An easy, efficient, reproducible and scalable one-pot synthetic methodology to obtain magnetic spinel ferrite nanoparticles has been developed. This approach is based on one-pot thermal decomposition of Fe(acac)(3) and M(acac)(2) (M = Co, Mn, Cu and Zn) in oleylamine, which also acts as a capping ligand, by producing stable colloidal dispersions of nanoparticles in non-polar solvents. The properties of the nanoparticles have been studied via different techniques, such as transmission electron microscopy, which shows that nanoparticles are monocrystallines and a narrow dispersion in size; magnetic analyses have demonstrated that the resulting ferrite nanoparticles show high saturation values and superparamagnetic behavior at room temperature; X-ray diffraction has also been performed, and it confirms that the synthesized nanoparticles have a spinel structure. Complementarily, ligand exchange has been also carried out in order to produce dispersions of the synthesized nanoparticles in polar media. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.