First course launched in English for foreign real estate agents in Spanish property

To help meet the requirements for the thousands of property sales agents who do not speak Spanish and specialise in selling property to foreign buyers, FEI Business School has launched a specific course in collaboration with API Cataluña and ANAI (National Association of Real Estate Agents).

The initiative follows the Generalitat Valenciana's recent announcement mandating a registry for real estate agents, continuing a trend already started in Catalonia. This course was created to help meet the educational requirements for the large number of foreign agents who have made property sales their livelihood. It is essential to recognise that this is a highly internationalised market, where 78.8% of second-home purchases were made by foreign buyers in 2022.

“No course was available for them; nobody had considered the group of real estate agents who do not speak Spanish, a significant presence along the coasts.” This statement comes from Jon Lindsmyr, director of sales and marketing at FEI Business School, which developed this Licensed Real Estate Agent course, entirely in English.

“After Catalonia’s regulations in 2010, the Comunidad Valenciana is now following suit, and it is very likely that soon the Canary Islands, the Balearic Islands, and other regions, like Andalucía, will follow suit,” Lindsmyr explains. “So, why not get qualified now? It is the best way to operate with transparency and responsibility, showing clients that you are trained. For agencies, this offers a competitive advantage, and for professionals, this course is delivered in collaboration with API and ANAI, allowing agents to join sector organisations, which ensures full legal compliance and integration.”

This aligns with the objective outlined in Decree 98/2022 of 29 July by the Valencian government. In its text, the Council specifies that the Real Estate Intermediation Agents Registry of the Comunidad Valenciana was created to “promote transparency and ensure consumer protection in housing matters.”

One of the requirements for these professionals is training: “At least 200 instructional hours in real estate-related topics, covering mediation, advisory, and management services.” Those who do not hold the official real estate agent title (API) or a university degree in social sciences, law, engineering, or architecture will need to complete this training to register.

According to FEI Business School's spokesperson, the response has been positive, with the first course cohort already underway and registrations increasing. FEI is a well-known Swedish training institution specialising in business and real estate education since 1988, with around 2,000 students annually. In 2018, it established itself in Alicante, mainly to provide training for Fastighetsbyrån, Sweden’s leading real estate network, which has a presence on the peninsula.

With this new course in English, FEI strengthens its ties with the Spanish sector through a partnership with API Cataluña and ANAI (National Association of Real Estate Agents), which brings over ten years of experience in registering real estate agents in Catalonia.

The course lasts four weeks and costs €1,990 (plus VAT) for one or two people, and €1,790 for companies enrolling between three and five agents.

The course covers four main areas: Spanish real estate law, valuation, marketing and client acquisition, and professional ethics. These are structured into a hybrid format, branded as Feiflex: “It combines the best aspects of traditional in-person teaching and remote learning,” according to the website.

“Enrolment provides access to our student portal,” Lindsmyr continues. “This allows you to organise your time during the week or whenever you wish, using the available material. Every Friday, you have a four-hour live online session with a subject matter expert.” These lectures from the course’s four experts reflect FEI’s commitment to excellence in training, as Lindsmyr describes.

Adrián Barbudo, real estate agent and member of FIABCI (International Real Estate Federation in Spain), who collaborated in designing the course, notes, “This initiative aims to support foreign buyers who trust the Spanish market for their real estate investment. It is impossible to know how many of these individuals purchase through a foreign agency, but I am convinced it may be over 70%. If we want to support Spain’s coastal real estate sector, the solution is to professionalise it with the best possible training.”

In 2022, 78.8% of people who bought a second home through real estate agents in the Comunidad Valenciana were foreign. Foreign buyers also accounted for 70.01% of investment property purchases and even 34.8% of primary residence purchases.

This data comes from the Home Buyers Survey in the Comunidad Valenciana, conducted by the National Federation of Real Estate Associations (FAI) and the Association of Real Estate Agencies of the Comunidad Valenciana (Asicval).

Among these foreign second-home buyers, 44.4% were nationals of various EU countries, while 34.3% were from non-EU countries. Regarding investment property purchases in the Valencian region, 36.1% were from non-EU countries, and 34% were EU nationals.

These figures helped to offset a downward trend in the Valencian real estate market, caused by a year of rising mortgage interest rates and inflationary pressure. Many of these transactions were facilitated by non-Spanish real estate agents, who are now expected to register to enhance guarantees and transparency following the decision to create the regional real estate agents’ registry in Valencia.

Originally written by Raúl Alonso for Idealista/news in Spanish, published 2023-03-03. Translated to English by FEI Business School.

Read the Idealista/news article here.