Touchstone :
An excellent quality or example that is used to test the excellence or genuineness of others.
Touchstone Spain was founded in January 2011 by David Rowe, working with 1 Spanish Bank, today Touchstone Spain works with 12 Spanish Banks offering their Repossessed Properties to the Public. David Miller joined the team as Managing Director in 2014.
Both Davids have over 45 years of living on the Costa del Sol, so be assured you are in experienced hands.
We try to make things simple and easy to understand and we hope that by you following our guidelines and take proper professional advice, then owning a Bank Repossessed home in Spain can be a lot easier than many people think.
"Why do you charge a fee on completion and other agents have theirs in the price"? is a question I often get asked, said David Rowe our Founder.
"I am very clear on this, yes it is true that if you buy a Spanish property the seller has loaded the price to include the agents commission and the Buyer normally never finds out how much the agent was paid.
However Touchstone do things a little different, When I set the company up, I decided not to accept the Banks Commission as I did not want to work for the Bank.
If you take the commission offered by the Bank you are working in the Banks best interest, not in the interest pof the client.
Most of the Banks will not allow offers on the price, if they pay agents commission.
90% of all our sales have a buying price below that of the original Bank asking Price, the saving is normally greater than our fee.
We work for the client, seeking the best property price and best mortgage possible.
Our fee also includes a Mortgage Brokers fee (normally 1.00 -1.5%), not only do we broker the best mortgage from all the banks we work with (not just the selling Bank), but I also pre-underwrite the mortgage file.
For example I would not put a client for some developments with the selling Bank, because their mortgage maybe terrible.
But if I was taking Banks Commission they would expect the Mortgage deal and the insist the client takes life insurance and House and contents insurance as well.
Is that in the clients best interest?
if we took Bank commission then we would just do a sale and believe the everything the Bank tells us. But as the client is paying, we work for the client not the Bank, so we ensure that everything is safe for the client.
I dont have a degree or a diploma, just grey hair and experience.
Touchstone works because for 10 years I have been doing Just Spanish Bank Repossessions.
NOT rentals, NOT resale's, NOT property management, NOT off plan, NOT a multi listing service.
I have concentrated on Spanish Bank Repossessions, trust me, I have made every mistake in the book and seen every trick and heard every story from the clients and the Banks.
23 years of living and working in Spain and running Touchstone since 2011 it has put me in the position of knowing my business.
Most Estate Agents won't touch Bank Repos, it can take 6 months to complete a deal. It can take 2 weeks to view a property, we have little or no information until the viewing and there is no quick money like you can get from rentals or property management.
Banks have no loyalty to its agents and turn the tap on and off as they please.
If it was easy everyone would be doing it, and there are very few who do this as a profession or only deal with Repossessions.
The fee we charge the client, is a brokerage fee paid only on COMPLETION of the sale,
We are a professional Brokerage, working for the clients NOT the Bank.
We only get paid when the job is done and the client is happy and we are open and upfront about what we charge.
A buyer will never sit and think, "i wonder what the agent earned out of me?"