Selling in Cyprus

Hi, it’s me again!

Last week I started to tell you what is was like to have our villa “For Sale” in Cyprus. If I’m honest, it was pretty much a nightmare from start to finish and I’m really glad it’s over.

During the renovation we thought about how we would market our villa when we were ready to sell. Here in Cyprus it’s perfectly normal to “do-it-yourself” – mainly because of the rip-off estate agents fees. Agents’ fees used to range anything from 5% to 8% - and they used to achieve that! But not in todays market. Now you should negotiate hard. It’s more practical to be charged between 2% and 4% - still a huge amount of money though.

We decided to do our own marketing, but also used estate agents. We knew if an agent sold our villa we’d have a huge bill to pay, so we priced the villa accordingly. Unlike many other sellers, we gave every agent the SAME price. Despite this, we still saw it advertised by internet agents who hijacked our website, used our content - and stuck even more commission on top!

Choosing estate agents was another challenge. We had 38 working for us, all over the world. There were the local agents of course, but I have to be honest, the majority of these were hopeless. They made endless promises and delivered nothing. Mind you, that’s not only Cyprus. To be fair; I think this happens all over the world. We did find 2 or 3 local agents that were really good, but this was more luck than judgment.

To sell your property quickly, do your own marketing but also register with as many agents as possible. If you only have 3 agents, and they bring round 1 person each in a year, you only get 3 viewings! It’s a numbers game. The more agents, the more viewings you should get. We had 78 viewings in 12 months, but at least half of these came from our own marketing. (By the way, selling in 12 months is considered a quick sale at the moment in Cyprus!)

Next week I will tell you about what it’s like to have so many viewings and how I started to feel that my home wasn’t my own anymore – and what to expect! Until then, have fun and stay tuned…..

Best wishes
Jackie

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