Beach front property in Yucatan Mexico - Yucatan beach property

Merida Mexico beach front property

Q.8 How to select a good realtor. Part Two

Three - What does this person really do for a living? What is their main source of income?

Here's the core problem!

EVERY hotel, bar, gas station, restaurant, bed and breakfast, corner store etc has at least one person who will represent themselves as a real estate professional.

Unskilled practitioners and other moonlighters see only the commission cheque, �hey, I drive a car so I can drive clients to look at houses and I have gone into a bank to cash a cheque before, so I know how to cash a commission cheque�.

It's all about experience. I have practiced real estate for 23 years internationally and have almost a 1,000 deals under my belt. Yet I have never had two deals identical and I am not talking about the names of the buyers and sellers or the addresses of the properties. I am talking about terms, conditions, collateral influence, encumbrances and other derogatory elements of the property abstract.

Experience in real estate has taught me what indicators to watch for and those indicators determine how to best proceed.

Look I want to be very clear hear!

I am not saying that these people are dishonest or un intelligent.

What I am saying is that they do not have at least 10 years of industry experience.

There is nothing wrong with an unskilled amateur getting into the real estate industry to learn and grow as a professional. But here in Mexico it's like taking driving lessons at the Daytona 500.

In United States and Canada brokers are required to carry errors and omissions insurance to protect consumers in the event of the inevitable.

So things go too far as a result of an inability to read the indicators and because they are under capitalized they don't have the financial resources to make things right so the client assumes the liability.

Your life savings, an unregulated market place and novice real estate practitioner is a financially lethal mix.

FOUR

Is this person working legally in Mexico for the company they say they are working for?

Mexicans and non- Mexicans working legally here in Mexico will have a Mexican corporation and tax ID. Most amateurs work under the table for a referral fee for the owner of the company or a friend of the broker who is also getting a piece of the action.

Sometimes they themselves have a Mexican corporation So you need to see the agreement between their corporation and the realtor they say they are working with.

If they are not working legally as they have told you and anything goes wrong you have your legal remedies but the reality is that you will recover a net of zero after the cost of the process. The process is very long and therefore expensive.

Five no hablan espanol o Spanglish? (Do they speak Spanish or Spanglish)?

Sales is a communication based industry and a sales person who gets second hand information through a translator who has no industry experience and does not know what questions to ask or the subtle Indicators to watch for is a poor substitute.

The disadvantage is HUGE !

And finally # Six - Do they have the 5 essential skills for trading real estate in Mexico?

Can you imagine dealing with an auto mechanic that did not understand fuel injection and computerization? What result could you expect??

As a Mexican realtor, especially operating on the beaches You need to have a fluent understanding of: real property law principals of appraisal marketing mortgage finance and especially construction If you don't have all those disciplines down stone cold then you are of no use to your client.

The first visit for my client is to my office for a full orientation, followed by a Q and A., at which time I provide originals of my Mexican corporation papers, my tax ID and my amended FM2 which allows me to legally work for YMB Realty.

Then I show them my original brokers license and even a class picture of when I first received my real estate license in the early 80s.

From there we leave the office and do a tour of the sites where my crews are currently renovating previous client?s beach houses.

We then start touring available properties based on the clients instructions, and the rest of the process occurs over the next several days.

There is no doubt that my competitors will be reading this information and if they are smart, will be developing language to discount the value of what I have disclosed to you. Some of them may be able to do that because you are mostly dealing with people who don't know what questions to ask.

But what they won't be able to do, is discount the financial impact their inexperience will have on you.

In closing I would ask you to consider this. If you have worked so hard for so many years in order to live the life you have always wanted to live, why would you jeopardize a positive outcome by dealing with a realtor less qualified, than is available to you?

Robert Harker is a Canadian living and practicing real estate in Yucatan Mexico serving the beach communities north of the city of Merida in the state of Yucatan. He has been practicing real estate in Mexico for the last 10 years and has a total of 25 years international real estate experience and 1,000 career deals and counting. He specializes in retirement beach property for foreigners and has a full service construction company catering to the needs of his market niche.

For more information visit : http://www.thegringosguideblog.com