After arriving in Spain, both less than sixty years old, became bored in less than a year. We had both been used to working as sole traders in the UK.
We had realised that the standard of the estate agents was not good and we thought we could do better, just working from home with a good website.
Selling Spanish properties under the name of Javea Online became a new career for us both.
What a success it was for eight years.
We built our own website, through Norbert Holtz, and later his wife, Daniela, came to work with us.
We worked from home and when were contacted through our website and email we contacted the client on the telephone. The majority were British looking for holiday homes and sometimes for a property to retire to.
Developing a number of advertisements we arranged publication in magazines and newspapers, including The Independent in the UK. Here is one of our designs
Here are some other adverts .
Having determined their requirements we approached up to a dozen estate agents in Javea and cherry-picked suitable properties, then worked out a visit schedule. Jo then showed the clients up to seven properties a day for probably two or three days.
If successful we helped them through the minefield of buying in Spain and introduced them to a lawyer, helped them open a bank account, accompanied them to the Notary and generally provided ongoing support through the purchase procedure and very often after-sales service as well. Some of these clients are friends to this day.
In total, we sold over 80 properties at a total value of over €36 million.
When we sold El Garroferet in February 2020 we found an old For Sale sign was in the garage
.