The future of the industry is in our hands

The industry has certainly seem some of its most difficult times in history, and we now see the aftermath of this reflected in the turmoil investors have experienced over the past few years. The market is literatally littered with horror stories of investors losing their deposits, unscrupulous developers and agents taking peoples life savings with not intention of providing that retirement home or dream holiday villa.

We have also seen the turmoil in countries like Spain, where government is reclaiming land, and investors lose out on their deposits with developers having no control over the situation. On the more ethical side of this turmoil is represented where banks are pulling funding from under developers feet, and the developers have no possible method of completing the development.

Yes, it has been a difficult time, but the industry has also been littered with unscrupulous and fraudulent acts, and each week we hear of investors who have lost their deposits, and sometimes life savings. Only yesterday in speaking with a good friend, he explained how his parents had lost £50,000 of their life savings, because a Spanish developer was selling plots of land that he didn't actually own in full. I am sure the story is a lot more complex than this, but nevertheless it is just another case of good people losing a small fortune to unscrupulous developers.

Why is it happening?

The simple answer is regulation. Even the AIPP, the body in the UK who constantly battle to promote professionalism in the overseas property market, have no real control because their is no government or european regulation in place to protect investors, and until this happens investors will be increasingly cautious about entering into any investment in a foreign country, and rightly so!

So what can be done to change attitudes?

I had an interesting conversation last week with a highly regarded agent. In his words - "The one good thing about this global recession is that it will get rid of the dross in the industry". I happen to feel he is right in a lot of respects. One trick pony's and agents or so called developers looking for the quick bucks have probably moved on to their next scam, and hopefully not in this industry.

Millionaire Investments is also trying to play its part in creating a more professional industry, and we look to control what we deliver and who delivers investment product via our portal. Only mandated agents or lead agents are invited to join. We also only list any one product once, and with the lead agent. We also encourage extensive detail on the listings, and where possible accompany this with developer and development due diligence information. This is something we are demanding from our agents who list, and because they are professional, reputable agents they are fully compliant, and totally agree with our methods of deliverying investments.

We can control our portals, but when will other portals make these changes. After all, most of the unethical processes we have seen in this industry, you can guarantee that the sales and delivery of this was via the top listing portals in the industry. Agents and developers are pretty much left to their own devices, and listings are not checked or vetted by the portals. This is not to say that all listings are wrong or come from unscrupulous individuals, but without somekind of vetting, it is made very easy for these individuals to market to investors.

Millionaire Investments is probably the very first online portal that vets everything that is loaded to our portal, and if we see information or language that is inapropriate to providing an unbiased view, we ask the agent or developer to make changes. Only once we are happy does the listing go live. A bit more of this in the industry would be a small part of improving the practices and creating a higher degree of professionalism.

Our business model allows us to be diligent, but also not look for the quick buck in having any old agent listing product on our portal. As we always say, only reputable agents need apply to list on our portal, and if they are found to mislead or carry out some of the practices mentioned earlier in this article, they are removed from Millionaire Investments immediately. Fortunately it seems we don't have to carry out this practice, as Millionaire Investments is quite clear in its practices, and the unscrupulous so called members of this industry avoid our due diligence by not applying.

Now that is a lesson that all listing portals or trading portals like Millionaire Investments ought to learn!

So if you are a 'professional' agent or developer and wish to engage with our educated investors, we welcome you with open arms. If you are one of the 'Cowboy' so called agents and developers, please do not apply. We are not interested, and neither are our members!

This article was written by Mark Fiddes, one of the proprietors of Millionaire Investments. His passion is to clean up the industry, and reclaim investors trust. In Mark's opinion this has to happen, but also at government or European level. As Mark stated, "Most of us do not need legislation because we are professionals and always look out for the investor, but unfortnately there are those amongst us that don't share the same opinion".