Laurence Dollimore
THE co-owner of one of the Costa del Sol’s leading estate agents is unfazed that British buyers struggle to pronounce his company’s name.
While confirming how important the UK market is to his Swedish agency Fastighetsbyran, Kent Schanke joked: “They mostly can’t pronounced our name, but they can call us ‘Fastig’ if they want. That is good enough for us.”
Speaking at the launch of a brand new Marbella office – the 16th in Spain – the agency boss, continued: “The British market though is very important for us and perhaps the key foreign market in Spain.
“Luckily we all speak good English so please pop in and have a chat to us over a coffee… I am sure we can help find you the perfect property.
“And we really need good coastal homes to sell as we have plenty of keen Scandinavian buyers desperate to invest down here.”
Pronounced Fasti-gets-booron (meaning ‘The Real estate agency’), the brand new Centro Plaza office, complements other nearby agencies in Estepona, Fuengirola, Torre del Mar and Nerja, while another one opens this summer in Malaga.
So far the company has amassed 250 offices in Sweden since it was created in 1966, and is owned by Sweden’s largest bank, Swedbank.
Speaking over canapes and champagne, at the ritzy bash, Kent added: “We want to show that we are a well established company. We have decades of experience and everything here is done by the books.”
New franchise partners Andreas Ersson and Sanna Magnusson have been in the company for ten years, but only moved to Spain in January.
“It’s an exciting time for us, there has been a real buzz today,” he said, “we are looking forward to meeting more British buyers.”
