is worth and are prepared to negotiate.

Note that each and every one of our recent transactions has been a second-hand property or completed new-build and not off-plan. We have also had some meetings with developers coming to our offices for the first time to introduce themselves. One even told us that “Hermosa Homes should be honoured to be able to work for the first time with us”. What arrogance!!! All their units unsold since February 2007 and by my reckoning about 25% overpriced. Same old, same old attitude and the same old reason why we prefer to sell re-sales.

[katy]

Played golf at Calanova a few days ago (Inland from La cala) It looks awful! about 20 blocks just stuck there and still building 😕 They all looked empty, not a sign of life. There is also a large block on the main Road at la cala and only about 2 appear to be occupied, saw that they have now put a large banner across the top “apartments to Rent” Maybe they have just given up trying to sell!

I did hear from one agent that they are doing a “steady” trade. They put it down to there being a shortage of legal properties on the market (marbella).

[Anonymous]

@sdodgson wrote:

Note that each and every one of our recent transactions has been a second-hand property or completed new-build and not off-plan.

I think it’s going to be very difficult for those agents who’s main business model has been selling off plan developments from their offices, telemarketing and exhibitions to shift more to reslales.

I listened to a podcast on eyeonspain where one large chain said that’s what they were doing.

I guess the amount of time, manpower, travel and potential complications/breakdown in the transactions and listing of resales compared to selling on a new development must be huge and I think some will really struggle with this.

[Fuengi (Andrew)]

@Iain wrote:

Well it does’nt say what offices, but the MD of Viva has posted this elsewhere:

snip

so…. paraphrasing:
several of our offices are such a huge drain on our resources, mainly the ones that catered to the off-plan market, that we are forced to close them down now.
Also we don’t need to worry about the whole sacking of staff and several offices are already working on skeleton staff, and the ones that aren’t willing to move to the new offices can find other jobs elsewhere.
Please pick up a copy of our magazine, pretty please.

[Anonymous]

A quick post from an often visitor here, but infrequent poster…

All the sales people at Viva are self employed. They invoice the company at month end for anything they have sold. So technically, it would be hard to make anyone from the branches redundant as with one or two exceptions they are manned by self employed agents… 😀

Whilst with a female friend, who wanted some moral (and perhaps physical) support, we had to visit the old head office and the branch opposite which is now being used as HO. Both gave good impressions of the Marie Celeste.
And, in the spirit of open and transparent business, whilst chasing for commission due on a sale in March (she since left the firm) we found the company most open (everything was always missing, invoice, sign off signatures, people who could sign, record of the sale etc etc a sure sign perhaps of leaving the door open???) and very transparent….well at least their bank account appeared see through….

[Anonymous]

@madeinmarbella wrote:

A quick post from an often visitor here, but infrequent poster…

Ah, but you posted that brilliant ‘One Man’s Lessons’ ❗
Anyone who missed it, see http://www.spanishpropertyinsight.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=12848&highlight=#12848

Hopefully your friend ended up receiving monies owed.

[katy]

Thanks for the link Charlie, great post. It should be a sticky 🙂

[Anonymous]

300 Estate Agencies have closed in Alicante Province so far this year.

http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_12281.shtml

[Anonymous]

charlie

thanks for reminding us of the ‘one mans lessons’ post. The bitter/sweet side of it is that despite several heated and quite bitter posts on various subjects recently, from people on both sides of the ”cheated, so should get justice” or ”stupid, so got what you asked for” argument, we all agree on the content of that particular post? Nice to see common ground on any of the main issues.

[Anonymous]

I visited a small inland town with less than 25,000 people where I did some work a few years ago (haven’t been to for 2 years ) and noticed seven estate agents closed. Only 2 being used now for other businesses with the rest lying empty. If repeated across te country that would be quite a drop.

[Author]

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