How to sell a property in a Dark Sky Location?

[Droogie 2001]

I have a bit of a strange request. A friend of mine has been trying to sell a property in Spain for a while now. Having visited the location a while back I know one of its potential selling points is its Dark Sky location.
I wasn’t really into Astronomy at the time though I remember how dark the skies were. It’s not far from a National Park and the properties location is also ideal for Astronomy.
Any ideas in trying to promote this aspect aside from adding these details to the existing advert?

Are there any Astronomy or property websites that may be useful in trying to target a potential buyer who maybe has Astronomy on their interests in selecting a suitable property?

Thanks

[DAVE AMENDALL]

That's a very good question.I have a friend who moved from Wales to the Canary Islands two years ago in search of darker skies and better conditions. I remember at the time he searched the web for the very information which you seek. He found nothing and did all the leg work himself. He was helped by the Spanish local property agent and eventually settled on a villa that suited his needs. I would imagine that the market is small,but maybe wrong....Dave

[Droogie 2001]

Thanks Dave. Certainly sounds like a gap in the market (albeit it a small one)
However your post has proved useful in the fact of simply adding the details into the advert may help should anyone be searching for such a property.

 

[ronin]

Likely worth adding in the description that for anyone who has an interest in astromony or simply observing the skies by eye or with binoculars it is in a good dark sky location with the milky way easily observable. However I guess more then that is likely to be a bit irrelevant as I would say that only about 1 in a 1000 people actually do anything resembling observing, and less actually own a scope.

[Droogie 2001]

Thanks I think you are right in that less is more in this case. If the person is interested then I sure that sort of text would be enough to invoke further interest.

[DAVE AMENDALL]

All good sound advice on here as usual. If the market is small.All is not lost by any means

[SilverAstro]

Adding the "dark skies" bit to the general advert may be a double-edged sword, it may be seen to advantage by 1 in 1000, but it may put off the other 999 who all want street lighting near by, and till then hadnt realised how dark some bits of Spain can be !

I think better to add it to astromomy forums and any other specialist sites you can find  ??

[ronl]

There is an advert in Aprils Astronomy Now's classifieds, which headlines "Observatory for sale" it 

includeds scope, camera, eyepieces, oh and a bungalow with wildlife meadow included.

[Racey]

2 hours ago, Droogie 2001 said:

I have a bit of a strange request. A friend of mine has been trying to sell a property in Spain for a while now. Having visited the location a while back I know one of its potential selling points is its Dark Sky location.
I wasn’t really into Astronomy at the time though I remember how dark the skies were. It’s not far from a National Park and the properties location is also ideal for Astronomy.
Any ideas in trying to promote this aspect aside from adding these details to the existing advert?

Are there any Astronomy or property websites that may be useful in trying to target a potential buyer who maybe has Astronomy on their interests in selecting a suitable property?

Thanks

How about telling us all where it may be, how big it is and what he might want for it ?? Put it in the dangerous position of generating interest !! After all; you may be talking to that small percentile of potentially interested folk and we know now't... 

[Stu]

35 minutes ago, Racey said:

How about telling us all where it may be, how big it is and what he might want for it ?? Put it in the dangerous position of generating interest !! After all; you may be talking to that small percentile of potentially interested folk and we know now't... 

Thanks Simon, but that's exactly what we don't want, selling houses on the forum! No problem asking for advice, but please let's keep it at that

Thanks all!

[Racey]

1 minute ago, Stu said:

Thanks Simon, but that's exactly what we don't want, selling houses on the forum! No problem asking for advice, but please let's keep it at that

Thanks all!

Well that's me told... 

[Racey]

4 hours ago, Droogie 2001 said:

I have a bit of a strange request. A friend of mine has been trying to sell a property in Spain for a while now. Having visited the location a while back I know one of its potential selling points is its Dark Sky location.
I wasn’t really into Astronomy at the time though I remember how dark the skies were. It’s not far from a National Park and the properties location is also ideal for Astronomy.
Any ideas in trying to promote this aspect aside from adding these details to the existing advert?

Are there any Astronomy or property websites that may be useful in trying to target a potential buyer who maybe has Astronomy on their interests in selecting a suitable property?

Thanks

PM me... There's more than one way to skin a 

I have mates working in International Property markets. I have brains that can be picked...

Edited March 27, 2017 by Racey

[Paul73]

Wot's wrong with a quick ad on ABS or Astronomy Now magazines?

Paul

[Stu]

53 minutes ago, Racey said:

Well that's me told... 

Thank you Simon.

[Droogie 2001]

Thanks for all of the ideas it has given me a number of possible avenues to follow.

I haven't actually discussed this in any depth with my friend as I wanted to try and get a feel for how to make my suggestions.

[laser_jock99]

4 hours ago, SilverAstro said:

Adding the "dark skies" bit to the general advert may be a double-edged sword, it may be seen to advantage by 1 in 1000, but it may put off the other 999 who all want street lighting near by, and till then hadnt realised how dark some bits of Spain can be !

 

You'd be surprised at how many 'townies' move into rural properties seeking the country dream and are then scared by the darkness. The 'For Sale' sign comes down and the 24 hour 'insecurity lights' go up shortly after. Many a rural location has been blighted in this way......

Edited March 27, 2017 by laser_jock99

[SilverAstro]

26 minutes ago, laser_jock99 said:

You'd be surprised at how many 'townies' move into rural properties seeking the country dream and are then scared by the darkness. The 'For Sale' sign comes down and the 24 hour 'insecurity lights' go up shortly after. Many a rural location has been blighted in this way......

Exactly, I have seen it here, all the 'oldies' that were here in this dark rural location (since ohhh at least the 50s I think) have died off and their nice little cottages have been 'snapped up' and 'improved' over the years - lights every few yards up the driveways, lights on each and every corner of house and garage, there are two that are progressively lighting up some 'feature' trees !

Tell me about it !, but no I am not surprised at allatall   The only saving grace is that there are several hundred yards between me and my nearest (with no chance of planning permissions betwixt  either ) and I have layers of hedges to make doubly sure !!

Edited March 27, 2017 by SilverAstro

[lukebl]

I had some townie friends to stay at the weekend, and they were perturbed both by the night-time silence and darkness, and by the deafening roar of the dawn chorus. No pleasing some folk!

[JB80]

18 hours ago, Droogie 2001 said:

A friend of mine has been trying to sell a property in Spain for a while now.

 

The thing is in Spain, it can be an absolute minefield to buy any property and even more so a nice rural one. In the end we chose not to buy a rural property in Spain even though we found many we liked simply because of the legal situation surrounding the land and such. There is so much that needs to be considered and the market is already flooded with cheap properties so it is going to be difficult even before you start. That said any extra selling point can and will help so definitely worth adding the extra info.

Short of taking an ad out in an astromag or maybe even ABS I don't know what else you can do. 

[Droogie 2001]

Thanks. The property does needs some work so there are a number of other factors involved.

From my understanding there are some odd laws regarding purchasing properties in Spain some of which may well have changed since they originally purchased about 10 years ago.
Really just getting a feel of where they could focus on. Its possible that none of this will make any difference as the situation is a difficult one...

Its good to have the SGL forum to raise this sort of question.

[oobydooby]

Just a thought.  Assuming the building is advertised in a brochure, what about the addition of a night time view of the building with the dark sky in the background.  A brilliant milky way and a recognisable asterism would do it for me.

[Droogie 2001]

Another good idea, thank you.

[angavatali]

I would be happy to offer my candidacy, if possible. I just recently finished studying law. However, I already have a lot of experience in this field. I would like to point out that when a situation occurred to me in which I thought I had no chance of winning, I was still able to win thanks to äta entrepreneur. This case concerned the fact that the client wanted to dispute the amount of the contract with his business partner. The difficulty was that the partner's line of defense was solid and persistent in their arguments, but the tactic of using äta entrepreneur is definitely better than any argument.

Edited October 15, 2021 by angavatali

[UKDiver]

On 27/03/2017 at 22:03, lukebl said:

I had some townie friends to stay at the weekend, and they were perturbed both by the night-time silence and darkness, and by the deafening roar of the dawn chorus. No pleasing some folk!

And the sometimes glorious smell. 😄

Edited October 6, 2021 by UKDiver

[Swoop1]

Sell somewhere with a dark sky?

Sorry- doesn't compute....