Running Up The Down Escalator

By: Helen Rowe
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:25:35
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It is over, August, the most frustrating month of the year, with most people either on holiday or in holiday mood. Yes, the weather is glorious if you are on holiday, but not for viewing properties when you start the day in a cool air conditioned office then car, then properties, then car, then properties! If you don’t look like a wet rag you certainly feel like one. Then you have the client who continuously mentions swimming pools often dragging their disgruntle children away from one to view houses. On the other side, the owners are also in holiday mood either using their holiday homes that they wish to sell, but after August please! Or they are just not in the mood to move away from their pool to entertain visitors.

The first thoughts of owning a home in Spain are often driven by a holiday experience, so leaving the beach towels at the hotel they trundle into estate agents. Half of these clients go home and never pursue the idea other than watching “A Place in the Sun”. The other half return later in the year, when they have the time and a better idea of what they want. So each client is not judged, but given time to explore their dream. I increase my freckles lose a few kilos and look forward to September.

On the plus side, parking is easier in Tortosa, as most of the sane locals have also left for the coast. The number of traffic wardens has diminished as they too take their holidays so I get less parking tickets. We don’t open the office in the afternoon just working through from the morning with clients until one of us drops! Oh and the town halls, notaries, and lawyers are also on half days or closed, so any business outstanding has to wait until September! Strangely, I have come to accept this practise but it is difficult to explain to outsiders, they think I am joking. In Spain there are eleven working months and August!

With pensions funds looking bleaker by the year there is a growing trend in buying property for investment. These purchases are normally village or town houses to restore over the years or to rent out until needed. The low maintenance, by not having land to worry about, plus the security factor of locking it up when not in use makes these an increasing option for people. So village houses are nearly as popular as the rustic properties with acres of land.

Most locals have always lived in villages or towns often with their separate parcel of land, which they tend with loving care to grow vegetables and fruit for the family. Of course the olive and almond trees are essential, so they go and harvest these in the autumn and winter. The small houses “caseta” were a must to shelter both themselves and the poor beast that carried them and fruits of their labours before the car. They think it strange that foreigners want to “live on the land” as that was never an option for them. Things change, now many of the locals are converting these once humble dwellings into holiday homes for their families to decamp for the summer. The water tank (bassa) gets a lick of paint and turns into a swimming pool for the summer, reverting back in the winter to collecting the valuable rain water for irrigation.

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