After years of nagging my wife I have at last persuaded her to give Spain a try for at least 6 months. I’m in a lucky position as I earn my money from working online so I will not have to worry about finding a job in Spain. We intend to move to Spain at the end of next summer.
I have been reading this excellent forum for some time so I thought it would be a great idea to seek a little advice.
We will be looking for a furnished property in Alicante, within walking distance to the beach with shops nearby. We would prefer a 2 or 3 bedroom villa. What sort of rent would we expect to pay for this type of property for a 6 to 12 month period?
There is a great deal of property for rent in the area. Asking how much depends entirely on what you are looking for but, remember, the closer to the beach you get, the more expensive it becomes. An apartment just outside Alicante can be got for around 200 euros a month. A 3 bed villa nearer the beach could cost around 7 to 800 euros a month with all ranges in between. I would say, for a medium term rent after the summer, you should be looking at around 500 euros a month (some villas near the beach can go for that per week in the summer months
In the UK we have, electric, gas, council tax, water rates plus other monthly expenditure. What would be the average of cost of these services in Spain?
You will probably have facilities as an extra. Electric is around the same cost as UK but you won't use as much of it. Gas in that area is by bottle only. Water is around a third of the cost of UK. Council tax can be discounted as it is only around 140 euros a year (depending on type of property) and community charges should be paid by the owner and range for around 200 to 800 a year depending on facilities, which pays for street lighting, gardening, pool maintenance, lifts if any and that type of thing. My total taxes, community charges, waste disposal, water etc comes to under 1000 euros a year (1500 quid in UK for council tax alone).
Sorry for the basic questions but I have to start somewhere.