Have you noticed people have woken up?

all i can say is, and that is what i said before........... "if i'd have known 9yrs ago what i know now" ...........no one know's the in's & out's, the pro's & con,s, when first purchacing a property in spain, as we know the procedure is a little different to the uk & ireland, so this is why i say, if we'd have known how it all work's you would certainly be thinking twice, and sale's rep's explain nothing, again, if they did, you'd be again thinking twice, mine is an apt. (could'nt afford a house/villa) i'm still very happy with it and where it is with beutiful atlantic sea view's, but it's still niggle's at me  to see the way people carry on, eos_ ian hit it on the head saying "it's human nature" how right he is.

All, having recently sold a place on a golf development and had a house built in what I consider to be the "real spain", I can see both sides of the coin.

As someone mentioned earlier in the post, it's great if you want to jump of a plane a few times a year and know that everything will be taken care of and ready for your short but enjoyable stay. It also felt like there was safety in numbers, and that you could share concerns and issues and generally problems were sorted out - as a collective force is often more powerful than a lone voice.

What we didn't like after a time was that the resort was a ghost town for much of the year with empty houses in row upon row. It sounds ok but does get a bit much  - then the flip side was you'd get some rowdy renters hell bent on having as much fun as they could at whatever hour they wanted with no consideration for those around them. I think in summary the irony was that it was the lack of a true community more than anything that underpinned our desire to sell and move from a complex.

Also, although being surrounded by nearly all brits was frankly not what we wanted, there were benefits in being able to shop in areas that cater for the British tastes and needs - though of course we can visit these areas once every couple of weeks to stock up on essentials. For us, as we spend more and more time in Sapin, we wanted to move away from the ex-pat community and more into the local community.

Our new place is quiet, though only a few moments from the high street. We feel we have the best of bost worlds. We have people, goats and sheep passing along the lane, people are very firendly, although of course it's harder to engage in a full on conversation until you can speak the language, but one does ones best and the locals appreciate this and in turn make the effort.

From a cost position, living in a stand alone house saves a bomb on service charges, but comes with far more effort to keep your little bit of paradise in order, and you are exposed to costs if something goes wrong far more than i think you are on a resort that has a management and service fee and many things covered within this. Certainly building a house from scratch as we did takes you into a whole new experience of stress, worry, anxiety and shock - mixed in with pride, satisfaction and pleasure. 

I don't think there is a right and a wrong choice, more a choice based on personal preference. the trick is to understand that both options have good and bad points - you just need to weigh them both up and decide upon which best suits your lifestyle, personality and ongoing needs - and possibly your own tastes and requirements change over time, so a good decision made for the right reasons at one point may not be the right one 10 years down the line.

In short, one size doesn't fit all, and may not even fit one for ever.

Carl

This message was last edited by carl9 on 01/02/2013.

superb

very awesome post and shows both positive and negatives.

 I went to see a new complex a few days ago almost finshed, and the sales people told me they were all sold out, amazing I counted 9 Cranes in the skyline yesterday all working we live near Villamartin,  The Russians are really interested in this part of Spain and they have the dosh as well....so Spain is back on track and that is really great to hear I tried living in different parts of the World and I think Spain is the place to be, the salt lakes, the prices are still 30% lower than Ireland and of course the climate superb.....

when you say there are cranes working

do you mean just stood still or actually moving stuff round?

when the crisis came the companys just abandoned them and they are all starting to get a bit wobbly now.

also

where do you get this information about russians being interested because russian real estate agents in Andalucia closed because the buyers never materialised, even after massive investment.

but yes things are picking up slightly.

Ob

The Russians are really interested in this part of Spain and they have the dosh as well..

With the new law on declaring assets that might be a short lived interest.

  I wonder where the Mafia would show their assets !

The cranes are really working the place is buzzing TM and TRIVEE are the main builders here, I asked the agent who is buying up all the apartments and he said the Russians they are all sold out before they even start building......

yeah you might want to talk to some of the people on here that belived what the agents told them before they lost their life savings.

be careful on that one thinking if you want out you can sell to these non existant russains.

and be very careful buying anywhere around where russians live.

a russian saying is `the tears of strangers are just water`

thats hardcore.

Sometimes my posts come across as negative.
But as someone who has been on the costa del sol for almost a decade i have seen and experienced a lot so can see cycles of stuff and people coming to spain with the best intentions.
They belive what they are told and forget their senses.

The amount of fresh faced people that have come over for a new life with a bit of cash and then gone home broke and a mess is amazing.

I beleive my cynical and somewhat critical `smell bullshit` attitude has allowed me to outsurvive hundreds of thousands.

If an agents mouth is moving he/she is normally not tellign the truth.
If you have some money you wil be everyones best friend.
and if you dont keep your defences up all the time you wil lose.

Its good that there is renewed interest in purchasing property in Spain but I wonder if it will ever be lived in by Russians or just used as a get away for a few weeks every year.

The reason I ask, is as a non EU citizen who has lived and worked in France for the past 30-years It was made very difficult for me to get a Visa for a 12+ month stay in Spain. Our lawyers received 3 differing statements from Madrid and the Spanish representatives in Nice and Paris regarding the information they required re Police records and Asset statements.

In the end it all became too uncertain and we have decided to just visit before seeing some more of Europe during my sabatical.

So how are the Russians getting the visas and do they know what information they have to give a foreign government?

Very true, Mungry.  We made stacks of mistakes when we moved to Spain and if we hadn't had more money behind us, in the shape of our UK business, we could have found ourselves in a terrible mess financially.   The bit about agents lying is true (I'm not saying all of them) - if you say, 'When is electricity getting connected?' the answer is, 'Yes, within 3 months' (never happened), and 'Is that nice bit of land there with the lovely avocado trees included?' 'Yes it is' (it wasn't) and so on.

And certain people would be very friendly when they thought they might be able to sell you something or get some work out of you, but when it became clear there was nothing for them to make from you, you were dropped quickly.

And we, too, saw quite a few people leave and go back much poorer than when they'd arrived - well, they would have had to live for the six months or year and wouldn't be working...

Of course it also works out for many others.  The problem is that you have to be careful but without being so neurotic that you can never make a decision.

As for being negative, I am often accused of the same thing, when in fact, the impact of warning people about various pitfalls can be very positive for them as they are then forewarned.

Would I have bought if I knew what i know now. No, definitely not, I would have bought a cottage in the UK it would have been a better investment. I don't live in Spain but I am our community's President for the last 4 years. On the whole everything is now in a much better state of affairs than when i took over the role. I love our apartment and look forward to going out, catching up with as many owners as posible, they can contact me anytime. We have a diverse mix Spanish, English, Irish, Dutch, Swedish, Norweign, Finnish and Russian. We all rub along, of course some people are more drawn to one another, but that's no different to how people choose friends in any walk of life. I will probably come out about even, when we sell, Not that I'm planning on selling for at least 5/6 years. I bought mine as an investment, for my pension and old age, I was never moving to Spain or anywhere else full time. I have to agree if you buy on an urbanisation, don't moan, instead try to help the President or join the commitee and bring something to the table. It is impossible to agree all the time, you don't even with your partner, so why would you with people you hardly know. I love Spain, but I  don't like how it works. Once again they think they can build their way out of trouble, this won't work, the Russians will not be the answer, even though many areas are positively courting them to buy. My concern is that many houses, that have never been sold, will remain that way when there are more modern, brand new properties coming on to the market. There still are large urbanisations with only a very few sold, they are like ghost towns, very sad.

This post is interesting and has given me a few giggles along the way so far!  I personally wouldn't want to live on an Urbanisation but maybe thats partly because the area where we have made friends doesn't have any, and so we haven't experienced it really.  We did a complete turn around of what we wanted to buy though, thinking at first that we wanted to be in the actual town with neighbours and we even found a house that we loved.  What we weren't told at the time was that with the warmer weather came awful smells from the sewerage farm!  As soon as we said we weren't going to buy it everyone told us!!  Now we are purchasing a detached Cortijo with the nearest neighbour being about 100 yds to the left.  This doesn't bother us as we have friends that are dotted all around the outskirts of the town and also in the town.  We can have wild parties if we wish with not having to worry about the noise too much, we can enjoy the Fiesta without having the noise all day and all night for a week!  Its definitely each to their own and our choice is to live in an area that is more tradditional and we hope to improve our Spanish (any hints on a good way to do that?) so that we can integrate more!  We've had a good survey so we know the house is sound so we're happy and can't wait to move over! 

Some more interesting posts.

And some good points. IMHO, do not believe what you are told. People are paid commission based on what they sell you and in order to make that commission and put food on the table ,they will resort to anything.

1. Don't ever let the agent  recommend a builder,

2. Don't let the agent recommend an architect.

3. Don't fall for the "yes evertything is fully legal and fine" - have it checked out.

4. Don't rush to pay your deposit and don't pay it to the agent, pay it to your solicitor to arrange once he is happy. Ok once in a blue moon you may lose the properry with this delay, but that risk is well worth it to ensure your money is safe.

5. Don't trust ANYONE on first impressions, assume they are there ust to make money out of you. Again, every now and then you'll meet a decent person (but give them plenty of time and opportunity to earn that trust )- btw that rule doesn't apply to agents - never, never trust them). And don't assume the English trades people don't have crooks in their ranks - they do. Word of mouth is the best recommendation. Ant try to go directly to them. I find if you go through someone else then another cut is added to the price in kickbacks.

6. Awyas get 2 or 3 quotes, and use different contacts and study the content of each, often quotes vary wildly and this can be due to opportunistic builders or those that cut corners with quality and finish etc. the cheapest quote isn;t always the best either.

7. Always ask to see their work and ideally speak to the recipient of that work.

As mentioned by others this isn't meant to be a negative post, it's made to ensure that honest hard working trusting people aren't taken for a ride.

Remember, a fool and his money are easily parted.

If this helps only one person think twice, then I'm really pleased I posted it.

If you are sensible and take your time and use iproper legal advice, there is no reason you can't find the ideal place, they are there, but you have to be really careful of the pitfalls.

Carl

Hi all.

Yes things are picking up in the property market but very very slowly and i am sure it will still be some years before we see any kind of normality. There also are urbanisations that do run comparatively smoothly and some that dont but i guess thats life. The small urbs like ours with 21 properties of which i am president have a better chance of running smoothly than an urb with say 200/300 properties and of course we all know each other and socialise from time to time which is more difficult on a large urb.

Baz 1946. If i have read your post correctly i gather that with the special locks and keys, people who have not paid their community fees and the holiday families who rent their property are not able to access the pool. If this is correct then your president needs to know that it  is illegal and people cannot be denied the use of any facilities on the urbanisation EVEN if they are behind in their payments. Anyone who knows this and is affected, could cause big legal problems for your community.

Yes there are loads of cranes still around but the majority are not being used, because it is so costly for the builder to have them removed, so they just leave them where they are until maybe needed at a later date.

The key to this debate....is that everyone is different...and thats why "community" will work for some and not others....

 And yes, i am sure there are some communities that have issues but i am sure on a street without a community you could equally have issues with noisy/inconsiderate neighbours...

When i came to Spain we rented a house on a street and proceeded to bbq, sit, on the front terrace....we invited a family round who had already lived in Spain for 10 years and they suggested...if we sit in the back terrace it will be more "private"...and thats whats we do when we visit their house...."hide" in the back garden...

Not for me...but there you have it...different strokes for different folks...

Cheers

Graeme

a lot of the stuff thats called `negativity` is more streetwise in my mind.

we see them coming.

the guiri couple around 50 years old.

they have been on holiday for a few years to spain and they are enchanted

they get fantistic service wherever they go and are treat like kings.

they have some money saved up in the bank by working hard and being frugal in the uk.

you can see them following the real estate agent round while he is giving them the tour.
like lambs to the slaughter.

and here we are,

the expats with a bit of time and experience under our belt, in the bar sat facing them.

we are maybe tired because we have been working the last few weeks very hard making up for the enexpected taxes or fines we got from the dodgy and bankrupt police force.
we went into the bar and the owners pretty much ignored us because its tourist season and they are focusing on fresh meat that just come off the airplane with their holiday spending money in their wallet.
we pay less because we are locals so we understand the bar owner needs to focus on the tourists because thats where their payday is which allows them to open for the summer so sometimes we dont get the quality of service which is ok.

we may have just been fighting with a spanish person that tried to rip a friend off

we may have just walked past a chinese restaurant where they owner normally comes for a chat in the winter but in the summer they point blank ignored us and walked past us to the group of lobster lookign tourists.

we may have an appointment later with a sattelite installer that will be trying to sell us something that we could get for a quater of the price in the uk.

and here we are, seeing the new meat starting their exciting new life.
just as a load of broken and tired freinds go back to the uk because their health cards have been taken off them and they really need the healthcare.

spain is my home.

and  i do love it compared to the uk

but as an experienced person in many expat subjects we sort of shake our head sometimes when we see people that are on a path to nowhere and they have no idea they are taking it.

time tells and we see it

so if you think i am being negative here.
maybe i am but if i can save some people the misery they are going to suffer and help them avoid some of the pitfalls i will.

be brutal and rember you are just a walking wallet.
if you are lookign to buy in spain you will feed a lot of people with your money and they will help you spend your money by introducing you to everyone that can sell you anything just for their cut.

the builders, the real estate agent, the car dealer, the gestor, the bar owners , the restaunt owners, the police who stop you for speeding and fine you but take the cash and give no recipt.
they will all eat off your money.

maybe you are coming over because you have problems in the uk with your relaitionship or whatever and you thinking gettting away will help. (common reason) It dosent and often makes it worse.

you need to see the world through our eyes and see the immense turnover of people that all came to spain with a dream of recreating their 4 superb spanish holidays over 5 years by spending 300k euros on a holiday home.

but all being said

i am sat here in spain and i love it.
its pretty warm and i think i will go for a walk on the beach later or go for a drive in my cabriolet with the roof down in february.

or do both and then go and sit outside a bar having some tapas in the sun

i thik i just posed in the wrong thread for the second time

naptime

bye

Hi All

now I really don't know what to do????

I like the finish of the golf resort properties

but like village/town life i.e. Algorf/Guadamar

Mungry does make a lot of sense, but what is said applies to the whole world, not just spain

I have relatively small budget 40k euro, and want a place for my family for the next 10/15 yrs for holidays.

As for the russians; I own properties in bulgaria and russians are buying a lot there because they do get a visa when they buy, I can't seen spain doing that.

we do prefer newer property doesn't have to be nr a beach, just a nice place to chill and a few amenities to enjoy.

any ideas??

Great info upto now

Trowell 1.....if thats the area you prefer......then go there.....you will find something in that price bracket...

Stick with what you intend to achieve

good luck