Major expansion at home and abroad for Morocco Property Specialist
13 November 2006 Pictured with Paul Staines and Gerry Jones (centre) is the newly-expanded team of staff at award-winning Saffron Villas Ltd of Highclere near Newbury, Berkshire.
New jobs created at home and abroad by Saffron Villas Ltd, the UK’s leading Moroccan property specialist, are helping the firm keep pace with the demand for second homes in the North African country.
Recent appointments have tripled the size of the team working in the firm’s head office at Highclere near Newbury, Berkshire, which is seeing unprecedented demand for villas, apartments and townhouses across the country, from Tangier to Casablanca and Marrakech.
Saffron Villas has just opened a new office in Tangier to provide an on-the-spot service to would-be purchasers wanting to inspect new developments along Morocco’s Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts.
This month further expansion plans have been announced by Saffron Villas, a family firm established in 2002 by its joint managing directors, Paul Staines and Gerry Jones. Their agency was the first in Britain to cross the Mediterranean to capitalise on the opportunities in the emerging Moroccan property market.
Three years ago Saffron Villas was thought to be the only UK company successfully selling Moroccan property off-plan.
In the past year the firm has sold more than 650 new properties compared with 150 the previous year.
Now, under a strong new Exclusively Morocco branding, Saffron Villas is setting up new divisions specialising in activities which include the sale of secondhand properties, the management of rental properties for owners, and the acquisition and sale of development land.
Among new recruits joining the firm is Gerry’s son Ben Jones who heads a new team being recruited to operate from the new Tangier office.
New staff in Saffron Villas’ Highclere head office include marketing manager Ruth Ince and Nicola Judd who heads the new Re-sale Property Division.
Others are administrators Jessica Johnson, Gill Perry and Sarah Double.
“These new staff have strengthened our operations considerably,” says Gerry. “We are now better placed to provide a bespoke service to investors and second home buyers seeking properties in an exciting and very different location, at prices substantially lower than those in many other popular destinations.
“The work of some members of our new team will include the organisation of inspection visits for would-be buyers so that they can see for themselves the unrivalled choice of places to live and activities to enjoy. They range from the empty beaches of the Mediterranean coast to the ski resorts in the Atlas Mountains, as well as a variety of fascinating and historic cities.”
In recent weeks Saffron Villas has won two awards, providing independent endorsement of the calibre of the marketing services provided by its team. One is the Golden Merit Award for Outstanding Services in Property and Development in 2006, presented by the Southern Counties Telegraph newspaper.
The other was from the organisers of the exhibition A Place in the Sun Live! at the NEC who presented the firm with the Winning Award for the Best Stand in the 20 - 50 square metres category.
In addition to the huge numbers of exhibition visitors who stopped to admire and photograph the stand furnished in traditional Moroccan style, with wafting scents of cinnamon and lemon oil, investors called in to reserve properties valued at more than £3 million during the three-day show.
According to Gerry, the ‘sand and camels’ image of Morocco is a misconception. “Very green countryside and friendly people are among its attractions,” she says.
“Another is that Morocco is close to Europe and easy to reach. It takes less than three hours to fly from Britain to the north Moroccan coast.”
Pioneers who buy property in Morocco now can expect to secure big returns on their investments, in terms of both capital growth and rental income, predicts Gerry who says they will benefit from exemption from rental income tax for five years, no capital gains tax if the property is sold after 10 years, and no inheritance tax.
For more information about buying property in Morocco, call Saffron Villas on telephone 01635 253 121.
The new team at Saffron Villas
Ben Jones, a graduate of Exeter University, is a former pupil of The Clere School and St Bartholomews Sixth Form in Newbury.
Before joining Saffron Villas he managed properties in a ski resort in the French Alps.
Ruth Ince, who joins the company from Avvio Marketing Communications Agency in Newbury, can draw on more than eight years of experience in the fields of design, multi-media and marketing.
At Saffron Villas her role is to develop the firm’s brand image and help build the business through marketing and communications campaigns.
A graduate of the University of Northumbria, Ruth attended Park House School and St Bartholomews Sixth Form - both in Newbury - before continuing her studies at Falmouth College of Art.
Nicola Judd, whose home is in Newbury, comes to Saffron Villas with experience in the property sector. For the past four years she has been selling country homes in South East England. Previously she worked as a purser/trainer with the airline KLM.
Jessica Johnson has joined Saffron Villas from Scott Wilson of Newbury where she was an assistant project manager responsible for multi disciplined engineering projects. Previously she managed a portfolio of more than 10,000 UK sites for Vodafone.
A graduate of Bournemouth University, Jessica lists archery, stained glass and travel among her interests.
Gill Perry has 12 years experience in the travel and service sector of the market, mainly based overseas. A French speaker, she organises inspection trips for clients, working closely with Saffron Villas’ Morocco-based team.
Sarah Double is the youngest member of the team. Says Gerry: Her enthusiasm and bubbly personality have enabled her to establish herself as a friendly helpful voice on the telephone to our clients while assisting Ruth with her marketing activities.” Sarah lives in Newbury where she attended St Batholomews School before joining the Kingsclere company Living Paintings Trust for the Blind.
Morocco's offerings of sun, sea and sand, as well as the country's cheap property prices are attracting an increasing number of British holiday home buyers says Spanish Living, an internet company providing information on Spain.
Although Morocco is exciting a lot of interest from those wishing to take advantage of cheaper property, Ailse MacFarlane, marketing director of Spanish Living, stated that a culture clash could open up as Morocco is predominantly a Muslim country.
Furthermore, findings from Conti Financial Services show that more Brits are selling up in Spain to move back to the UK and Ms McFarlane remarked that of those buying in Spain, it is cheaper property that is attracting attention.
Ms MacFarlane said: "Within the Spanish Living Group we're actually starting to look at property around the world and we've noticed an awful lot of British buyers interested in very cheap property in Germany and also Morocco.
"Our chief [executive] went to Morocco last week and what he said to me was that Morocco is how the south of Spain was ten years ago. So you can get apartments from about €15,000 to €20,000 (£10,140 - £13,520)."
Factors associated with the decline in demand for Spanish homes by Brits are high-profile instances of corruption and an influx of many Brits that some believe is diluting the local culture.
the way i view it, this casts both bad and good news for morocco: good news is, it's obviously good for the economy; bad news is, it'll push prices even further up for local property buyers (last time i looked, in marrakech alone, prices had gone through the top, due to high demand; trouble is, along with higher property prices, the general cost of daily living goes up too). many moroccans are increasingly struggling to buy a property, or even to rent one, as their salaries haven't gone up, unlike living costs. it's no wonder that brits aren't buying in spain anymore: i wouldn't be too appealed by the idea of spending 1 million euros on an 80 metres sq flat in an all-english area, where you hardly ever get to hear any spanish, let alone mixing with the local population.
chargement...
