The listing has disappeared. Does that mean it sold?

Not necessarily. Listings disappear when a property is reserved, when the seller withdraws it, when the seller moves to a different agency, or when somebody finally updates the file. It can also reappear later, at a different price, under a different reference number. If you liked it, ask what happened instead of assuming. A withdrawn property is sometimes still for sale to a buyer who visits in person.

A seller wants a deposit to hold the property before I view it. Is that normal?

A reservation deposit is normal for a property you have decided to buy, after your lawyer has read the reservation contract, and paid into the account named in that contract. A payment to hold something you have not seen, and nobody has checked, is not the same thing at all. If a viewing depends on paying money first, the answer is no, and you do not need an explanation.

How do I check that a Spanish agency is real before I deal with it?

Look for the company name and tax number on its own website, an office address you can find on a map, and reviews on a platform the agency does not control. Andalusia also has a public register of estate agencies, and an established office will happily tell you where to find it. You are not looking for a logo on a website. You are looking for official records kept by somebody else.

Should I stop using the Spanish portals?

No. This is where the market is, and browsing these sites is how most of our clients first learn what they want. Think of them as a shop window, not a database. The photographs, the plans, and the location are usually accurate. The price and the availability are the two details that go out of date first.

Somebody reposted a listing in a Czech Facebook group with a Czech koruna price. Is that safe?

The property is often real. The advert around it is usually not maintained by anybody. It can be weeks or months old, the Czech koruna price uses an exchange rate nobody quotes anymore, and the reference number is often missing, so nothing can be traced back to the seller. Treat it as a photo of something that once existed. Find the original Spanish listing and check from there.

Guides

Fake property listings in Spain and how to spot them

In 30 seconds

Most listings that look fake on the Costa del Sol are not fake. Agencies share the same stock, so one apartment is often advertised by dozens of offices at different prices. A unit that sold in March can still be online in September. Real ghost listings do exist. They are priced 20 to 40 % under the market to collect your personal details.

Why the listing was wrong, and nobody lied to you

First, the simple explanation, because it covers most cases. Agencies on the Costa del Sol share their listings through professional networks. Because of this, the same apartment appears on dozens of websites at the same time. Each office writes its own description, uses its own photographs, and sometimes sets its own price. Nobody is committing fraud. But the experience still feels exactly like a fake advert.This matters because the solution is different. For a shared listing, check if it is still available. For a ghost listing, stop and do not continue.

What you experiencedWhat really happened

The price in the advert was not the real price: Often the advert is simply old. Or an office copied the price from the network and never updated it. Prices on this coast go up and down during a listing’s life. The price you found shows the last day that office updated its file, nothing more.
They told me it had just sold and offered me something else: Sometimes this is a trick: advertise one property to bring you in, then offer something else. More often it is true, and the listing was simply never removed, because removing a sold unit from thirty websites is nobody’s priority. To tell the two apart, ask when it went under offer and whether it was signed at the notary, and ask before you get on a plane.
The same flat was listed six times at four prices: This is the shared network working the way it is designed to, not six sellers competing with each other. It also means the lowest of the four prices is not a bargain. It is simply one office’s old number for the same unit. The seller will not accept that price just because you found it.
The photographs looked nothing like the property: Usually this is not deliberate. Wide-angle lenses, a bright day, and photo editing can make a room look better than it is, and the photographs may be years old. We have visited a property that was simply much older than the pictures suggested. That is not a scam. It is simply what a photograph can do. This is why a live video walkthrough can answer a question that photos cannot.

Why is the same apartment advertised at three different prices?Because three offices are advertising one seller’s property from a shared network, and each office last updated its file on a different day. There is only one real asking price, and the seller sets it. The different prices tell you which office is paying attention, not which one is cheaper. Buying through the lowest advert does not mean you pay the lowest price.

Four kinds of listing that are not what they look like

Carelessness, a sales technique, and real deception can all look the same in a search result. They are not the same once you ask one question. Each column below gives you that question.

	The shared listingLegal, and normal here	The stale listingLegal, and normal here	The bait priceLegal, and a sales technique	The ghost listingNot legal, and rare
How it looks	One unit on many sites, different prices and photos.	Still online, already sold or reserved weeks ago.	Clearly under the area level, never quite available.	Reused photos, 20 to 40 % under market, contact by app only.
Whether anyone lied	No. One seller, shared across offices.	No. Removing it gains the office nothing.	Not a lie, a technique.	Yes. Built to collect your details.
The question that settles it	Which of these is the seller’s asking price today?	Is it under offer, reserved, or notarised?	Can I see the reference and current price in writing?	Will you meet me at the property, with my lawyer seeing the documents first?

The first two happen because somebody did not update the listing. The third is a sales technique. Only the fourth is deliberate deception, which is a separate subject with its own guide.

Property purchase scams

The property was sold months ago and the advert is still up. Why?Because removing it gains the office nothing, and the listing still brings in enquiries. When one unit is on thirty websites, most of those thirty were never updated by the office that posted it. Do not assume anything just because a listing is still online. Always confirm availability instead of assuming it.

The red flags, in the order they appear

One flag on its own usually means nothing. Two together is a reason to slow down and ask for something in writing.

Worth asking aboutA price far under the area levelTwenty percent or more below similar properties, with no explanation in the advert. Real bargains usually have a reason: a probate sale, a repossession, a legal problem, or a tenant already living there.
What to do insteadAsk why the price is so low. If nobody can explain the discount, that itself is a warning sign.
Worth asking aboutContact only through a messaging appNo office address, no landline, no company name you can look up.
What to do insteadA real Spanish agency has a physical office, a registered company, and a tax number. None of this is secret. Ask for it.
Stop hereNo viewing before moneyA request for a payment, a holding fee or a deposit before anyone has stood in the property.
What to do insteadStop. This is the single clearest line in the whole process.
Slow downFake urgencyTen other buyers, the price rising Monday, another viewing tonight. None of it is checkable.
What to do insteadReal scarcity can be proven with a document. Ask to see that document.
Quick to checkStock photography, or photographs with no property in themInteriors from other listings, a cropped watermark, a set that shows the pool and never a room.
What to do insteadRun a reverse image search on two of them. It takes a minute.
Worth asking aboutNothing in writingNo reference number, no floor plan, no address, no willingness to put the price in an email.
What to do insteadA genuine listing has all of this written down somewhere, and a seller’s agent can send it in five minutes.
Stop hereCash, or an unusual accountA private individual’s account, a company in an unrelated country, or a request to pay in cash.
What to do insteadNone of these three is normal in a Spanish purchase. Stop.

How "price from" advertising works, and the honest version of it

The most effective misleading price on this coast is not fake. It is a real price for a unit almost nobody wants: the ground floor facing north, the smallest layout in the block, or the unit next to the bin store. That unit is genuinely for sale at that price, but every other unit in the development costs far more.This is why we publish both figures. The lowest advertised price is the entry point for that property type. The real choice starts at a higher budget. From our experience, this is the budget where you start getting the things people really came for: a sea view, a short walk to the beach, sun on the terrace in winter, a quiet street.

Figures as of August 2026, the site’s own published table
	Apartments	Townhouses	Penthouses	Villas
Lowest advertised	250 000 €	350 000 €	300 000 €	600 000 €
Where the choice becomes reala sea view, a few minutes to the beach, orientation and privacy each move the price by six figures	300 000 €	500 000 €	450 000 €	1 000 000 €

The second row is not a rule, and it is not a guarantee. It is the budget where our own clients typically start finding what they asked for. We publish it because a floor price on its own, with no other context, is the most misleading true number in this market.

Is a computer rendering in a new-build advert misleading?Not by itself, because on an unbuilt project there is nothing real to photograph. What matters is whether the advert says the image is a rendering, whether the images match the exact unit you are being offered and not just the show apartment, and what is really included in the specification. Ask for the plans, the materials list, and the estimated completion date in writing. If a picture shows a swimming pool that is not in the plans, treat it as a drawing, not a promise.

The ten-minute check you can run yourself

None of this needs us. Run it on anything you are about to travel for.

Reverse image search two photographsIf they appear on older listings for a different property, a different town or a stock library, you have your answer.
Where
Google Images or a reverse search tool.
How long
Under a minute.
Search the address or urbanisation across the portalsSeveral versions of the same unit are normal. If you find only one version, on one site, with no reference number, look at it more closely.
Where
Idealista and Fotocasa, for a foreign buyer.
Check the agency existsA company name, a tax number, a physical office address, and reviews on a platform the agency cannot edit.
Where
The agency’s own site and a map search.
Ask for the reference and the current price in writingA genuine seller can provide both quickly.
Watch out
If you get silence or an evasive answer, that is a useful result of the test, not a failed test.
Ask what stage it is atAvailable, viewing booked, under offer, reserved, or notarised (signed at the notary). Asking somebody to choose one of these five is the fastest way to find out if it is really for sale.
Never send money to see somethingNo holding fee, no viewing fee, no deposit before a viewing, no payment to a private account.
Watch out
This is the rule the other five checks exist to protect.

What to do with a listing you really like

For a foreign buyer, this usually starts with a listing shared in a Facebook group or found on a Czech aggregator site. It is often weeks old, and sometimes shows a price in Czech koruna at an exchange rate nobody currently uses. The property itself may be completely real, even if the advert around it proves nothing. Three simple steps settle the question.

Send the link, not a descriptionThe URL contains the reference number, the office name, and the price you saw. This is what makes the check possible. A screenshot loses all three.
Say what you want to knowIs it still available? What is the price today? Is it the same unit as other similar listings? These three questions cover almost every version of the problem.
Ask before you book anythingFlights, hotels, and time off work are the expensive part of a wrong listing. A check before you book costs an afternoon of somebody’s time, and it does not have to be your afternoon.

We do this even for properties we have no connection to, including ones listed by other agencies, and it costs you nothing either way. What we can see, and you cannot, is live availability in the professional network, the price the seller is really quoting today, and whether four adverts are one unit or four separate ones.

Checking the property before the trip

What you can check, and what needs the trade network

Half of this list you can do better than we can, because you are the one deciding what you want. The other half needs access to a system you cannot log into.

	On your own on property portals	With the buyer's side
Stolen or reused photographs	A reverse image search settles it in a minute. You do not need anybody for this.	Same check, no advantage.
Whether the agency is real	Company name, office address, reviews you can read. Straightforward from Czechia.	We usually know the office already, which is faster but not better.
Is it still available today	You are relying on whoever answers the phone at the office that placed the advert.	Live availability from the professional network the agencies share, plus a direct call to the listing office.
The price the seller is quoting now	You see the price each office last typed, which may be months old.	The current asking price, and whether it has moved during the listing’s life.
Four adverts or four properties	Hard to tell. Photographs, floor areas and references differ between offices for the same unit.	Duplicate detection across agencies, which is what turns a confusing shortlist into a real one.
How long it has been for sale	Not visible on the portals.	Visible, and it is one of the more useful things to know before making an offer.
What the photographs are hiding	Not answerable from a listing at all.	Somebody stands in the property with a camera and answers the specific question you asked.

Frankly

This is not a page about dishonest agents

Most agencies on this coast are honest, and the behaviour described above is mostly not deception. It is a shared listing network, thirty offices with no reason to update old listings, and one sales technique that works. Treating all of it as fraud makes a buyer overly suspicious about the wrong things, and careless about the real risks.We cannot see everything either. We can confirm availability, the current price, the duplicates, and how long a property has been on the market. We cannot tell you from a screen whether a wall is damp, whether the neighbour’s roof blocks the view from the pool area, or what the street sounds like at eight in the morning. Those things need somebody standing there in person, which is a different service, and it is also free.And the portals are still the right place to look. Browse them, save what you like, and check before you book a flight rather than before you enquire. The cost of a wrong listing is never the enquiry. It is the trip.

Most common questions about property listings in Spain

The listing has disappeared. Does that mean it sold?: Not necessarily. Listings disappear when a property is reserved, when the seller withdraws it, when the seller moves to a different agency, or when somebody finally updates the file. It can also reappear later, at a different price, under a different reference number. If you liked it, ask what happened instead of assuming. A withdrawn property is sometimes still for sale to a buyer who visits in person.
A seller wants a deposit to hold the property before I view it. Is that normal?: A reservation deposit is normal for a property you have decided to buy, after your lawyer has read the reservation contract, and paid into the account named in that contract. A payment to hold something you have not seen, and nobody has checked, is not the same thing at all. If a viewing depends on paying money first, the answer is no, and you do not need an explanation.
How do I check that a Spanish agency is real before I deal with it?: Look for the company name and tax number on its own website, an office address you can find on a map, and reviews on a platform the agency does not control. Andalusia also has a public register of estate agencies, and an established office will happily tell you where to find it. You are not looking for a logo on a website. You are looking for official records kept by somebody else.
Should I stop using the Spanish portals?: No. This is where the market is, and browsing these sites is how most of our clients first learn what they want. Think of them as a shop window, not a database. The photographs, the plans, and the location are usually accurate. The price and the availability are the two details that go out of date first.
Somebody reposted a listing in a Czech Facebook group with a Czech koruna price. Is that safe?: The property is often real. The advert around it is usually not maintained by anybody. It can be weeks or months old, the Czech koruna price uses an exchange rate nobody quotes anymore, and the reference number is often missing, so nothing can be traced back to the seller. Treat it as a photo of something that once existed. Find the original Spanish listing and check from there.

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