Property finders in Mallorca

Property finders in Mallorca

There are various ways by which you can search for properties in Mallorca. These notes give you a bit more detail on the options and will, hopefully, help you make the best choice for you.

Property finders generally take a percentage based fee for finding you a property. The fee can be as much as 1.5% or even 2% or more of the final purchase price. So for a property costing Euro 500.000 you would pay up to Euro 10.000. The fee is justified partly on the basis that the finder will use their experience to get you a better deal.

This is perfectly valid and there are some very good property finders operating in Europe, although there are only a couple operating with any experience specific to Mallorca.

Whether this approach is more effective that MPP's free service is debatable. We think there is little reason to chose to pay for search services in preference to the high level of dedicated service that Mallorca Property Partners offers.

• As noted, conventional property finders apply their experience to getting you the best deal. We also apply our experience and our enviable relationships with Mallorca's leading estate agencies to achieving the same. So, by paying a fee on top you are likely to be paying out a substantial amount more for the same result.

• Conventional finders are independent of any estate agents ... and so is MPP. Whilst our fee does come through a commission share with our agent partners, we are not allied to them in any way. Our reputation is founded on getting you the best results and we only work with agents that we know to be professional and have good coverage of their area.

  In reality fee-based finders will have a set of agents they prefer to work with, just like MPP. A word of caution here too. If you do choose to go with a conventional fee-based property finder check they don't also take a commission share from the agent behind the scenes. This is quite commonplace and, in our book, rather underhand.

• Alternatively, some property finders provide a "mostly free" service. They operate on a commission share with the estate agents but require a "commitment fee" up-front which is returned if you buy a property through their contacts.

  On the surface this is a good idea and fair enough. A lot of time and effort goes (or at least, should go) into sourcing the best properties and arranging viewings. But in reality this commitment fee binds you in a contractual way that we find unnecessary. Remember, if you choose a property that you have found through some other route, you will lose the commitment fee and this is usually around thousand Euros.

  Obviously we like our clients to use our service in good faith and not to double-up by contacting estate agents direct. This just confuses matters and leads to frustrations on both sides. But we do not commit you contractually to this as we prefer to stand on the quality of the results we deliver.

  If you are not satisfied with our approach at a very early stage then you will obviously go elsewhere and should be free to do so. We are confident in our no-fee, no-contractual commitment approach only because we are equally confident we will deliver the best result for you from the outset.

  There are of course a few other companies that have sprung up recently following our lead in offering a free service. Mallorca Property Partners was however the first, and our contact base and experience is unrivalled.