Blog | Page 57 | Jean Galea

How to Buy Properties, Cars and Other Assets at a Discount in Spain via Bank Auctions

Last updated: December 23, 20194 Comments

In Spain, there are thousands of properties that have been seized by the bank due to the bankruptcy of the developers or other problems that have led to loan payments to the bank being jeopardized. Most of these repossessions happened during the crisis of 2008 when the housing bubble burst.

Most of the foreclosed properties can be found in these regions:

Andalucía
Valencia (Costa Blanca area)
Catalonia
Madrid

After some time passes, sometimes years, the properties are put on the market and sold via an auction. Every person or company can take part in these provided they have a NIE and a digital certificate.

Through these auctions, you can get your hands on a property, for example, an apartment or even a garage, at a significant discount over the market price. Many of these properties have no problems so they represent a potentially great deal.

I only got to know about these auctions when my neighbors told me that some apartments and parking spots in our building were being auctioned off due to the original developers of the apartment block having gone bankrupt several years before.

I decided to participate in the auction by bidding on a few parking spots, mostly to learn about how things work and see what kind of a discount one could obtain.

In the end, it was quite an exciting experience. When you make a bid, you need to send over a percentage of the total value of the item you’re bidding on via a bank transfer. Then you make your bid which must be higher than everyone else’s. You will then receive notifications whenever your bid is superseded.

Each auction has a set closing time, but that doesn’t mean things end there. Basically, whenever there is a new bid, the auction end time is extended by an hour, and in this particular case two of the items I bid on were dragged on for another 12 hours, and that included the night as the auction originally ended at 6pm. Clearly there were some motivated bidders who stayed up all night in order to get the parking spot.

When bidding, you also have the option of keeping your bid in queue once the auction closes. This means that if you’re the second-highest bidder and the highest bidder fails to pay within 20 days, you become the winner of the auction and it would be your turn to pay up. The process continues until a paying bidder is found. Note that the bidder who doesn’t pay loses his deposit.

Of course, what you all want to know is what discounts can be obtained when you make these bids. So here are the results from the parking spaces I bid on.

Parking spot 1

Value: €20,334
Winning bid: €16,967 (20% discount)

Parking spot 2

Value: €21,103
Winning bid: €14,751 (30% discount)

Parking spot 3

Value: €17,649
Winning bid: €17,424

So some pretty nice discounts to be had there, 20-30% is great. On the other hand the other parking was sold at its value, although having seen the spots beforehand I couldn’t understand why the value was lower in the first place, as it was just as good as the other two.

In terms of hard cash, there were some even better savings for those who bid on the apartments in our building.

Apartment 1

Value: €621,615
Winning bid: €468,807

Apartment 2

Value: €652,315
Winning bid: €490,517

So the apartments were sold at a 25% discount on their assessed value. Not bad at all.

There are several sites which run these auctions, but the one I used is the Portal de Subastas.

There are some disadvantages to bidding in these auctions too that you should know about:

You need to put down a deposit in order to bid on any auction. If you want to bid on several parking spots, for example, you will need to put down a deposit for each of them.
If you win an auction, you need to pay up the remaining amount within 20 days. In the case of buying apartments, this can mean hundreds of thousands of euros, which not many people have casually lying around in their bank accounts ready to invest. It’s almost impossible to get a loan in such a short time too, so you really need to have the liquidity before going into such auctions. If you fail to pay up within the stipulated time, you lose your deposit.
Sometimes you might not be able to see the apartment being auctioned off, which makes it a very risky thing to bid. Some apartments might even be occupied.

Have you tried getting a great deal through a Spanish auction? Let me know what your experience was like.

I’ve also come across a site specialised in helping people make money through auctions. Going through the free content I’ve also come to understand some of the pitfalls in a better way, so if you are going to try your hand at these kinds of auctions I would definitely advise getting the advice of an expert or at least self-educating using courses such as the ones provided on this site. I have no relationship with it, and there might be other similar ones out there. Note that the courses on this site are in Spanish.

How To Recover Files (including Photos and Videos) on Mac

Published: September 28, 2019Leave a Comment

If you ever had the misfortune of having a disk corrupted you know how bad it feels to lose your files. Here are some tips on recovering files on a Mac.

First, a word of advice. Before using your cards on photographic equipment, always format them so you make sure that you’re starting from a clean and well-structured drive. Failure to do so increases the chances of corrupted data and makes it messier to recover files later.

If you’re already in possession of a disk with corrupted data, you need a fix. I analyzed the following software packages in my evaluation:

The first three are premium software packages, while the last-one is open source and is a command-line utility, so it might look a bit harder to use. If you have the patience to learn how to run software from the command line and you have time to read the manual, then you’ll be fine.

In fact, this is my favorite software for recovering files and fixing otherwise broken file systems.

From the other three software packages, only Easeus Data Recovery got me results as good as the PhotoRec and TestDisk combo. I would, therefore, recommend it if you want software that is user-friendly and does the job. I wasn’t impressed with the other two as they were either not that straightforward to use or didn’t recover files as well as my favorite picks.

Why I Don’t Care About Nationalities

Last updated: January 08, 20214 Comments

For many years I struggled with associating myself with the country where I was born, especially when I started to travel on a long-term basis and now that I’ve spent most of my adult life living outside of that country.

Mine is not an isolated case, and I know many others who have several thoughts and feelings after going through similar experiences.

I do not feel patriotic nor feel any particular pride for the country I was born in. I do appreciate everything I benefited from while living there, but at the bottom of it what I feel is a sense of being lucky to be born in a very good environment, compared to all the other places that I could have been born and raised in.

I strongly dislike nationalism and have seen its negative outcomes and induced madness first hand in Catalunya.

The concept of the nation-state has been very influential in the past few centuries, and has fully taken the place of religion in many parts of the world. I believe that we are seeing the first signs of the fall of the nation-state, and more and more people losing this strong sense of binding their identity with their country of birth or childhood. For many people who work in the digital industry, this is already the case. As one of them, I consider myself a citizen of the world. Home can be anywhere where I can find a supportive environment, good internet and the freedom to work and live.

Here’s an excerpt from My Country, a song by one of my favorite musicians; Roger Taylor:

I would not fight for my country
I would not work to no rule
Don’t have no truck with no power game
Won’t be some other jerk’s tool
Don’t have no part of no partisans
Won’t have no part ‘cos one party and another’s all the same
All the same
Gonna play it at my own game

Don’t wanna die for some old man’s crusade
Don’t wanna hear what they feed
Don’t wanna kill for some cause of the age
Don’t wanna cry for somebody else’s need
Don’t want no piece of no flag in the breeze
Don’t want no part ‘cos one party and another’s all the same
All the same
Gonna play it at my own game

Going forward, nations will have to compete to attract people to live there, by offering the best possible conditions. In many ways, they will be like today’s companies, in a healthy competitive environment. This will cause governments to stop acting in a totalitarian way and focus on actually being efficient and improving their country in order to attract more quality citizens.

Padel Etiquette and Rules For Non-Umpired Matches

Last updated: March 28, 20237 Comments

During friendly matches and most amateur tournaments padel matches are played without an umpire. The qualifying rounds of World Padel Tour don’t have a referee either. This means that the players will have to judge certain things themselves in an amicable manner. Let’s talk about some of these things to keep an eye out for and how to behave.

At the start of the match, it is usual to wish the other players a good match, and at the end, all players are expected to approach the net and shake hands amicably, with both sides congratulating the others and thanking them for the match.
If one of the players hits a shot whereby the ball hits another player, it is usual to apologize, while the person who got hit will acknowledge the gesture, knowing it’s part of the game.
Each player is responsible for all decisions in her half of the Court. She should be completely honest on all “calls” but, if in doubt, she should give her opponent the benefit of the doubt and play the ball as good.
It is your obligation to call all balls on your side, to help your opponent make calls when the opponent requests it, and to call against yourself (with the exception of a first service) any ball that you clearly see out on your opponent’s side of the net.
Any “out”, “let” or “fault” call must be made immediately (ie. made before either an opponent has hit the return or the return has gone out of play); otherwise the ball continues in play. “Calls” must be verbal and clearly audible to the opponent, followed by a signal if necessary. “Lets” may be called by any of the participating players.
When returning service, the partner of the receiver should generally call the service line for her.
If players cannot agree on the score, they should calmly discuss the points/ games that are the areas of disagreement. If they cannot reach an agreement they should replay only the points or games in question. All points or games which the players agree on stand eg. cannot agree on whether the score is 40-15 or 30-30, but agree on the winner of the first, second and fourth points. Therefore only the third point needs to be replayed.
Where a ball interrupts play, either by rolling/bouncing onto the court, and/or creating a visible interruption behind the court, a let should be played. If it happens a second time, the couple to whom it happens loses that point.
If a player hinders her opponent it can be ruled involuntary or deliberate. If you experience behavior that you consider deliberate hindrance, call the tournament organiser to watch over a few points and take a decision.
Any hindrance caused by a player that is ruled deliberate will result in the loss of a point.

If there are any situations that you’re unsure about, let me know and I’ll do my best to clear any doubts.

How to Copy Garage Door Remote Keys

Published: September 10, 2019Leave a Comment

Here are my notes on copying remote keys for your garage.

Some garage door companies lock the reception box so you cannot add any more remotes unless you go through them. This is what most people do anyway. It’s a perfectly valid way of going about things, but you give these companies the opportunity to charge you 50-100 euros when you can do it yourself for half price or less.

If you want to do it yourself, read on.

You will need to buy the HR Matic remote which is the best remote I found. You can buy it on Amazon or directly from the manufacturer and distributors.

Some remotes have fixed codes and others have rolling codes, which makes them harder to copy. You might need to open the receiver box in your garage and press a button on the board to add your new remote control to the list of allowed remotes.

[Read more…]

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