Why The Weekend is Sacred

A couple of days ago we got an enquiry in from someone flying over from the States to see property in Valencia and, lucky us, they were here for a whole two full days, arriving late on Friday the 14th of August and leaving first thing on the Monday morning, the 17th. They were not ready to buy but wanted to see a selection of properties in their time here so that they could decide whether they might buy something next year.

There’s a few problems with this “plan”.

1. It’s August

2. We are officially closed and on holiday (Though working with some clients)

3. Specifically August the 15th is a national holiday.

4. It’s the weekend. The 16th is a Sunday.

5. Just no

   

Now as mentioned in the subtitle, I wrote about the weekends being sacred some years ago on the blog. Here’s what I said then. Things haven’t changed.

1) Spain is not the United States. People here work in order to enjoy life rather than live just to work. There are five days in a week and two at the weekend. A weekend is there to enjoy.

2) The owners aren’t there, there are no keyboxes and the owners don’t hand over keys. You can’t get into properties when the owners won’t let you in unless they are there. What are the owners doing at the weekend I hear you ask? They are spending time off and away from home. It often seems that owners in Spain don’t want to sell because they make it difficult to get into places at times. That’s not true but you might definitely get that impression and you wouldn’t be far off hitting the target.

3) Agents work every weekday and their days are long, especially in summer. They might be starting work at 9am and finishing at 9pm in 30 degrees plus heat and then they still have to arrange their visits for the next day as most agents, especially in the larger franchises, are self employed and the franchise owners are, let’s say in a charitable way, often slave drivers.

4) You are just coming over for the weekend because you can’t get time off work? It’s not an agent’s fault that they work every day during the week and just because somebody on Facebook says that “agents in the US take days off during the week so they can work weekends!” it doesn’t actually make it true or means that it happens in Spain.

5) You have a family you want to see right? Well, believe it or not, so do agents, they are not usually anti-Christs, and some of them want to spend some time with their families. If they don’t do that very often in family friendly Spain then soon after they won’t have a family to spend time with.

6) They need to spend their “ill gotten gains“ from not doing any work because “they are workshy cowboys”, (remember that bit) and the weekend is the only time they can do this because they are so busy working during the week.

7) Agents in Spain often spend 50-80 hours working during the week so they are very reticent to set everything up for the weekend only to receive a text message while waiting at the house from someone who is having a long and potentially liquid lunch while on holiday and fancying a little bit of house hunting informing them that they will “be there a little bit late“ when the owner has come back from their village miles away just for this visit (And yes, this is taken from bitter personal experience various times and at times it has even been total no shows rather than a text message).

8) Generally there are no such things as open houses but if they are organised they will be on a Saturday morning. Therefore the agent is at one place with a small buffet waiting for anybody who isn’t another agent to turn up (because open houses aren’t generally a thing as I just said although some agents are trying to make them a thing). They cannot just pop off to see other places a long way away and leave the open house... well... open!

9) This is the one that may sting because I know that most of us believe that the World revolves around us and should bend to our whims and will but you are not the main focus of the agent especially if you are just popping over for the weekend.

Have you got a NIE? Have you got funds in place? Have you got a bank account? Have you appointed a lawyer? Do you need a mortgage and have you got pre-approval?

If not then don’t expect an agent to drop everything for you at the weekend because even if you managed to find the perfect place (Good luck with that at weekends where your choice is limited even more) then you won’t be able to buy it without all of those things in place. Even if you have those things you might not be able to see anything much.

10) Are you contacting every single agent in order to make appointments? When an agent is told that you can only make 6.30pm on a Saturday evening because you have other commitments (Translation “appointments with other agents“) don’t expect the agent to go out of their way to accommodate you.

Without a commitment to one agent in the same way as people do with the Realtor model in the States then you are not the main focus of any agent. None of them will be taking you out at the weekend. You need to make yourself an attractive option for an agent by wedding yourself to them really and that is why it’s important to contact them beforehand and get a relationship going before you come over. (We can do that of course with our consultation call) Even then, it’s still the weekend.

11) Apparently “just get in touch with private sellers and they will be happy to show you things at the weekend“ according to Facebook know-alls. Go on, try it. Let me know how that works out for you as well. Especially in August.

I then got onto writing some tips for those who want to make the most of their visit, however short…

Some tips for you if you want to see things at the weekend, They may come in useful

1) Make contact with your potential agent a long time before coming over and stick with one (Of course I suggest us).

2) Make sure you include at least one full weekday in your visit. At least!

3) On that weekday, make sure to ask for help to organise all of your required things, NIE, Bank, Lawyer etc... You’ll need a morning to do this but no agent will take you seriously if you don’t or if you say you “might” do that in the future.

4) Don’t expect to spend all of the weekend seeing properties. You may get some places to see on Saturday morning and there may be the odd place on a Saturday afternoon but Sunday is for paellas. You will see as much as possible on Friday afternoon or Monday morning. And the more weekdays you include in your visit the more properties you are likely to see.

5) And one more thing, if an agent says ok to see things on Sundays then they are being pressured by their bosses because they are the new person in there (In some of the franchises) and they are desperate for sales so they will sell you anything and remember they are representing the seller not you, even though they are charging you.

Don’t expect them to point out any of the downsides of the property and know one thing for sure, the only reason it is being shown on a Sunday is because the nearby quarry doesn’t work that day so it seems a lot quieter than it usually is. Why is that? Because even quarrymen don’t work on Sundays in Spain!

Now at this point I would normally ask for your opinion about whether Spain should change or is it quite nice as it is for work life balance but I can’t because, once more, I’ve decided to block comments so that nobody has to spend time interacting with the demented AI rantings a melon who thinks that his addiction to ChatGPT is interesting. He (Because as I’ve said before, it’s a he, it’s always a he) also seems to think that his long comments insulting those reading these articles and the person writing them are worth reading.

Mate, as I know you read this, nobody cares. Nobody reads your comments. Our team gets a notification as soon as comments are made and yours just go, blocked and deleted within minutes, again, nobody sees them. Your obsession is touching but worthless. You are burning up ChatGPT tokens for nothing.