[Anonymous]

First some remarks about the area, it’s a bit long. My questions are at the end so if you don’t feel like reading too much skip to there 🙂

— General impressions —

We have been visiting the costa blanca for the last 2 weeks to get a feel for the market. On arrival at Alicante and picking up the rental car, the initial impression of the area was to turn around and take the plane back to good old Germany. Very messy area with lots of billboards, dust and hectic traffic. We took the 332 coastal road to Albir, and i have to say that i have never seen such an enourmous mess of a city before.

After some time however the landscape changes a bit for the better, the hills get greener and the towns get gradually a bit better too. Here are my ideas of the areas :

– Alicante, only the harbour area is nice and the airport, the rest is one huge pile of rubbish and building work in yellow dust.

– Benidorm is an amazingly weird place, lot’s of fun in a way and the skyline from a distance is amazing. Must be the only EU city that looks like an american one from the outside.

– Albir/Alfaz del Pi, Nice quiet tourist place however the area around the 332 is horrible with street prostitution at night.

– Altea nice town apart from the fact that the 332 runs through it resulting in a permanent traffic jam, especially on tuesdays with the market. Nice boulevard though

– Calpe is a smaller version of benidorm

– Javea/denia not bad not great either.

Traffic is manageable, there are no maniacs trying to overtake you on secondary roads like here in Germany. However it would be nice if someone could explain the locals how the roundabouts work. Also stopping at pedestrains crossing would be nice. I saw 3 motorcycle accidents in 2 weeks, 1 with a fatality. If you drive in this area, make sure it’s a car.

— Housing market —

There a quite a lot of nice big villa’s of the so called “tile palace” variety in the Javea area, Tesoro park, and the moraira area. Some of them have been for sale for more than 2 years and can be negociated down quite a bit i think. However no seaviews and close to benitachell which is a ruin.

Villa’s del vent is a nice project, sadly it’s overpriced and won’t be finished for the next 8-10 years.

Sierra Altea / Altea hills / Santa Clara : Very nice areas, although the altea hills urbanisations is getting a bit crowded with houses and appartment blocks. The builder of altea hills, bellaster, likes to charge very high prices but is still able to sell. A nice appartment will set you back 600 to 900k euro ex VAT.

In the other areas of sierra altea there a quite a few very good houses for sale, all in the 700 – 1m price range. Build quaility seems very good although most of the walls are about 30cm instead of the 45 that we have here.

Some very interesting new developments too, small projects with huge houses or terrace appartments.

— questions —

Removed them, no use.

[Anonymous]

@glmike wrote:

First some remarks about the area, it’s a bit long. My questions are at the end so if you don’t feel like reading too much skip to there 🙂

And thanks for reading and ignoring my spelling meztikes ! 😉

http://www.spanishpropertyinsight.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2360

[Anonymous]

Very true, but that was before i went on the trip. Now i have a specific area that i ask about and a specific type of property.

Maybe quoting my entire message is a bit much ?

[Anonymous]

You describe Spain very well,maybe you should stay in Germany x

[Anonymous]

nice to have you back glmike, Nice to hear that you were not affected by the local crime. Count your self lucky and keep your money in your back pocket. If you must be an idiot, then 30% to 40% below asking is now the norm.
Best of luck
I know, I have been tring to sell one for 2 years
kind regards
peter-spain

[Anonymous]

Moneys is always carrierd in very little amounts and the wallet is in a simple plastic bag, no criminal is looking to steal a plastic lidl bag from an angry looking 40-something 😉 I do know about all the disadvantages of the area (crime, overbuild, streethookers on the 332 and what not. Still want to go there as living in small time Germany is boring beyond belief.

Ah well, i could always move to tax-free malaysia, where there is even more crime and very nasty Dengue fever, yes!.

[Anonymous]

best of luck glmike.
I can remember sleeping at night, me, wife and my 2 young daughters on the costa Blanca. Sleeping with an alarm set with the remote by my bed side with a “panic” setting on it. and i was scared shitless!
kind regards
peter-spain

[Anonymous]

@peter-spain wrote:

best of luck glmike.
I can remember sleeping at night, me, wife and my 2 young daughters on the costa Blanca. Sleeping with an alarm set with the remote by my bed side with a “panic” setting on it. and i was scared shitless!
kind regards
peter-spain

Where on the Costa Blanca is this peter-spain, I know that Torrevieja has one of the highest crime rates in Spain, but Nothern Costa Blanca is IMHO not an area of high crime.

[Author]

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