Estate agents lose out to the lettuce sellers

Once there were a lot of them, but now they are closing down their offices on a daily basis all over the Cost del Sol and Costa Blanca, where 80,000 estate agents are thought to have lost their jobs.

For those people who didn’t realise there were so many people selling property in Spain that figure might come as a surprise, but it is just a fraction of the job losses suffered by the guys who have been building the villas and apartments.

Big name agents like Fincas Corral, MC Inmobiliaria, and Don Piso have closed up to 75 percent of their hundreds of branches and the 10 biggest chains in Spain have closed an average of 150 estate agent offices..

No-one will miss them, least of all the Spanish College of Estate Agents, Their president, Santiago Baena, while admitting the closures have been brutal, claims most of them were not proper estate agents anyway. "We always said training was essential but they ask for more training for a man selling lettuce in the market because he has to use a machine."

The construction workers have gone grape picking in France where they, apparently, earn more money (€8.71/£6.95), according to their trade union bosses. Picking lettuce in Almeria doesn’t offer that sort of money, so there is uncertainty for jobless estate agents seeking a new cash crop to harvest.

The mass closure of estate agents' offices may also be a symptom of the way the Spanish real estate industry is changing.

One of Spain’s leading property sales websites is www.propertyinspain.net whose one-stop. select-view-purchase offer once covered all Spain’s second home areas, has also trimmed back on its local affiliate network to concentrate on the best bargain areas. They have retained multi-lingual, well-trained property professionals in key areas to look after their buyers seeking big discounts they first spotted on their website.

Gareth Milton, operations manager of www.propertyshowrooms.com said: "Companies who had always focused on web-based activities without the massive overheads associated with a network of physical branch offices are the ones more likely to weather the storm."