Three ways I work
You can take one without the others...
Private Residence Antigua Guatemala, Central America.
One. Finding and buying.
You know roughly what you want. Perhaps you have a reference in mind…
But you do not know this coast.
I look, I walk, I shortlist, and I tell you what I actually think of each one.
What that gets you, that a viewing does not: I have designed and built houses for twenty-five years. Standing in a room I can tell you what it is, what it would cost to change, and whether the thing you are picturing is even possible inside that envelope. You find that out before the offer instead of after the survey.
Then I see the purchase through to the notary.
Two. Looking at a property you have already found.
You have seen it. You like it. You are close to deciding.
This is the moment where mistakes happen.
I read every property through four questions:
What it really is. Beyond first impressions. Build quality, structure, what has been dressed up and what has been solved.
What it could become. Flexibility, adaptability, what the plot will carry, what the rules allow.
What it hides. Constraints that reach your comfort, your costs or your resale. Orientation. Licence status against whatever you were assuming about rental income.
How it fits. Not the market. You.
If the property needs work, you get a number for that work in writing, before you buy.
An honest estimate before the purchase is worth more than any opinion I could give you afterwards.
Three. Designing and running the reform.
Once the house is yours, turning it into the thing you actually wanted.
Same eye that told you what it was, now working on what it becomes. Drawings, materials, budget, contractors, and someone watching the site who knows what he is looking at.
Twenty-five years of designing for sun and heat, which is the same problem here that it was there, and the one most reforms get wrong.
I am not registered to sign permits in Spain and have no plans to be, so this work runs with a local colegiado. That is normal here, it is already arranged, and it means you get an architect who answers to you rather than to the builder.
How I am paid, plainly.
Sometimes a commission on a transaction. Sometimes a fee for the work. Both are ordinary and both are fine.
The part that matters: you know which one it is, and which side it comes from, from the first conversation. It does not change halfway through. And I never take a commission from both sides of the same deal.
Buyer engagements begin with a modest engagement fee, credited against RGNL’s commission if a purchase completes. Independent assessments are fixed-fee and paid by the buyer.
If you build.
I also work with small developers.
An outside read on what a project is really selling. Design review before the drawings harden. Where the plan loses money and where it leaves value on the table.
And something less usual: my wife and I have run a restaurant out of our house for five years. We can place your prospects around a table inside the property, which sells a building in a way an empty viewing never has.
Where I am most useful.
Decisions roughly between €600,000 and €2.5 million, where an oversight stops being annoying and starts being quite expensive.
Property in Dénia / Marina Alta / Costa Blanca Norte. Valencia by exception