What’s the discount?  I like the villa, but how much will you give me off?  Somebody else is offering me a 30% discount and you’re not offering me anything.

Most of the time we don’t do discounts: the price we advertise is carefully worked out so that it is competitive (OK usually not cheap, but they are very nice villas!).  It takes supply and demand into account and lands always in the customer’s favour so that the price advertised gives you great value for money.  If the prices we advertise are not competitive then customers just go to another website: that’s what the internet is for!   So if someone is offering a villa for £6000 with a £1000 reduction and we are offering you a villa for £5000 with a 0% reduction then just be aware that the £6000 villa is really a £5000 villa that started out too expensive. Compare what you are offered not the discount: the discount is not the holiday, the villa is the holiday.  And ours will be nicer.

True story:

“What fantastic views” we enthused, trying to ignore the clouds of dust that were blowing in front of it, and trying not to look them other way. The views in one direction were indeed of the highest quality, as was the villa that we were being asked to offer, but the earth was shaking underneath it, and I couldn’t think of a nice way to put it, so I said, “Those JCBs are a bit noisy though”.

“Oh, we hardly notice them, ” the owner said. That was hard to fathom, since there were 6 of them engaged in earth moving operations.

“Well, you would if you were paying to stay here.”

“To be honest, we do notice them when we arrive”.

“When do you think the work will finish”

“I’m not sure. Not soon.”

“Why don’t you let us know when it’s all finished?”

“Is it a problem?”

“UK law says we can’t let a house when there is a building site nearby. We are an ABTA member.”

“Oh, well, I’ll just put it on a direct website then! They won’t be able to sue me here. ”

Dealing with an agent means that you can sue the agent. If you are spending serious money then accountability is worth thinking about.

The Algarve Resident recently highlighted the issue of new government regulation in Portugal. Continue reading →

The largest island in the Caribbean, second only to Cuba, with a commercial existance not wholly dependent on tourism. Continue reading →

A hundred very beautiful islands, 7+ hours flight from Europe. The three we offer are radically different. Continue reading →

The end of the year is statistics time. In the spirit of Glasnost and for the delight of our competitors, here is what it tells us about the state of the world: Continue reading →