s I described earlier in this chapter, for many years the sale of property in Spain to overseas buyers was largely focused on attracting buyers and then helping them find properties. Many agents still work in this way, promoting their services and knowledge of a particular area (typically a wider area than the local agents I have just described would focus upon) and then maintaining a relationship with their ‘clients’ until they find them a suitable property in a suitable location. While, over the years, the inspection trip model has become less popular this type of buyer orientated agent will work in a similar way, helping the client to prepare for a trip to spain to view properties and spending as much time as they can with the buyer as they can while they are on the ground in Spain, if they do not have properties that are suitable on their books they will reach out through their network of agents to source options and share the selling agent’s commission. Agents like this are likely to have a mixture of New Build and resale properties on their books and their portfolios are also likely to be large (due to sharing portfolios with partner agents). For buyers who are not familiar with areas, or not confident exploring on their own this working with this type of agent is an attractive proposal. The agent will help whittle down locations and maybe suggest areas that the buyer hasn’t considered or heard of. They will also help guide the buyer through the purchase process and offer introductions to service providers, however it is important to remember the key lesson from the last chapter “when a service is free, you are the product, not the customer”. 

These agents will not be paid unless you buy a property through them and, in a competitive market place, the agent will be under pressure to capitalise on their relationship with you as much as they possibly can. You may be shown properties which offer the agent the highest commission being shown to you first. You may find that the agent discourages you from looking at properties where they have low commissions or highlights the negatives of an area in which they have no reach while deliberately glossing over the negatives of an area where they do have a lot of properties for sale. Of course the service providers they introduce you to are those who offer them the best commercial benefits for that introduction.

As much as they market their job as being to help you find a property (and in many cases believe that themselves), the inescapable truth is that their job is to sell you a property and their associated services). I don’t think this is unreasonable, they will likely work hard to get that sale and they do need to make a living, however it is important that you remember that those conflicts of interest exist and don’t allow their best interests to take priority over your own.