Tips for finding property owners & sourcing deals in Spain?

[Maria Murphy]

Hello everyone,

I bought my first apartment in Valencia (Spain) last year through an agent, for (student) rental purposes. It was a pretty good deal and an introduction to the market. The agent told me that he has such deals more or less monthly, but failed to deliver any others in a year. Turns out his own boss has been asking him to send the good deals his way since I bought mine. So this source pretty much dried up before he could deliver on his promises.

In general, after watching the market for almost a year, it now seems clear to me that agents are sending me ok deals at best, not good ones. I haven't seen more than 3-4 good deals on the MLS (Idealista/Fotocasa) in a year and it's always almost impossible to get them (sold in hours or fake listings).

That is why I thought that I would take the matter into my own hands. I've compiled a list of all the vacant lots and dilapidated buildings in my areas of interest, along with their cadastral references. My plan is to request the "nota simple" for each of them to get the name of the owner(s). Then google those names to get their contact information to see if they are interested in selling and on what terms.

I tried this on a couple of properties with mixed success. For one, I was able to find the owner and message him on Facebook. For the other, it got me almost nowhere (many namesakes, no social profiles, no phone or email or address...).

Any tips?

I am not sure what else I can do to be able to locate owners and contact them, short of hiring a private investigator. Maybe there are some DB or other means I am unaware of.

Thanks a lot!