Dear Rachel at the Travel Bug.
I would like to confirm that your last email was sent to us at 19:04 on Saturday 23rd October 2010. Our last reply to your email was at 19:27 on Saturday 23rd October 2010. We have receipt of all emails so the information written in your statement is actually incorrect.
You imply that we are not so 'geared up' for selling property outside of the coast. We do sell a lot more properties on the coast but that is due to demand. If we have a client looking for a rural property, we do not turn them away.
The reason that we have 3 different zones to choose from is due to the fact that some areas are higher in demand than others and the prices reflect that fact.
A very important factor to take into consideration is the fact that there are thousands of agents based in countries across Europe and Russia who sell property in Bulgaria and each of them has its own clients looking for specific property in specific areas. It’s understandable that one agent ca not have access to all of the clients looking for properties on the coast. And likewise, it’s the same for agents selling rural properties or ones in Stara Zagora.
We market properties directly on behalf of the owner and if we sell them ourselves then fantastic, we take the commission. However, we do not want to restrict you from selling through another agent if that agent has a client and wants to deal directly with the owner.
Too many times agents list a property and pass it on to their network of agents with there commission included. The next agent has to add his commission on and so on. Suddenly the rural house which the owner would be happy to sell for 25,000 euros is being sold to the buyer for 40,000 euros (or more in some cases!) In this example the combined commission amounts to 37.5% and we believe this to be ludicrous and unacceptable.
If you look at our site you will see that any user can access the contact details of the owner for free. We actually encourage agents to source property through us in order to negotiate directly with the owner if he has an interested client.
Our setup helps combat the problem of multiple agents in a chain whereby agents who don’t even have a client are getting paid large commissions for doing little or no work at all. With our setup there is normally only one agent in the chain and the agent which has the buyer sells the property and keeps 100% of the commission.
As you rightly stated in your post, our fee is 9 euros for properties located in zone 3.
I have noticed that on your site you are charging people 50 euros to go on your site, your facebook page and on twitter. Most believe that our packages for properties located in zone 1 are priced quite fair.
Thank you for contacting us, but if you choose to write statements about others, please ensure that they are factual.
Best regards.