What Does a Buyer’s Representative Do in Mallorca?

One brief. The whole market.

Buying property in Mallorca can be a slightly bewildering experience, particularly if you are coming from a market where there is one obvious place to see what is for sale.

A property here might be represented by one agent, several agents, or available privately without being advertised at all. The same property can appear through different agencies, sometimes at different prices. And some properties never reach the portals.

There isn't one definitive shop window.

For a buyer, that can mean speaking to ten different agents, each perfectly reasonably showing you the part of the market they know or represent.

A buyer’s representative turns that around.

We take one brief from the client and go out into the market looking for the answer.

That might be a publicly marketed property, a secret listing, a development opportunity, or something that has never formally reached the market.

Sometimes our role is described as a buyer’s agent or property finder. I prefer buyer’s representative because, for me, that is the important bit.

We represent the client, not the property.

We start with a blank piece of paper.

This is probably where my previous life in executive search has influenced The Iberian Office most.

For more than twenty years, I approached a search with a blank piece of paper, a brief and a strategy.

You don't simply open an old database and see what happens to be there. You work out where the answer might be and then go looking for it.

That means following a comprehensive process. Speaking to the obvious people, certainly, but also looking left field. Following leads. Testing assumptions. Asking who else we should be talking to. Being proactive rather than waiting for the market to present the answer.

No stone unturned.

We approach a property search in exactly the same way.

Of course we assess the properties already on the market. The right answer may well be among them.

But we also speak to agents, developers, owners and our wider network to find the opportunities that aren't immediately obvious.

The methodology is the same: understand the brief, map the market, interrogate it properly, assess the obvious and the less obvious, and keep going until we are confident we understand the options.

Finding the property is only half the job.

Once we find something interesting, the questions change.

Is the asking price sensible? What have comparable properties actually sold for? Why has this one been on the market for so long? What is being built next door? Is that wonderful view protected? Does the renovation stack up? Can you actually do what you think you can do with the property?

And importantly, who do we need to bring in to answer the questions we can't?

A buyer’s representative should not pretend to be the lawyer, architect, surveyor, tax adviser and builder rolled into one.

I certainly don't.

Part of the job is knowing when specialist advice is required, knowing who to call and making sure the right questions are being asked.

The lawyer may be concerned with title and legality. The architect with planning and what is technically possible. The surveyor with the condition of the building. The tax adviser with structure.

Someone still needs to keep sight of the bigger question:

Does buying this property actually make sense for the client?

Candidates talk back.

There are more similarities between executive search and property than I ever expected.

A client gives you a brief. You map the market. You work out who really knows what. You assess the options, challenge what you're being told, bring in other expertise where necessary and eventually make a recommendation.

There is one material difference.

Candidates talk back. And their skeletons can be much harder to find.

With property, some of the problems are staring you in the face. Others have a habit of appearing when you ask the right questions and do the due diligence properly.

A beautiful photograph is rather like a beautifully written CV.

Useful for getting your attention.

Not much use for making the final decision.

And then there is “off-market”.

Off-market must be one of the most overused expressions in prime property.

There is, however, a genuine private market in Mallorca.

Some owners value discretion. Some properties circulate through agents and professional networks before public marketing begins. Others may be available to the right buyer without ever formally being put up for sale.

But there is no secret database containing Mallorca’s best houses.

Access comes from relationships, asking questions and making sure the market knows what you are looking for.

More importantly, off-market does not automatically mean good value.

A privately offered €5 million villa that is worth €4 million is still a €4 million villa.

The point isn't to collect secret listings. The point is to make sure the search isn't artificially limited by what happens to be advertised online.

Then you apply exactly the same judgement to whatever you find.

What happens when we find the right property?

This is where representation really matters.

We assess the opportunity and the available comparable evidence. We formulate an offer and help negotiate with the selling side.

We make sure the appropriate legal and technical due diligence takes place.

If renovation or development is part of the plan, we can bring architects or other specialists into the conversation before the purchase rather than discovering afterwards that the idea which made the property attractive doesn't work.

And throughout all of that, there is someone looking at the transaction through the same lens as the client.

Not:

How do we get this property sold?

But:

Does buying this property still make sense?

Those are very different questions.

Sometimes the right answer is no.

This is perhaps the least glamorous part of the job, but probably one of the most important.

When you've flown to Mallorca, spent months looking and finally walked into a house you love, momentum is a powerful thing.

It becomes remarkably easy to explain away problems because you want the answer to be yes.

Our job isn't to get swept along by that momentum. It is to keep asking the questions.

Sometimes the answer is to proceed.

Sometimes it is to renegotiate.

Sometimes it is to investigate further.

And sometimes the most valuable property we find for a client is the one we persuade them not to buy.

There will always be another house.

So, do you need a buyer’s representative in Mallorca?

Not necessarily.

If you know Mallorca well, understand the market, have the time to manage relationships with multiple agents and are comfortable assembling and coordinating your own professional team, you may be perfectly happy buying without one.

But for an international buyer making a significant acquisition from another country, having one person whose starting point is your brief rather than a property can change the process considerably.

A good buyer’s representative shouldn't make the Mallorca property market smaller by steering you towards a particular portfolio.

They should make the market bigger, while making the eventual decision clearer.

That is how we approach it at The Iberian Office.

One client. One brief. One point of representation.

We represent the client, not the property.