I met with some of my currency exchange affiliate introducers this week. They’re very happy. They’re now using our property marketing systems to good effect and earning a comfortable income just from introducing clients for currency exchange.

We have developed a system where the estate agents / realtors, who sell properties to clients from another country, can use our online mailing system.

If they are one of our currency exchange affiliates, they can create their own emails using our pre-formatted templates. This allows the agents to include their own banner / header, up to 6 thumbnails with brief descriptions for any properties that they may wish to promote, and links directly to their own site.

The estate agents simply log onto our online template system, follow the simple instructions, and within two minutes, they’re sending an email to their own account all set up to be forwarded to their client database.

It’s a win-win.

• The clients get to know about the latest properties.
• The agents save time and get to use our template system.
• We get the opportunity to let the clients know about our great value foreign currency exchange services for when they have to transfer money abroad.

Visit fx-foreignexchange to learn more about how your real estate business can earn more from recommending a professional currency service that saves your clients money.

If you are an estate agent selling to an international client market, go to news-gazette.globalprops.com and see the many advantages of joining Globalprops.

It’s free to join and you can regularly earn for simply referring currency clients.

While visiting the Algarve on a short holiday with my family, we went to the Olhao Seafood Festival. I had no idea what to expect, apart from seafood of course! What we got for our  €8 entry fee (each) was a seafood extravaganza. We sat in among long rows of trestle tables, close to a full entertainment stage, and enjoyed everything that the Portuguese seafood chefs could throw at us.

The payment system was typically local. You pre-pay for your order and wait in line for someone to yell your ticket number. I had to ask for a little help as all numbers were called in Portuguese. We enjoyed grilled tiger prawns, crab, sticks of char-grilled prawns, Cataplana ( a local seafood dish in a pot), and Paella.

The Portuguese lived up to their hospitable reputation. We were quite obviously tourists, despite our determination to mix in. The family sitting adjacent, didn’t speak any English but we soon found a way to communicate. Food! They offered us a cake to try (A pastry filled with sweet coconut and topped with something like pumpkin jam). It raised a smile as my family clearly enjoyed the cakes. So, the favour was returned when I returned with two extra Caiparinha’s for them. A Caiparinha is apparently a Brazilian cocktail, but we never got to the bottom of what was in it.

All of the seafood and cocktails were accompanied by a support band and then one and a half hours of an Abba tribute band. They were excellent. However, I think we got better value out of them than our new friends as we knew all of the words.

I’d strongly recommend visiting the Olhao seafood festival. It’s great value, a good night out, and the Portuguese are very friendly. It’s an annual event and lasts for 5 days.

I’m off to Ibiza for two days next week. One of the pleasures of my work is that I get to meet interesting clients.

In this case, I have a small selection of luxury properties for sale on Ibiza that a client is flying over to view. They range from €6m to €12m. As you might imagine, luxury villas on Ibiza, really are from the hedonistic paradise that we see in those glossy weekly magazines with celebrities littered about. Sea, or beach front with vast swimming pools, loads of white cotton and muslin and luxury fittings throughout.

My job is simple here. Meet the client, ensure that he’s well looked after by our local agent, smooth out the usual mis-interpretation of requirements, see my god son ( who happens to be working on Ibiza this summer), and get back to the UK before I have to go to Portugal on the next day!

As this is all last notice, does anyone know of a decent hotel with last-minute availability?

View Luxury properties for sale on Ibiza

I was visiting a few businesses in Vilamoura marina the other day. It was very busy with tourists. Quite a different atmosphere to how it feels in the winter. Even though it’s cool then, it seems cosier.There’s less people about, the bars are warm and the locals are warmer with their hospitality.

I suppose that’s the same all over the world when the holiday period is full-on.

Why in Vilamoura Marina? Well I have a little project on at the moment. If you are a marina manager, yacht or boat broker, or boat owner, you might be interested to visit Marina Manager. It could make you money, or save you money. If you have to collect payments for berth fees, or pay your mooring fees, this may just be the site for you.

Google have finally properly launched their much anticipated free property portal using their map search facility.

Most real estate agents are still under the mercy of the old-style property portals who have refused to join the party.

 However, you CAN make a difference and get ahead of the competition. These guys, at Realpress, saw the Google Base (as it was called) or Google Property Portal, coming a year ago and designed their real estate agency software  so that it automatically feeds to the new Google Portal without any effort from you.

Take a look. It’s just free for the basic version, and only $50 for the full version so that your WordPress site uploads to Google. If you don’t have a WordPress site, talk to the guys at Realpress. I had a few made, and it was really cheap.

It was the best $50 I spent. WordPress real estate plugin for new Google maps property portal.

I’ve been visiting the Almeria region of Spain for over 7 years. When I first drove into Mojacar Playa, I didn’t get the same feeling that all of my friends had. They told me that Mojacar and Mojacar Playa was a wonderfully relaxed, genuinely Spanish, beach resort. They told me that it felt so laid back that it was horizontal. They said that the “locals” were friendly and would accomodate me even though my Spanish was almost non-existent.

The second time I arrived, I was completely sucked in by all of the above. 7 years later, I still visit Mojacar Playa about once a month. Some of my best friends live there and I’ve got some fantastic memories. Most of the memories involve eating the fresh local Spanish food, being served by people I now know well, and entertaining my customers there with pride.

I finally gave in to “Mojacar” and rented a place there for 4 years. When I left, properties for sale on Mojacar Playa were very expensive. However, many of the villas for sale now are about 40% below their prices of 2 years ago and a real bargain can be had. The character of Mojacar Playa and Mojacar Village (Pueblo) hasn’t changed at all. Most of the original bar owners are still there and I recommend anyone to visit Mojacar. But, be sure to go a second time. If you would like to see some properties for sale in Mojacar, have a look at this selection of villas, apartments and townhouses.

Hasta Luego.

On one of my recent visits to the Algarve, Portugal, a small bargain property caught me eye. I then embarked on a lengthy search for the best mortgage deal in Portugal for a non-resident.

Communicating with the Portuguese banks was difficult as they seem to work in a completely different way, to the way that I’m used to. I approached one, who took a week to respond to two messages left. When they finally called, they were very polite and offered to email me some forms. They took almost a week to arrive!

Finding a mortgage broker, in Portugal, that you can work with was also a bit of an exercise. Do you trust the person recommending the broker?

Finally, I used an online review site for mortgage deals in Portugal. The site put me directly in touch with the broker who was offering the deal on the site, and we’re moving ahead at last. Did I trust the site any more than a recommendation… “NO”! However, it did offer me a choice of mortgage deals without having anyone “sell” me anything. I simply chose the best mortgage product that suited my case and applied online to the broker.

Have a look at Mortgages in Portugal and see for yourself.

Several years after selling my UK Estate Agency, we’ve decided to start selling properties again. Mad? Probably, but we’re going to have fun swimming upstream.

A former colleague is heading up the new style of estate agency in one of our old offices in Godmanchester. We started business there in 1989. We aren’t going to conform to the stereotypical image of a UK estate agent. Our style is considerably more relaxed. We’re more interested in achieving the result for the customer so don’t expect Armani suits!

Our customer profile? Well, we have aimed all of our experience squarely at the Buy to let property investment client as we have a regular supply of already managed rental properties where the landlords are looking to sell.

If anyone’s interested, you can see our new UK Estate Agency profiled here. We’re using the Realpress real estate plugin software for estate agents. It’s made all of this so much easier to manage and it will receive and send XML feeds.

Finally, there’s a WordPress real estate plugin that not only works, but is great for SEO and is already compatable for the predicted onslought of Google Base.

You can download it for FREE here. I did, and it has transformed my sites.

However, you might want to consider parting with just $50 and get yourself the fully loaded real estate plugin for WordPress. It’s not much, when you consider how much you have to gain with SEO and saving time with xml feeds.

It offers a fully integrated property listing search tool (unique to property blogs and much better for the visitor). It also offers an XML listing feed for import and export. I know this works because I’ve just used it on 2 of my sites:

www.ibizavillasforsale.com and www.property-for-sale-in-spain-almeria-mojacar.com

 Here’s a few pointers from the Realpress site, about the real estate site plugin for WordPress users:

Hello All,

Life isn´t that bad. There may be a Global recession, but it´s mid January and the sun is shining in Spain.

I have the pleasure of visiting many different countries for my work, and the Murcia and Almeria regions of Spain are always a pleasure. You can still visit great places where English isn´t spoke by everyone, and most of the food is traditional.

The challenge is to get by on my very limited Spanish in an area where English isn´t spoken. For instance, I was in the pretty coastal town of Aguilas last night. We ate in a great little Argentinian restaurant and managed to hold a modest Spanish conversation with the owners after our meal.

“Big deal”, I hear those clever multi-linguists say. Well, for me that was an achievement! It didn´t involve the usual descriptive hand gestures I usually resort to. Of course, it helps if you have a dinner companion who CAN actually speak Spanish.