By: EDUARDO OLIVEIRA COSTA
Eduardo Oliveira Costa is a journalist and publisher of several newspapers across Portugal. He is on the board of several organisations, is president of a football club, and has a keen interest in the press, among other media, and the business environment.
IMAGINE THIS setting: a new luxury residential complex, ready to live in but still with apartments for sale. Suddenly there appears a very presentable gentleman, with a luxury car, who is prepared to buy a property and conclude the business within a few days.
The gentleman’s motive: “My wife is a teacher who was placed in this region and I need the apartment within the next few days.”
Once the contract is concluded, a group of people from a lower social and economical class who are less than respectable or polite suddenly move into the property.
The residential complex is complete! The entrepreneur is desperate! He isn’t going to sell any other apartments and is going to have serious problems trying to complete the sales already initiated.
In despair he speaks with the owner of the occupied apartment and proposes to repurchase. He is in luck. The new owner is keen to sell! There is only one problem, he is asking for three times the original price that he bought it for!
Fiction? Reality! Real estate entrepreneurs, beware!
It’s the new con!
