Affinity was set up by Mia Pearlman in the height of the 2008 recession. Moving to Spain at 21 years old (in 2000) after leaving London’s largest publishing company as one of their youngest ever Advertising Managers...
Having gained 7 years of Spanish real estate experience towards the end of 2007, I was still considered a “newbie” in the Spanish property market. However, at that time, no Real Estate agencies were hiring staff, and most were closing their doors, let alone making enough sales to survive. It was a brutal time for the property market all around the world, but I felt there was a lot of potential in those tough times, in particular on the Costa del Sol. So, I decided to set up Affinity Property Group, focusing on the general re-sale market which I knew a lot about. This knowledge saved me in those challenging times, and unintentionally the business slowly grew. I started alone, with a couple of friends by my side helping me with general admin. It very quickly transpired that we had unbeatable knowledge of the general market, which sounds strange, but most other Real Estate agents just didn't have this knowledge as they had solely focused their time on the new (build) development market, which by early 2008 had entirely collapsed, leaving most agents with no skill set to survive in the property market.
In 2011 I opened our office in Puerto Banus, Marbella. At the time, family, friends and most competitors considered this a crazy move, and in-fact at the time the rent for this huge space was only 900€ a month - obviously there have been several rent adjustments since then! I remember my friends saying ‘be careful Mia, this is a very big risk'. To give you an idea of the market at the time, affinity were averaging two sales per month, and we were at that time the market leader in the resales market in Marbella.
Anyway, I took the office, and I focused solely on training the small team I had, one by one, giving them all the information I had learnt, teaching them what I believed made a Real Estate agent stand out, and be excellent in their field. It was still extremely quiet on the coast, but it was a magical time if you had the knowledge and the contacts that I had. From this point on affinity grew and grew, taking care to train and educate our team to the very highest level, also to be fast and precise in what we deliver to a potential client wishing to buy or sell; we provide information at record speed to a client because we have learnt that a clients time is so precious, and waiting for information is wasting that valuable commodity. I am very proud to say we have several hundred 5* online reviews from extremely happy buyers every year. We have so many happy vendors who may have been marketing their property for months or years with other agencies, and then affinity took over and sold it within weeks, or even within hours of us picking up a set of keys!
We have won many awards for our service, and for our marketing, also for the sheer volume of sales we conduct and successfully close every year. We are presently meeting and 'touring' well over 100 clients per month, selling to, on average, half of them, meaning we have so much more experience than most in getting a client from the “toying with the idea of buying in Spain” to sitting on their terrace in Spain enjoying the sunshine and literally living their dream!
I don't often take clients out, mainly because my team of 30 have such a vast amount of knowledge that they constantly share with each other, they themselves are the superstars nowadays, they make themselves untouchable. We are a team of communicators, a team of savvy, warm hearted and loyal business minded individuals that I am fortunate enough to be part of. I love my job, affinity is my first child, and I really hope that if you have read all the way to this point and you are thinking of contacting us, that you will soon be writing a review for us about the life-changing experience had on your journey to this incredible part of the world!
