Winners of the REAS real estate agency award in Marbella for Peoples Best Agency 2015, Anna Lena Rosen & her husband, Peter Rosen, head up the team at Nordica Sales & Rentals, one of the leading real estate companies in the Marbella area, specializing in property for sale and rent in Nueva Andalucia and its surrounding areas.
Established over 25 years ago, the company has grown from humble beginnings to one of the most successful agencies in Nueva Andalucia, with a team of over 25 staff, covering property sales, rentals, maintenance, administration and customer care.
Anna-Lena Rosen can be contacted at Nordica Property Sales & Rentals in Nueva Andalucia by telephone + 34 952 811 552 or by email annalena@nordicamarbella.com.
Ricky Bache discusses with Rosen the importance of developing trust plays in building a real estate company and winning awards such as REAS.
Ricky: Anna Lena, for the past 25 years you have built Nordica into one of the most successful agencies in Marbella. Can you give me a little background on Nordica´s approach that has brought this success?
Anna-Lena: Buying a property is, for most people, one of the most important financial decisions that they will make in their lives.
Whether you are buying the property as an investment, either to provide a regular rental income or in order to renovate and resell at a higher price; or for your own personal use, as your primary residence or simply for holidays; buying the right property is one of the most sensible and secure means of creating wealth, with the added bonus that it is an asset that you can enjoy the use of, if you so choose.
However, a property purchase is also one of the most important financial decisions that a person will make and often one that is approached with limited understanding.
This is especially the case in vacation areas such as Marbella where people are often investing outside of their own region or even country.
Because of this a buyer is dependent to a large degree on the advice they are given and this is where a trusted and professional real estate agent, who knows the area, is so important.
Here at Nordica, over the past 25 years, we have based our philosophy on two main pillars:
First, we have always specialized in Nueva Andalucia, rather than trying to sell property the length of the Costa del Sol which in many cases we will never have seen. When a client approaches us looking for a property in Nueva Andalucia they can feel confident they are dealing with a company that knows the area and properties intimately.
Secondly, we have always focused on building long term relationships with our clients. We like a client that has bought property from us to consider Nordica Sale & Rentals as their agents should they at some stage decide to sell or rent their property. The only way that such a relationship can be established is if the client trusts us to deliver the right advice in the first place.
Ricky: What are the keys to delivering the right advice?
Anna-Lena: The most important consideration is to initially establish the client´s needs, as each client is looking for something different in a property and without understanding what they need it is impossible to find the right property for them.
There are in fact four main categories of clients:
- Clients looking to buy a property with a view to reselling it,
- Clients looking to buy a property as a rental investment,
- Clients looking to buy a holiday home,
- Clients looking to buy a primary residence.
A client looking for a property to flip will only be interested in the factors that will affect the resale value of the property. If the property has a poor location, an unenviable orientation or is in a poor condition this does not matter if this is reflected in the price. Ultimately, practically all properties will sell if the price is right and often the best opportunities are found from sellers who have difficulty selling their properties, due to negative aspects of their property and are prepared to lower their price to below market value. A savvy investor will see the opportunity in this and, with no intention to use the property for his own use, will be indifferent to factors such as orientation, as long as he can resell the property for a higher price than he purchased it.
Clients looking to invest in property in order to derive a regular rental income are similar to those looking to buy to resell; however, the rentability of the property will play an important factor, whether it is for short term holiday lets or long term rentals. For example, for short term rentals, properties that are located close to the beach are almost always in demand during the high season, regardless of their orientation and to, an extent, their condition. For long term rentals other factors come into play, for example properties close to golf courses tend to be popular as they offer a tranquil environment.
We then have the buyers that are looking for a property for their own personal use as a primary residence. Here the most important factor for these clients is the enjoyment of their property. Factors such as the orientation of the property and the amount of sun the property receives is critical for many home buyers, as is the security, the number of bedrooms, layout and condition of the property. These are properties that the buyers are going to live in, in many cases with their partners and with their children, and everyone needs to feel happy with the property. The decision to buy is often a communal decision with all members of the family providing some input. For this type of buyer, whilst price is always an important factor, it is not always the overriding factor.
