See You in Spain

Spain is a great place to live. Those from other countries who decide to live here are of course offered a wealth of choices. What do you want? To live in the country or the town or the city or are you looking for beach-front or off-plan. Would you like a farm-house or an apartment? Do you prefer the warm south, the dry central or the occasionally damp north-west? Do you want fellow-foreign neighbours and the ex-pat life, or to live in a Spanish barrio or village? Can you afford a house for 100,000€ in the middle of nowhere, or an apartment in Marbella for 300,000€? Some Spanish web-pages of use for home-buyers include Idealista, FotoCasa and the venerable Mil Anuncios.

There are places for sale for small change (how about this one with 420m2 in the province of León at 54,000€?), homes that cost a fortune (a villa in Ibiza going for 3,000,000€), and many more in the middle (Mil Anuncios has no less than 36,500 properties listed at present). El Comercio says that prices are falling – new builds by up to 10% and private homes by anything up to 30% down. Sales have also fallen, thanks to the pandemic, with XinjuaNet saying ‘…the sale of houses and apartments fell by 39.2 percent in April year on year…’.

Good news for buyers, not so good for vendors.

Spanish Property Insight, a useful site to subscribe to, has an article saying that there is a surge in property-searches coming from the UK (we are not entirely surprised to read this) and – as the frontiers are opened - an expected upswing in sales.

Most of us living here in Spain are happy enough, although there are often links to one’s home-country – family, investments, friends and nostalgia. There are around five million foreigners living in Spain (of which 300,000 are Brits): many of them are home-owners. As to why, well, there are so many good reasons to live here.

International Living makes a case for Spain here. It says: ‘There are dozens of reasons why expats are attracted by the prospect of moving

to Spain — a rich and ancient history, romantic castles, fabulous cities, beaches, mountains, fiestas beyond number, succulent cuisine… Spain has it all. Yes, some beach resorts are overbuilt with concrete high-rises, but you can still find pretty seaside villages…and Spain off the beaten track is a revelation: a gracious, fulfilling, and traditional way of life that survives despite modern inroads…’.

To be comfortable living ‘off the beaten track’, you’ll need to speak Spanish, which is a hard task for many of us. However, more important than learning the language is to learn (or know) the culture. After all, who will listen to you if you have nothing to say?