Rimontgo Takes Home The Grand Prize

Congratulations to our friends and marketing partners Jose and Antonio Ribes Bas at Rimontgo, winner of the Leading Real Estate Companies of the World’s prestigious “Best Overall Website Award” at the 2011Conference of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World held in Las Vegas this month. It’s a wonderful honor for Rimontgo and we are very pleased to be a part of many collaborating efforts in marketing some of the world’s finest luxury properties across two continents.

Established in 1959, Rimontgo is a family-run real estate company specializing in high quality property along the Costa Blanca. Rimontgó’s principals José and Antonio Ribes Bas have led their company in developing a first-class international real estate website and online marketing expertise that is second to none. Under the expertise of their IT, systems and web manager, Ignatio Artagoitia, Rimontgo has developed a solid SEO strategy built on quality content, attractive design, optimal usability and interactivity. In addition to collaborations with the top real estate networks in the world, Rimontgó has built a powerful web presence that reflects its position as a leading global luxury real estate specialist.

Rimontgo’s multilingual websites in Spanish, English, French, German and Russian, are all written and translated to the highest standard and aim to provide pertinent information on luxury properties clearly defined by area, type, price and a variety of other search categorizations. Rimontgó has created an online presence that has increased its search engine rankings through a solid, long-term strategy.

With quality content on all four of its individual blog sites, De Mar a Villa in Spanish, Reality Sense in English, Sens du Reel in French and Sinnvolle Realitat in German, Rimontgo’s multilingual website has become an online reference point for information and advice on real estate issues, area background information, history and culture. Also practical topics, interest-specific property highlights and of course an easy navigation of the finest homes not only in the Valencia and Javea regions, but throughout Europe and the world.

“This award is an important recognition for the work we have been doing these past years,” says CEO José Ribes Bas. “We are proud to have been awarded in this way, and we will continue to strive to provide an online resource that services the needs of our clients and also promote our wonderful corner of the Mediterranean.”

We at Lila Delman Real Estate look forward to many more wonderful marketing collaborations with Rimontgo, bringing together buyers, sellers, developers and investors in luxury real estate throughout the world.

To take a look at the award winning website go to www.Rimontgo.com.

Visiting Starboard House, Newport, Rhode Island

Nick Churton of Mayfair International Realty gets a flavor of Newport summer living.

So this is what living in Newport is all about. Starboard House is a summer cottage built at a time and in a place that was the height of Gilded Age fashion. And what a cottage!

Surrounded by nearly 2 acres of gardens, which feature some of the celebrated specimen trees that help make Newport a citywide arboretum, Starboard House is one of Newport’s earlier stone built homes. It rather has the look and feel of a fine European villa on the Cote d’Azure or beside Lake Como.

It was built for a member of Newport’s summer colony in 1860 and past owners include Edward Ogden of New

Orleans, William F. Weld of Boston and Forsyth Wickes. Wickes housed his priceless collection of French furniture, paintings and decorative objects here, and later donated them to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts that built a whole new wing to display them.

Of course I loved the reception rooms with their fine proportions and lofty ceilings, and the sensational black and white tiled hall with sweeping staircase. But then I adored the kitchen too. Here is a vast old Vulcan stove – de rigueur years ago. It is a wonderful, warm, great black slumbering pet of a thing. It reminds us that although antique it will produce an omelette just as well as any new-fangled cooker, but it looks far more magnificent. Move into Starboard House and it will soon become an important part of your family.

On paper the rooms go on and on, but inside this is a more intimate palace. It has now been fully updated to an impressive degree and stands ready to welcome the summer influx. It will then thrive at doing what it was designed to do best – providing stylish living to stylish people in a very stylish town.

By Nick Churton

Property and Prejudice

Nick Churton of Mayfair international Realty comments on how the continued reticence of the banks to offer sensible mortgages - other than to those with large deposits – may risk changing the way many look at property ownership.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single family in possession of a good mortgage must be in want of a house. Thus a Jane Austen novel on the property market could have begun.

Sadly today there are plenty of families on both sides of the Atlantic wanting a home, especially with affordability at near-record levels, but many can not get hold of a mortgage.

Austen knew a thing or two about property, or at least the importance of owning it. Her novels had much to do with its acquisition. Although her heroines tended towards marriage as a route to ownership, she would have understood about financing a property purchase through borrowing, as her life coincided in the UK with the advent of mutual building societies.

Austen understood that social status played a major role in owning or aspiring to own property. Above all perhaps, she understood that an individual’s or family’s financial circumstances played a pivotal role in determining where and how one lived - and how one was seen to live. She certainly knew the value of a fine location and the benefits that well-proportioned rooms and good natural light bestowed upon occupants.

This understanding seems as apt today as it was when Jane Austen was alive in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The desire to house one’s self and/or one’s family comfortably, and the pleasure that a well-designed house gives to its owner - both socially and materially – seem largely unaltered.

But two things have changed. Residential property no longer just demonstrates wealth but also creates it, and thus makes it even more desirable. Also, as far as the UK is concerned, most of the building societies, who traditionally did the lion’s share of the mortgage lending have now been de-mutualised and swallowed up by large banks. These are not much in the lending mood at the moment. So, with no other way of obtaining a mortgage this is altering the way many must think about owning property. In 2011 this means that, unless the UK government and the banks take urgent steps to reverse the situation, for the first time in over two hundred years it will only be the already well-off who can realistically afford to buy property.

Non-profit-making mutual building societies were created to allow their members to buy property. Banks were created to make money for their shareholders. Building societies were prudent and fiscally responsible. Banks clearly haven’t been, and are a perfect example of pride coming before a fall. To extract themselves from the trouble they are in the banks are now prejudiced against the very people the building societies were formed to assist. Jane Austen could have written a book about it.

Nick Churton of Mayfair International Realty Takes a Look at Fairholme

Where does one begin when describing a visit to Fairholme? Where does one begin with such an iconic house with a dazzling social history, imposing and distinctive elevations, breathtaking location, and faultless interior? Well, Jack Kennedy used to swim in the pool and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor often partied here. How’s that for starters?
Fairholme isn’t as large as its close neighbour, The Breakers – one of the world’s great superhomes. But in many ways Fairholme may be all the better for that, especially in this day and age. This is a grand house certainly, but on a more manageable scale.
It may be a house that does not overwhelm, but it does greatly impress. Its architecture leans towards the Tudor and its views lean towards the Atlantic. Everything about it is impressive, from the stately elevations, the comfortable and stylish reception rooms, the elegant and spacious bedroom suites and the exceptional ocean view to the rear.
Just as impressive are the 4.3 acres of Gilded Age coastline estate with picturesque six-bedroom carriage house, three interconnected greenhouses, and a sybaritic swimming pool with pavilion and outdoor living area overlooking the Atlantic.
In the early years the house was the summer home to some of the best of Philadelphia society. Indeed, when I visited, if Dexter Haven had popped over from next door or Tracy Lord emerged from the pool I don’t think I would have been too surprised.
For good or ill those days have gone and the world now is a different place. But today the old residents with names like Vanderbilt, Astor, Van Buren and Belmont are steadily being replaced by a fresh intake of billionaires. It would be churlish to name names but the new list is richly impressive.
It is only a personal view, but while there may be plenty of houses in the US with higher price tags, few have the pedigree of Fairholme. Also, I have the impression that Newport’s star is very much on the rise again. Other areas like the Hamptons have become highly fashionable over the past few years. But it would be difficult to find another place which has the history, tradition, fame, name and cachet of this extraordinary Rhode Island town. In Newport one walks with giants.
Nick Churton