I work on the other side of the table.
My job is simple. Tell you whether you should buy it, and if you should, make the acquisition happen on your terms. I find it, go and stand in it, tell you what I would be prepared to pay for it, argue the price and stay with it through to the keys. You may never need to get on a plane.
Who this is for
Independence
The estate agent is. The developer is. Very often so is the person who kindly introduced you. None of them are dishonest for it. But their job is to complete the transaction. Mine is to tell you whether you should.
I take no commission from any seller, developer or agent, and no payment I have not told you about. If someone introduces you to me and I reward them for it, that money comes out of my fee, not your price, and you are told before you engage me.
Sometimes the best purchase is the one you do not make. If the numbers do not work, if the risks are out of proportion, or if I cannot get comfortable with the price, I will tell you to walk away. I am paid for the advice. I am not paid for making the purchase happen.
How the fee is built
My fee is set before the property is, so I do not earn more because you spend more. Which is the point. Nothing I am paid rises with the purchase price, so the harder I push on it the better you do — and the more the arrangement pays for itself.
Adrian De Luca
Not an agent who later learned about property. For more than twenty-five years I have bought it with my own money and lived with the consequences — homes, investments, renovations, development and auction, in England, on the Costa del Sol, in the Austrian Alps, in Dubai Marina and on Al Marjan Island.
Which means I have already done the parts nobody advertises. Sitting in an auction room. Arguing with a builder who did not turn up. Learning what a Spanish purchase actually costs once every fee is counted, and how a tenancy behaves in a country you cannot drive to.
I have made the expensive mistakes already, at my own expense. My job now is to make sure you do not have to.
I am not a valuer, I hold no valuation accreditation, and I have never wanted one. What I give you is my own opinion and my own gut, formed by buying in these markets with my own money — which is exactly the thing a report cannot give you.
And where I think a purchase is not in your interests, I will say so plainly, even when it costs me the work.
How I work
The Acquisition ViewA written opinion, before you commit
A paid written opinion before any search or acquisition mandate begins. I look at what you are considering — what it is for, what it would realistically cost you to own, what could go wrong, what your own advisers need to check, and whether I think you should buy it at all.
Credited in full against my acquisition fee if you go on to appoint me. It is an opinion, so it may well conclude that you should not buy.
The Acquisition View is my own commercial opinion, formed from twenty-five years of buying in these markets. It is not a valuation, a survey, or regulated financial or investment advice, and it does not replace the legal, tax and structural advice of your own professional advisers.
Know exactly what you are buying, and why.
We talk properly before anything else. What it is for, what you will accept, what you will not, and what it should realistically cost you to own once it is yours.
Find what the open market does not necessarily show you.
Agents, private sales, off-market and auction. I go and look in person, and you get a straight account of each one, including the ones I tell you to walk away from.
A straight opinion on the price, before you commit.
What I would be prepared to pay for it, what it will cost you to hold, what needs doing, and precisely what your lawyer, surveyor and tax adviser need to look at before you commit.
Someone on your side of the table when the price is decided.
This is where the money is made or lost. I argue the price and the terms entirely on your behalf, and I have no financial interest in seeing the purchase complete.
Stay with it until the property is actually yours.
Lawyers, notaries, surveys, currency, utilities, keys. I stay in it and keep everyone moving until the property is actually yours.
You remain the decision-maker. I remain the person protecting your side of the transaction.
Owning a property in a country you do not live in is a job that does not end at completion. For clients who want it, I continue as their private property adviser on an annual basis — the letting, the maintenance, the local relationships, the improvements, and the next acquisition when it comes.
Markets
I do not run a network of offices, and I am not going to claim a country I have only visited. I work personally where I own property, know the professionals and can be standing in the room when it matters.
Homes, investments and development. Auction rooms and building sites, not only listings.
La Cala de Mijas on the Costa del Sol. Purchase, renovation and the true cost of owning there.
Patergassen, Carinthia. Alpine property, conversions and holiday letting a long way from an agent.
The Marina. Prime residential, let and managed from four thousand miles away.
Al Marjan Island, bought ahead of the Wynn development.
By arrangement, where the brief justifies me getting to know the ground properly first.
The geography is secondary. The judgement is not.
Enquire
A property you have already found, a market you are weighing up, or simply an idea you would like tested by someone with no stake in the answer. Write as much or as little as you like. I read every one of these myself, and I will tell you honestly whether I am the right person for it.
Adrian De Luca
De Luca International
Privacy notice
Short version: it comes to me, I use it to answer you, and I do not pass it to anybody trying to sell you something.