News from the Mar Menor, Costa Calida

 When buying a property in Spain there are many questions to be answered and one of them is whether to buy on a Golf Course or to buy in a Spanish town or village either in a new urbanization or in the older more spanish neighbourhood.

Here on the Costa Calida many but not all of the golf course complexes seem to have been built near a Spanish town but not within walking distance and in most cases quite a car drive.  With the crisis many of the Golf complexes still remain unfinished and whilst the homes are built the infrastructure is not what was promised to those who bought off plan.  Consequently some complexes have very few facilities in the ways of bars or restaurants or shops. Also whilst there is supposedly security at the gates many of the sites we find are very lax and do not stop us when we drive in or out  to see a client!!!

In the area there are many Spanish towns and villages that have had urbanizations built on the ourskirts where many Brits and northern european people have chosen to buy a holiday home or full time home.  The advantages to these urbanisations is that they are usually within walking distances to local shops, bars, banks and medical centres.  It also means that whilst having English speaking neighbours which includes Dutch and Scandanavian there is also an opportunity to mingle with the locals surely one of the reasons for moving to Spain.

Also on the urbanisations near town and villages there are people around all year and the shops etc operate all year round whilst on some of the golf complexes it can be very quiet even ghost town like during winter months

Also in Spain there is a community charge for upkeep of areas around the golf course or urbanisation and there are vast differences in these fees from a couple of hundred euros a year to a couple of thousand a year so when buying make sure you find out how much these fees are going to be or otherwise your bargain buy holiday home could incur very expensive ongoing annual fees!!!

to find more about some of the towns that are on the Costa Calida visit the website www.discovercostacalida.info you will even find property for sale.