"Congratulations to you all on being the owners of a villa in Florida", this one sentence was the communication from Sam Brightman of Dolby Properties one of their realtors and was the culmination of a quest and dream that began in 2004 doing exactly what you are doing now gathering information, reading testimonials, and like yourselves probably unsure, where to start, who to contact, if you have been on the internet there are so many investment property and business brokers out there.

So with so many companies to pick from why did we opt for Dolby properties, well their site was extremely informative, it doesn't pull punches, it doesn't offer free flights or gimmicks on how to get rich quick its extremely professional analysis gives a step by step overview to purchasing a property and then the process of how to be successful in short term rental, in addition Dolby were the only company that put photos of their team on the web which we felt was a personal touch, to actually see who you are dealing with may not be everyone's view but to us it was important.

The quest began then to purchase a dream property in Oct 2004 with a very tentative e-mail to Lesley Dolby basically enquiring that we were considering purchasing a property in or around the Disney catchment short term rental area but would the fact we couldn't get back over to the US until Oct 2005 make a difference, the next day came a reply that one of their realtors Sam Brightman was assigned to us and would make contact, which Sam did, immediately.

The correspondence between Sam and my family were informal but special as she was trying to narrow down what type of property we were looking for and the important location "wow" factor we felt we were getting to know Sam and building a bond, any property purchase is important, on cost alone you have to have absolute trust due to the geographic distance in that you can't just pop into town to make an appointment, the rules and regulations and legality around buying a property in the US are different, bank accounts, mortgages, taxes, management companies etc, are all considerations, there is absolutely no doubt in our mind its not insurmountable to go it alone, but why would you when you have contact with the professionals.

Do you still want to go through with a purchase, well Sam very kindly continued to send over properties for sale, via e-mail even though we had stated we couldn't get over for approx a year again the process of looking what was on offer , and the location gave us a mental picture of what we were looking for, any questions of which there were many were always answered immediately the time difference taken into account.

At no time did we deviate from dealing with Dolby we had complete faith in their integrity and were given an opportunity to meet the team when the "Place in the Sun" exhibition took place in April 2005 in London's Docklands anyone who went to the exhibition couldn't help being bowled over by the larger companies, offering flights and accommodation to view their properties for sale. A personal view of course but we avoided the something for nothing companies and maintained our relationship with Dolby.

I'm not going to comment on the purchasing process as this has been covered by other testimonials on the Dolby web site, I would however like to make comments on individuals within their organisation and their professional contacts.

The Dolby Admin office Kathy , Amy, thank you so much for your professionalism, answering the many questions sometimes we forget in the euphoria of a property purchase the hard work behind the scenes that is often unseen.

To Sam Brightman, This lady began our quest and ended it, to be the other people who own a villa, we have a very special place for Sam, please read the other testimonials, she has a gift, and understanding of your requirements and willingness through Bl----hard work to get the dream property (Apologies to Sam) to any one reading this testimonial this lady was 9 months pregnant and still kept every appointment , every property viewing with us, continued to support us after her beautiful baby was born, and to any prospective client of Dolby the aftersales from all the team including Sam has continued ...........thank you to Dolby Properties.

Kind Regards Clive, Laraine, and Katie Nunn