Published by the CIPS Network of the National Association of REALTORS®
Second Quarter 2004
Small World, Isn't It?
By Frank Kowal, CIPS
Sometimes, the practice of international real estate leads one in unforeseen directions, creating amazing synchronicities that prove how small this planet is, after all. To tell this tale, I must go back before my career as a REALTOR® began.
In those days, I managed international civil engineering projects. In that career, I lived and worked in thirteen countries in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Australia over a period of more than thirty years. On one of those assignments, I managed the design of a section of a highway—the Carretera Marginal de la Selva in Lima Peru. This huge program was the brainchild of the renowned Peruvian President Fernando Belaunde, a man of tremendous vision. His dream was to construct a road that would open the huge, fertile Amazonian area to agricultural development and simultaneously kick-start the Peruvian economy. I had the good fortune to receive guidance from the former president in official meetings about the status of the highway program.
When Aida Turbow, CIPS Instructor, received a request, from a family living in Norway, for assistance in finding a winter vacation rental in the Tampa Bay area of Florida, she was totally committed in CIPS training programs for the near term. So, she asked the Pinellas REALTOR® Organization to refer this request to a local CIPS candidate/designee who was fluent in Spanish and willing to assist this family. I accepted the referral. The family included a Norwegian husband, a Peruvian wife and three small children. They wanted to lease a house in the Tampa Bay area for three months, beginning in mid-December. We began our search in May.
I knew that finding moderately priced three-month, high season leases would be difficult. I began with a search of the MLS, soon exhausting all the rental listings without identifying one that even came close to this family’s desires. Next, I checked the local newspaper’s classified ads over many day—an extremely time consuming and frustrating task. Strike two. Then, using the telephone yellow pages, I systematically called every property management company that claimed to handle short-term rentals in this area—all 92 of them—before I finally located one that came close to having a property that matched my client’s needs.
The result was a beautiful three-bedroom, two-bath property with a two-car garage, completely furnished, located in a new country club setting in the upscale East Lake Woodlands area. It had a birdcaged, heated pool and a view of a lovely pond directly behind the home. It was a real find at $1750 per month, including utilities.
From my initial contact with this family in May, until I met them at Tampa International Airport to take them to the property in mid-December, we had been in constant communication—approximately 50 e-mails, many international telephone/fax messages, and several courier shipments resolving issues such as schools for the children, their required inoculations, visas, furnishings inventory, utilities, wiring of funds, translation of documents, security concerns, and so on.
My Norwegian/Peruvian family loved the spaciousness and comfort of the home and reveled in the diversity of wildlife that frequented their neighborhood—deer, raccoons, rabbits, sea birds and waterfowl—even a friendly alligator that peered at them from the pond behind their home. The children absolutely adored the school and their new American friends. In the process of finding this accommodation and getting them settled, my wife and I developed a warm relationship with this family. We still communicate with them now that they’re back in Norway.
My family had thoroughly enjoyed living and working in Lima. The Peruvians are a warm, caring people and we made many friends there during our four year in-country assignment. The fee I earned for this lease was nominal, but it was the remembered warmth of the Peruvians with whom we had come to know that drove my desire to give this family the opportunity to experience life in sunny Tampa Bay. It was well worth the effort!
Oh yes, the synchronicity: the Peruvian wife in this Norwegian family is the niece of President Belaunde!
Frank Kowal, CIPS, Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate, Inc., Belleair, Florida is a trained engineer who lived and worked abroad for more than 25 years, managing projects in Bolivia, Peru, Panama, El Salvador, Egypt, Palestine, Kenya, Ethiopia, Swaziland, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia. Drawing on years of successful dealing with foreign clients, his business plan incorporates a strong international client focus. He speaks English and Spanish and works with clients from the Americas, Western Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. You can E-mail him at fkowal@tampabay.rr.com or telephone him at +1.727.581.9411.
More articles >> |
