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Ian Comaskey is a business owner, sales professional, investor, fund manager, occasional golfer, dad and full time taxi driver to Finn, Ruari and Cillian, based in Alicante Spain.
I started my Spanish business journey back in 2001 in La Zenia, Alicante, Spain. I opened my first property sales office at the age of 27 and found out, quite by accident, I was good at sales. I loved the rush of shaking hands with a happy client.
In 2005 I had opened another quite clever business, (if i may say so) Spanish Solutions.
My team there took care of everything our foreign clients needed. Everything!
Since 2002 I have established and exited a wide range of sectors; property management companies, car sales, phone shops, wine stores, hairdressers, travel agents, bars, restaurants and loads more. I have also helped others to exit profitably from their businesses too.
Comaskey Properties was a runaway success for 17 years. The business boomed thanks to good timing, some luck, the team, my uncle’s involvement, (Fehin who retired in 2010) and the fact that we were mostly all coming from the hospitality sector with the attitude of “clients first”. I served my first customer in my grandparents bar; Bartley’s, Drumcree, Co. Westmeath when I was 10. A family run country pub is where you’ll learn about customers. Comaskey Properties was a success from day 1. We always had enough clients so there was no need to squeeze the life out of them; We gave fair deals and clients loved us for it.
We provided excellent value, more than what we got paid to do and excellent service. Sounds simple, but that is what set us apart; How we cared about our clients. We became the biggest Irish estate agency in Spain and we simply performed and acted better than the competitors.
We made mistakes in the business of course. I’d do things differently now from staffing, expensive accounting mistakes, (that we are still paying for!) legal errors, trusting people too much, but…. we learned something every time. I am always happy to share those experiences so that I can help someone else to not lose money.
Luckily our successes outweighed the mistakes and we sold an astonishing 3,500 homes. That is around 365 million euro worth. Imagine how much experience we gained in that time.
In 2018, I was burned out. I had just had son no.3 (Cillian) and I decided I didn’t want to do it any more. I could (and hopefully, I will one day) fill a book with the drama of that deal. I was so desperate to get out, I took a deal that didn’t feel right. We haven’t been paid three years later and it’s headed for the courts! The law is on our side, another advantage of owning a law office!!
One more thing I have learned since selling Comaskey Properties is the importance of structuring a profitable exit, we are all learning! I’m still glad I sold the company. It is a shame for my clients who think they are still dealing with me, but normal service for my client and friends will all be restored very soon.
Things are good here on the Costa Blanca. My 7 year old said innocently to me recently “daddy, you can make good things better”. Never one to miss an opportunity, that is my new personal brand’s slogan. I hope someone has not copyrighted it already!!
Let me help you to make good, better. *
Ian Comaskey 2021
*copyright Ruari Comaskey age 7
As an officially retired Spanish estate agent, my property work here in Spain involves:
How does it work? Simple. I help my clients to understand who they should NOT deal with. All Estate agents in Spain are not created equal.
I can save property buyers tens of thousands of euro and a lifetime of heartache!
3,500 successful sales will give you that knowledge!
People are buying the wrong houses from the wrong people. We know this because the legal mess often lands on my desk in Spanish Solutions. I love advising these people on how to save money and time.
I actually don’t know anyone else who is qualified to say that in the whole of Spain. I mean most estate agents live for commissions and to do so, you need to sell right? Not really for me.
I trust Adam Cook from Spanish Homes Online and its sister company Dolphin Properties.
Adam worked with Comaskey Properties for years and understands the values that made us such a success. If you’d like me to introduce you to Adam please let me know.
I promise you’ll get the same quality service that made us famous in La Zenia for 17 years!
If you are looking to buy or sell property, you’ll find more details over on the Spanish Home Online or Dolphin Properties website.
After several failed attempts with hig street banks over 18 months, I gained a bit of traction. I now run a new Equity Release firm, based on the values that drove our success for 20 years called Equity Release Spain. (Original and creative name!) Suddenly, by doing what I loved; helping people, we had found a solution and another fun, rewarding niche. We are the only English speaking Equity Release Fund in Spain and again I’m back helping people full time in my part time occupation.
I still want to stay out of the real estate business in Spain, but this is so closely related, it suits me down to the ground.
We hope to do 100 million euros in sales in Spain before the end of 2024.
You’ll find more details over on the Equity Release Spain website.
We opened Spanish Solutions back in 2005. We needed an outlet for our clients to get the legal service they were used to back home. That was our aim, service for our clients, combined with getting more deals closed for our buyers and sellers. We helped agents to close deals and importantly we always, always protected our clients.
Things have changed dramatically since then. We are now official partners with Pedro Molina barrister, currency companies, insurance firms and mortgage providers.
We help our Spanish property buyers and equity release clients to ensure their paperwork is done just as it should be, with no surprises.
Incredibly, we’ve done 9,000 tax, conveyancing, and law transactions in 16 years, hard to believe.
We think our innovation has helped the expat community in Spain in general, not just Spanish Solutions clients. We are happy to see our innovations copied and improved on in some cases by other law offices in Spain.
Services we offered that nobody else was really concentrating on included:
We tried to take the formality out of the law in Spain and make it more accessible, affordable and understandable for expats in Spain.
I’m so proud of what we’ve achieved in Spanish Solutions- What a success story.
You’ll find more details over on the Spanish Solutions website.
We were fortunate to encounter a company called Surgery Now through our legal and taxation division Spanish Solutions back in Spring 2022.
Noel Smith and his talented team were taking clients to Spain in order to get them off HSE waiting lists back in Ireland. Noel asked me to come onboard and we are loving this opportunity.
We’re working with IMED hospitals across Spain, mostly concentrating on IMED Levante. Bariatric surgery, (weight loss surgery), knee replacements, hip replacements, cataracts, hernias, spinal surgery and more is literally as you read this, being performed by Europe’s top professionals in our private hospital. Irish patients are getting Five Star treatment and procedures within weeks, not years!
Elevator pitch; If an Irish person is stuck on a medical waiting list, we can get their procedure done in Spain, paid for by the Irish Government within weeks. The waiting time in Ireland can be anything from two to ten years!!
Our administration squad helps with everything. They provide services from putting our patient’s consultant in touch with their Spanish counterpart, applying for the Cross Border Directive grant for the patient, flight, accommodation, transport etc.
You’ll find more details over on the Surgery Now website.
Here you can find the latest news that can help you with the day to day life in Spain.
How can we help you?
Please feel free to reach out to me on this contact form:
It is worth repeating that if you have not contacted me through Spanish Homes Online, Equity Release Spain, Spanish Solutions, or this website, you are not dealing with Ian Comaskey or any of the original Comaskey Properties team.
