Inspection Visits

By Diarmaid Condon - www.diarmaidcondon.com

For the un-initiated, an inspection visit is a trip of short duration organised by an overseas agent or developer to facilitate the viewing of their property portfolio by a prospective client. These visits are very often promoted, in some cases quite heavily, by agents and developers at overseas property exhibitions, which are very common at this time of the year. The visits vary greatly in price from bargain basement offers at €49 or €99, often associated with the Spanish Costas, to visits which are organised by the agent/developer but not paid for unless a purchase is made. It is a generalisation, but often a fair one, that the cheaper the inspection visit the more pressure to purchase is likely to ensue during the visit. The agent or developer has a lot more to lose in such a situation as they are, in effect, heavily subsidising your trip and they obviously have to sell in reasonably large quantities to recoup this investment. This is, however, a generalisation and it can often be found that the level of pressure to purchase is quite large in any event. On such a trip you will inevitably be placed with a sales agent who is paid on commission, therefore if you don’t purchase they don’t make anything, this is a great incentive to sell property and you will often find that the pressure is quite a bit more subtle than you may expect.

The question is often asked as to what exactly you can expect from an inspection visit offered by an agent to visit a property overseas. It is of course very difficult to be precise on this matter as inspection visits vary greatly in their quality, price and effectiveness in much the same way as there are often vast differences between agents and the quality of the services they offer. In the main such visits fall into two categories, individual or group trips. There is no particular reason to suspect that one is better than another, they are just different, and thus suit different people. Individual trips generally consist of a couple as most inspection visits do entail couples and if there is a significant other involved the agent will practically always insist that they travel so that any decisions can be made in-situ. An individual trip means that your specific guide is totally reliant on you for commission during this particular period, this may lead to excessive pressure. It has not been unknown for clients to commit to a purchase simply because they liked their guide and felt that they should invest, purely out of guilt. Needless to say this is not the ideal reason to initiate an overseas purchase. On the other hand, a group scenario, where a bus is used to transfer a group of prospective clients between developments, often results in poor investment decisions as couples vie to purchase better properties than the others on the trip, even though their budget may not allow for such a purchase. Which you choose, should there actually be a choice, is purely down to personal preference.

One of the things to remember about an inspection visit from the outset is that they are, by their very nature, restrictive. That is their whole purpose. An agent/developer wants your undivided attention for the duration of the trip and will usually go well out of their way to ensure that you don’t meet any other agents during your trip. This could well mean that you are missing out on potential properties, sometimes very close to where you are currently looking, which could suit your needs far better than those being shown to you by your current host.

You should make it clear from an early stage that any pressure sales tactics will inevitably mean that a purchase will not be made, this will put you in a position of power at the start and should avoid the worst excesses of overpowering sales people.

In the main, an inspection visit is only warranted when you have an exceptionally good working knowledge of a particular area and you are visiting with an agent you have chosen following close vetting of many agents and developers. It is an ideal vehicle for closing a sale on a property which you have identified as your specific choice through detailed research of the area on the ground. An inspection visit is not a vehicle to be used as an initial foray into an area to see what it has to offer. If you use it as such you can expect to encounter an unacceptable level of pressure during your stay and you will usually find out very little about the area in general. It is advisable to visit an area on your own in advance of such a visit to ensure that you know what amenities the area has to offer, typical prices, accessibility, desirability of specific areas and other factors which will inevitably influence your purchase decisions. In the main the inspection visit will be of most use to those who have decided on their area and agent/developer and simply need a quick visit to confirm the particular property, aspect, furniture & fittings, etc. which are to be included with the package.

Diarmaid Condon is an independent overseas property advisor with significant agency experience. He writes regular weekly columns for the Sunday Business Post and Irish Examiner as well as a monthly column for Irish Property Buyer Magazine. He can be contacted through his website at www.diarmaidcondon.com.