Out and About
After the meeting, Jackie was brilliant and took me
under her wing. Firstly we got my
vehicle sorted out and I was allocated a new 7 seater minibus/people
carrier. Such large vehicles were
required because of the vast amount of interest in property in Bansko. At weekends, each member of staff might have
2-3 files which would usually be 4-6 clients.
Each sales person would then have 4-6 people in their vehicle and these
clients would be shown the properties together.
There were two advantages for MRI in this. Firstly, they needed to take on less
staff. Secondly this created a
"feeding frenzy" atmosphere.
Clients were aware that not only were there potential buyers sat next to
them in the vehicle, but that there were another 10+ vehicles viewing the
properties, each with another 4-6 people in each. MRI also actively encouraged a "buy
before it's gone" atmosphere. This
was done by gathering them altogether in a room, where the manager and Capital
Financial Partners (the company who organised the mortgages - more about them
later) would speak to them. More of
these meetings and the content will be explained later, but the parting words
giving to clients were "if you see a property you want, buy it, because if
you don't, somebody else in this room will." Obvious though this sales tactic was, for
many people it worked.
After being allocated a vehicle, the next stage was to
collect all the paperwork I'd need. This
included "Offer and Reservation" forms, which the client would sign
when buying a property, plus the floor plans for all the developments. When I use the term "property"
throughout this blog, I am actually referring to off-plan properties.
The "properties" we sold were
either still a plot of land, or were in varying degrees of construction. "Viewings" then, usually consisted
of standing on a bare plot of land with floor plans and the customer needed to
use their imaginations - not always easy.
In no time I was laden down with paperwork and left it
all in the van to be sorted out later.
For the rest of the day Jackie was going to take me to all the
developments and show me the sights of Bansko and the surrounding area.
The Tamplier
The first place Jackie took me to was a finished
development called The Tamplier. This
was situated towards the top of the town, not far from the ski Gondola. From the outside the building was very
impressive and was clearly of good build quality. Stepping inside didn't disappoint
either. There was a spacious reception
area with some seating, off which was a large dining room and a bar. Through the doors, a small garden could be
seen. Jackie was greeted warmly by the
reception staff and she was handed a room keycard. The room we were about to look at was the
closest we had to a show room. It was a
finished studio apartment and the idea was to give the client an idea of what a
finished studio would look like.
The lift took us up to the fourth floor and we walked
along a spacious and well kept corridor.
The proportions were fantastic - much better than new build apartments
in the UK. We came to the apartment and stepped in. I was amazed.
My only experience of studios up to that point had been the miniscule
studios found in France, with everything crammed into a corner and bunk beds in
lieu of a double bed. This studio
couldn't have been further from that.
There was a well equipped kitchen, a full size double bed, bed settee,
armchair, wardrobes and bedside tables, plus a unit with a flat screen TV. All this then opened up onto a spacious
balcony with stunning views of the Pirin mountains. A spacious bathroom was cleverly built into
the corner of the room. It was
fantastic.
"What size is this studio?" I asked Jackie.
"40 square metres" she replied.
I was amazed that so much could fit into such a space
without feeling cramped. I paced it
out. It was indeed 40sqm.
"Are all the studios we sell this size?"
"No" Jackie replied. "MRI's own studios are usually around
32sqm."
So MRI's own developments were going to be a bit more
squeezed. I thought that this was a
terrible shame. 8sqm doesn't sound much,
but in fact their own studios would be 20% smaller than this one. I decided to come back later with a tape
measure and make sure that I measured out 32sqm so that I could give clients an
accurate idea of the size of most of the studios we'd have for sale.
"A couple of the lads say that this studio is
32sqm when they show it to clients" Jackie told me.
I was astounded.
Apart from the fact that it was a blatant lie, it was a very stupid
thing to do. I had paced out the size of
the apartment just a few minutes ago and if I was a client, I would do exactly
the same thing. Lying about the size of
the studio was madness and couldn't really understand why anybody would do
so. By just stepping in a metre and half
from the edge of the room, it was easy to demonstrate what the true size of
32sqm was.
"Do the managers know?"
"Of course. They don't give a shit as long as they sell. Plus he hangs out with them, so they can do
whatever they want and they always get the best files."
Mmmm. This
didn't sound good.
We got back into the lift and headed back down. Rather than pressing the button for the
ground floor to take us back to reception, we instead headed down to the lower
ground floor. We stepped out of the lift
and entered a spa centre. We were given
protectors to put over our outdoor shoes and headed along a corridor. Treatment rooms could be seen on either side
of the corridor, plus a room with a hot tub and another with a small gym. One room also contained two stone loungers
covered in mosaic tiles. These loungers
would heat up and provide relief to skiers aching muscles and they could chill
out whilst listening to music. Although
now common in the UK, this was the first time I had seen these and thought that
it was a great idea.
"Do guests have to pay extra for these
facilities?" I asked.
"No. It's
all included if you're staying in a studio or apartment here. You have to book during peak times of course,
but the only costs are if you want a massage or treatment of some kind. All the developments we're selling will have
similar facilities."
5 Star Luxury
Wow! I was
bowled over. These were the kind of
facilities you'd find in a 5 star hotel and all the developments I'd be
selling, at amazing prices, would have these as standard. The appeal of buying in Bansko was escalating
every day.
Jackie then took me through to one final show stopper. A beautifully tiled swimming views with
windows looking out onto the garden and the Pirin Mountains. Yet again it was fantastic and finished to an
incredibly high standard.
"I'm talking to the complex manager at the moment
to find out if I can rent an apartment here.
The Banderitsa Hotel where MRI put their new staff is terrible. Not only do you have to eat out every night as there are no cooking
facilities, but MRI are charging us €60 a night to stay there - that's €1800 a
month to stay in a shithole! You can
rent a two bed apartment here for around €500 a month instead. Norm, Doug and Richard already live here,"
Jackie told me.
I couldn't have agreed with Jackie more and had been
thinking along the same lines. Having
worked as an Adventure Tour Leader for 4 years, which involved eating out at
restaurants every night, I didn't want to go back to that. At the end of a working day, I wanted to be
able to take my shoes off, chill out and cook a meal, rather than having to
traipse to a restaurant every night.
Eating out every night sounds fabulous, but in my opinion it's not all
it's cracked up to be and I didn't want to go back to it.
It's a shame that MRI hadn't taken the time to set this
up for us, rather than us having to arrange it ourselves. Why put is in a hotel that costs €1800 a
month, rather than a lovely apartment for less than a third of the price? Why? Because
ultimately it wasn't MRI who were going to pay.
As per our self employed contract, once we started earning MRI would
deduct the cost of our accommodation from our commission. Basically they wouldn't care if it was the
worst accommodation in Bansko and cost €5000 a month. Not their problem. They had chosen the easiest option.
I resolved to speak to the manager at The Tamplier as
soon as possible and move out of the Banderitsa Hotel asap.
The Developments
My tour with Jackie continued. Jackie was great - full of useful
information, friendly and great company.
I was glad that I'd been asked to shadow her.
Our next stop was to visit all the developments in
Bansko town itself.
"We don't have many developments in Bansko town to
sell at the moment. It's not great, as
many of the clients ask to be close to the ski Gondola and most of the
developments we have for sale at the moment are out near the golf course,"
Jackie told me. "We're apparently
going to have some more to sell soon."
Bansko isn't big and so it didn't take long to view the
developments. These included St Ivan,
Four Leaf Clover, Pirin park View, Mountain Paradise, Banderitsa apartments and
Orbelus. Out of these, only St Ivan and
Four Leaf Clover had a good amount of apartments remaining for sale. I was starting to become concerned that we
didn't actually have enough apartments for sale.
Out of the developments in town, the one that really
stood out for me was St Ivan (not to be confused with St Ivan Rilski). It was at the top of the town and so had
amazing views, was close enough to the old town to walk down for dinner and a
lot of thought appeared to have gone into the plans and design. Jackie told me that it was being built by a
company called Balkanstroy, who were the best builders in the area. Indeed, our next stop was to go to a
development called The Katarino Spa, which had also been built by Balkanstroy.
During my time in Bansko, I really championed St Ivan
as a development if clients wanted to stay in town and I felt it was by far the
best of what we had to sell in town. I
hope that the development lived up to my expectations and that my clients who
bought there are enjoying their apartments - it certainly looks the part on
their website
with Balkanstroy's distinctive wood and stone design.
The Katarino Spa
And so we headed North out of Bansko, driving in the
direction of the beautiful Rila mountains, under which the Katarino Spa was
situated. The beauty of the Razlog
Valley, in which Bansko is located is that not only is the situation stunning,
nestling between three mountain ranges, but it was also incredibly quick to
reach the other areas within the valley.
Within 10 minutes we were parked at the Spa and walking in the entrance.
"Wow!" I said. I couldn't help myself. Not only was the room we'd just walked into
gorgeous, but glass doors leading out onto a sunny south facing balcony gave
panoramic views of the Pirin mountains.
Because the Spa was a small climb out of the valley, the added altitude
made the views even more impressive.
"That's what everyone says," laughed Jackie.
"Do we have apartments here to sell?" I asked
hopefully.
"There are 2 bed chalets for sale that we'll look
at, but they are finished and are so are comparatively expensive. The reason we come here is because
Balkanstroy, the construction company who built the Spa are also building MRI's
own developments. We come here to look
at the build quality and the facilities, as they'll be comparable to MRI's own
developments."
I was impressed.
Although MRI might be skimping on the size of the apartments they were going
to build themselves, they were clearly committed to using a quality
builder. It was only 10 months later
that the sales staff were told that in fact Balkanstroy were not going to be building MRI's own
developments. We had been blatantly lied
to by the management, who we had absolutely no reason to disbelieve. Why would they lie about such a thing?
The tour of the Katarino Spa continued. The whole complex was stunning. It consisted of both a hotel and also 2
bedroom chalets. These chalets were all
identical and truly stunning. Each one
had its own open fire and because of the well thought out design, each had
fabulous views out onto the South facing Pirin mountains. Breathtaking.
We continued with a tour of the Spa itself. Although most of the treatment rooms were out
of bounds, the whole spa shouted quality.
Beautiful stone had been used to create a soothing water feature, there
was a relaxing fruit bar area and this then lead to a stunning indoor pool,
from where you could swim directly to the heated outdoor pool. The Tamplier had been impressive, but this
was in another league altogether.
"We've been told that the spa facilities at MRI's
own developments will be modelled on this," Jackie said.
It made sense.
MRI was the largest independently owned real estate company globally and
the developments they were going to build in Bansko would be their first and
therefore their flagship developments.
Anybody buying an MRI development elsewhere in the world would be
looking at the one's in Bansko first.
They had to be outstanding in every way, with no corners cut. I was looking forward to seeing the plots
that their developments would sit on.
By this time, it was well past lunch time and so we sat
down in the spacious reception area, with the fire roaring and ordered some
sandwiches. Jackie explained that this
was often where the clients were brought for lunch. The food was quick and good,
although it has to be said that the staff on the whole were quite surly - many
a client would comment on this during my 12 months in Bansko.
We ate lunch and headed off again. Our next stop was to be the Aspen
developments - MRI's own developments.
Would their location live up to the hype that had been generated during
the training back in Marbella? We'd see.
