New offices at Camposol Golf Resort

 MURCIA estate agent, Mercers, is currently riding the crest of a wave of success with the highlight being the opening of new larger offices at the Camposol Golf Resort.

Mayor of Mazarron, Gines Campillo, cut the ribbon and toasted the thriving local business.

Chris Mercer, Director of Mercers based in Camposol Golf since 1998, says, “Granted, not many agents are moving to bigger premises in Spain these days but we like to buck the trend.  We’ve taken over a prime frontline corner position that ironically used to belong to a Spanish bank and now have five window displays rather than just the one.  Already we’re feeling the effects with a notable increase in prospective buyers and sellers – so much so that we’re taking on a new native Spanish team member to handle enquiries”

Chris continues, “Prices have of course fallen significantly, back to the same levels as a decade ago, but I do believe they have finally levelled out – in our area at least.  For the first time we are seeing demand for certain property types and, as we all know, demand ultimately leads to rises in values.  The market for us has been steadily increasing this year but we saw a big jump in activity in September and October with record sales in the former.  There is a misconception that agents are all selling bank repossessions with 100% finance but in fact the reverse is true, 90 per cent of our sales are straightforward resale properties.”

When asked about the predicted effect of Spain’s new ‘Bad Bank’ which will spend up to €90 billion on foreclosed properties and defaulted loans at 20 per cent to 68 per cent of their face value, Chris was confident that Murcia would be ‘different’.

“For a start only 35 per cent – 40 per cent of the bad bank assets will be finished residential property, with a large proportion of this being in major cities and other areas of high volume construction. Murcia does not fall into this category. So, if people are waiting for a flood of cheap bargain properties to hit the market in 2013, I think they will be disappointed”