Euro Prestige 4 day trip

Hi Kate, and welcome to the Forum.

I do not have any information  on the services provided by that company, but I would advise if you do go ahead with their accompanied viewing that you book your own flights and cerainly your own accommodation, plus, state clearly to them the times you wish to be picked up and dropped back at your Hotel, each day.

It has been know for these companies to insist their clients are picked up for the start of the days viewing as early as 6 .am in the morning, not being returned until late at night ,followed by a similar early start the next day. This is pressure salesmanship and should be avoided at all cost.

Do, also retain your passport ,at all times, and do not let the company nor their representatives ,hold them, as if they do, it may be difficult for you to back out of the trip until they decide to give you your passport back.

Others on here will, hopefully ,give much clearer advice.

Good luck on your search and hopefully you will soon find your very own Place in the Sun.

LeckyLes 

Hi Kate,

Never heard from of that company so cannot comment.

When we came over to view, we booked our own flights and hotel, by recommendation contacted Casas Manuel estate agents who picked us up from the airport, took us to their office in Benijofar where we looked over properties, picked out a few to view.  There was no hard sell, everything was at our pace, at the end of each day they took us back to our hotel with arrangements made to what time we wanted to be picked up. At the end of the trip as no one as available to take us to Alicante airport, they arranged and paid for a taxi.  We can’t recommend them enough.

Best wishes and good luck

Eli

If you don’t know the area or actually know where you want to buy, perhaps being driven around to see lots if different places may be a reasonable idea.  This is how the infamous ATLAS group worked years ago. They narrowed the properties they showed you once you told them how much money you were prepared to spend. You were driven all around and mostly shown new builds.  ( Atlas and Masa were the 2 big developers at that time)  Take the previous advice into account and you will be fine. You may even find your dream home. Good hunting. 

We went on a viewing trip with Euro Prestige in January 2019. We were picked up at the airport and they paid for our hotel, which was close to their office. 

We knew that it was going to be a busy few days and that we were not on holiday but considered it as a business trip. They also paid for lunches when we were out viewing and would have paid for dinner at night but we wanted to have that on our own and discuss what we had seen during the day without the agent listening and commenting. She was fine with that. 

We told the agent our criteria and mostly she stuck to that. 

We agreed a time to be collected and were shown many properties in just a few days. I doubt that we would have found or seen most of them just driving around ourselves. We saw properties in several different areas, some areas we liked but not the properties and others - we liked the properties but not where they were. Some we did not like the property or the location. 

We were then asked did we want to see something different that did not quite fit with what we had asked and we agreed. If we said no, then that would have been fine. 

Eventually after viewing probably 20 properties in 3 days we were shown something that we both liked, did not tick all of our boxes but was very close. We were not put under any pressure but did decide to buy.

We insisted on using our own solicitor, not theirs which delayed the process a little as our solicitor worked for us and not them. She went through everything with a fine tooth-comb, making sure that everything was legal and that the property had no debt etc.

We went to our property for the first time in April and have had many enjoyable relaxing weeks there since.

Now that is good feedback!   Happy campers!

Lots of helpful advice already given and you may be interested in this; https://www.spainmadesimple.com/property/inspection-trips/

I think you can use the trip as part of the learning curve, why not? As long as you don't get caught up in the dream they will sell you and don't sign anything or part with a penny.

I haven't been on one but I do have experience of something similar and it really was a hard sell. You are picked up from the airport so you don't have your own car to explore anywhere on your own, not that you will have much time or energy to do this anyway. I've even read that some will put you in a hotel which is quite remote and keep you away from bars etc that stock the free ex-pat newspapers as they don't want you looking at the property pages or reading something that might put you off, such as the state of the roads in Orihuela Costa, the water quality in the Mar Menor, flooding and so on.

Stick to their rules and take it for what it is, an introduction. There are always thousands of all types of property for sale in the Costa Blanca so don't believe it when you are inevitably told someone else is interested in any property you show an interest in. Take what you will have learned and get in touch with a few estate agents (Casas Manuel always get good reviews) and plan a future visit, preferably at a different time of year as that lovely quiet apartment you may see could become unbearable in high season and keep an eye on Kyero (a portal for estate agents). If you find somewhere you really like, try to find a tourist let nearby, possibly even in the exact same type of property and try before you buy. Buying in Spain is an expensive process and if you don't get it right it may take a long time to sell it again, plus, of course, even more expense.

Hi LeckyLes, thanks for the reply, looking forward to our trip next week

Hi Cheryl, thanks for your reply we've decided to book our own hotel just don't want to be beholden to any one company & its so cheap anyway, not sure that Euro Presige will still want to take us around to look at properties but we'll just hire a car & do it ourselves, theres so many beautiful places for sale right now.

HI Kate - I used a Scottish company who arranged flights at a set cost of £99 return - Alegria estate Agents collected us at the airport and arranged a really nice Hotel (B&B)  - they picked us up after breakfast - 09.30-10.00 and we viewed 5-6 properties per day but most were places I'd viewed on-line and all in Torrevieja - we always stopped for a little lunch and drink and there was always bottled water in the car - I thought they were really good - no hard sell and they Listened to what I wanted!