Golf Valley

So many of us from Yorkshire, I am in Brough just outside Hull and can see the Humber Bridge from the window in our bedroom. I do love Yorkshire but Spain just seems more like home now a days, every time I leave there now I just cry and every time we go back I feel like I am coming home. Can't wait to join you all. 5 degrees and rain here at the moment STILL!!!!

Sarah and John Hi,

I lived most of my formative years in Hull. Long before they ripped the guts out of the city and made it was it is now.

I haven't been back in years; since before they built the shopping mall in the middle of the old Princes Dock.

When the bridge was still a pipe dream, when ferries ploughed their way across the Humber (and sometimes got stuck on the sandbar at low tide), when the buses and trolleybuses (!) were still run by the Corporation rather than Stagecoach.

Summer holidays in Hornsea or Withernsea by train no less! or as an extra special holiday in Goathland when it was still run by Britsh Railways...

When the smell of the Fish Docks and or Hull Brewery used to drift across the city it was always a good indication of rain to come...Hull was then the third biggest port in the UK instead of just a ferry terminal for North Sea Ferries!

House of Fraser (I think, was Binns and before that Hammonds)...

Happy days generally as I recall, but I was still at school in those days!

Strange to relate, many years later I had some dealings with BAe at Brough and Holme on Spalding Moor.

The East Riding is and always was a beautiful part of the country with some great people, but having come to live in Spain a couple of years ago I have no great desire to come back, especially under the present regime...

I can put up with the chilly evenings and nights; they only last for a couple of months then its back to t-shirt and shorts and 35-40C for the rest of the year!

Yes Hull has indeed changed now. It has a huge Polish community now with their own shops etc. It has changed even since my hubby went to uni here (he is from Wirral, Merseyside), we used to go out in Uni land! and it was a great place for a night out but not now, dangerous, so is Hull on a night out, I wouldn't go anymore and don't want my girls growing up around here either.

We often take the girls up to Whitby and Goathland and they have a run around in the fresh air with the sheep!! They love it.

Don't get me wrong I will probably always with a "yorkshire girl" at heart but I know that Spain is right for us as a family and feel like that is home now.

Foxbat - the video was great, really funny.

Don't you think everywhere has changed, not like it was even a few years ago. York has certainly changed - not necessarily for the better.

For those of you nearby its St Nicholas Fayre in York from tomorrow until Sunday. We would rather be  in a much warmer Spain, but  we can't be  --unfortunately.... not yet any way - but one day.......

5 deg centigrade on the Costa Blanca this morning.  Rain and cold winds.  People complaining they have to wear gloves.

Looks like I got a good week in for a change.  Big topics of conversation on "other" sites appear to be the best heaters to buy.  Thank the good Lord for global warming, eh? 

Our house is in Devon too and we had it on the market for a year with no success.

In the end we let it out and moved over anyway. It was crippling us paying out for two houses all the time.

Glad we did.

Perhaps you should consider doing the same?

Laury

It's actually snowing! Couldn't ask for worse.

Hi All

I'm in the opposit situation. !st grandson due in a week, need to move back to the UK, can't sell my Spanish House. Housing market in Spain appears to have come to a standstill.

Looks like nobodys buying houses anywhere.  Houses in our Leicestershire village have been on the market for ages.  They used to be sold within weeks but now taking months.  I think people are reading about falling prices and are waiting until they come down even more.  A bungalow across the road from me went on the market in May for 230k.  Still for sale and the price has dropped to 180k.  I noticed a big estate agency in Loughborough today has closed and became a betting shop.  Local estate agent almost chopped my hand off today when I went in but the attitude changed dramatically when I said I was sellling, not buying.  Apparently if they sell one house a month they are doing well.  And they wanted 3% fees.  Even the rental market is falling through as people can't afford the rents.  Selling in Spain to Brits will be a virtual no-no at the moment due to the crashing pound.  I also feel much of the property in Spain is well overpriced especially the extortionate mark up the agencies add on.  When I enquired last year about selling a property for €135,000 the agent said they'd stick €14,000 on top as commission so €149,000 which was around £100,000 then.  Now, it would be around £127,000  so dropping the price is the only thing you can do.  You will get your money back in pounds but, if you have a Spanish mortgage, it won't help very much as you have to pay the mortgage company in euros.  If you have a UK mortgage, you can still advertise for the £100,000 which will be about €117,000 so a drop in euros but you get the same in pounds.  Of course, ignoring the huge agents mark up and the fact that you still have to pay about 10% on top for taxes on fees shows how little of a bargain this will be.

Best of luck to everyone trying to sell (including me) in both UK and Spain. 

 Same story just down the road in Northamptonshire Bob. We had a buyer but then they could not get the mortgage they had been told they could a few months ago and they had to pull out. It really is difficult at the moment but by hook or by crook we will get there sometime next year, hopefully in the first half, in time for summer

I think renting is the best option at the moment. That's what we are doing. We have only had a viewing so far but still we have not rented the flat out. The flat has been up for rent for a month now. We hope to get some tenants after Christmas cos according to letting agent people start renting in January. We hope to find somebody soon. Fingers crossed.

Ana

Maybe someone could buy our house and we could buy theirs!