Winter is Coming

Now that we have had the first cold days - cold by Cyprus standards that is - and the high season is over I thought my business would come to a stand still. Everyone told me how Paphos is so quiet and becomes a ghost town in the winter. Well, so far so good as far as business goes for me. I seem to be getting the more serious prospects now, the ones that are specifically here to buy a home in Paphos. In the summer it seemed like the thinking was 'we are here anyway and like the place so why not check out a few holiday villas??' People who were basically just throwing around the idea of living somewhere else and not wanting to face the reality of going back home wherever that may be and returning to the daily grind of work, school, or other tedious routines. I even had a family like this go to a lawyer and begin the process of buying a home only to back out a month later when they got back home and probably looked over their finances more seriously. A lesson learned for me in that case since I didn't get a deposit. Now, the serious house hunters have arrived, people who already know the island and know that it is not so hot and hence, much more pleasurable to drive around and look at homes. They also know that agents are not running around like crazy like in the summer.

Another thing I noticed that is not season related is that my marketing, despite being geared towards UK and EU residents, seems to draw Americans in. Being American myself, I must be doing something very culturally relevant to US based marketing and/or using types of web marketing that American can relate to. The greater percentage of my clients are from the UK of course but the number of Americans that contact me has been a big surprise since there are hardly any in Cyprus or a very, very low percentage in relation to all other nationalities. There are many, many South African and South African Cypriots here that are continuously moving back from S.A. but I have not been contacted by one yet. Well, I just created a job for myself - how to tap into the S.A. market? Maybe I should get working on that.............