[Anonymous]

Hi All, I’m in the market to purchase a small townhouse (E120K), coastal near Valencia. Want to evaluate the plus’ of various communities as a residence such as Oliva, Piles, Pego etc I’ve done limited research on the area, also contacted some of the larger website agents. I remain nervous and want to know first hand opinions on the best route to take for buying (and pitfalls) and general thoughts about the area of the members.

[Anonymous]

I’ve just registered on this site – pity no-one has replied to your queries but I’m afraid its a BIG subject. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

We bought our holiday home on A Place in the Sun in 2004 in a small town 5kms from Gandia. Despite the fact I had 6 months to research before filming and already knew the area from holidays past, Estate Agents (after filming) led us up the garden path a fair few times and wasted precious house-hunting time. If you have somewhere in mind I may know a little about the place As I have got older, I am wondering whether I want to be in a small town, would I be better in the city where I can walk to everything. Do you want to live on an urbanisation? A block of flats? Security if you want to use the property for holidays and are likely to leave the property empty. These points are just to give you ideas.

I know a lot of people rent before they buy. Its difficult I know to choose where to live because until you live in the area you don’t get to know whats good and bad about a place. You have to go and see a place and then set your budget (remembering that you can set up DDs through a bank) and set up an emergency fund in GDP. You also have to pay annual taxes but utilities are cheap. We found it easy to go with a bank whose staff all speak English and our Solicitor and his sister speak excellent English and tell you how it is, not what you want to hear!! DO NOT GET A MORTGAGE and expect your rental income (taxable) to repay your mortgage. Don’t sell up in the UK until you are sure. Our small town has lots of people selling up for one reason or another and they have no property to go back to in the UK

You have to ask yourself do you want to be near English people or do you want to try and integrate into the Spanish way of life!

We chose the Gandia area because we like history, walking, beach life and fishing and we thought it pretty central to Valencia, Alicante and inland to Xativa etc. Our first choice was Oliva but for one reason or another we went off the idea – too my English people.

Freeform productions showed us our property and we saw lots of property after filming privately, none of which came up to scratch in our price range, bearing in mind the emergency money etc. However…… that said we now have ours up for sale because we want to retire and find it too small (2 beds) for our growing family to visit. We are in the unfortunate position that we will have to pay Capital Gains Tax on any profit, less costs incurred.

Some estate agents also charge commission for buying and selling, so ask at the beginning. If you trawl the internet you will find the same property on lots of Estate Agents web sites, all at different prices.

I heard people say, “employ Spanish builders” unfortunately we did and then we had to employ an English company to remedy the errors. Expensive errors of judgement.

I could go on and on – best if you ask me a question/questions and then I will answer truthfully or email me from the web site http://www.valenciaholiday.co.uk

[Anonymous]

I’ve read your message with great interest. ❗
now i’m too tninking about buying an appartment.
but i considered more about CDL than Valencia
perhaps i think that CDL is more green and sunny. 😀 😉 😆

@Barnie wrote:

DO NOT GET A MORTGAGE and expect your rental income (taxable) to repay your mortgage.

😯
so it it so bad? no rental income at all ? or it depends where a flat is?
Do you think it is much better if a flat is situated in city?

[Anonymous]

I can only speak for myself. Had one booking this year and 3 last year. I guaged my booking tariff from others that advertise – like for like – so I’m not charging the earth. I’m sorry to put you off, you just have to look at web sites offering rental properties to see how many there are on the Costa del Azahar or North Costa Blanca. Google “holiday rental property wherever” etc. and don’t forget, you pay tax on your rentals!!!

You have to pay a wealth tax every year, which I knew about, and our Solicitor who dealt with our sale actually emailed me to remind me that next time I was in Spain to call in. I didn’t actually go to Spain myself, but gave him permission to take the amount out of my bank (not in writing by the way) And he did. Its not like the UK, where you need ID etc. Its a small place and bank managers and solicitors etc. know each other. I was happy about the transaction as I didn’t want to owe any money. However, I asked a number of people in our small town whether they knew about the wealth tax, some people did but never paid it and some didn’t know about it at all. You get caught in the end so may as well cough up.

You just have to work it out for yourself, flights (not cheap any more) car hire (£100 per week) and then your rental. Plus whatever for food or eating out. You might as well get a package. We are only 5kms from a city and beach – not sure whether it will make any difference. My place hasn’t a pool but there is one hell of a pool just 5kms away !

By the way, Valencia is a city that is up and coming to rival Barcelona. We have another Americas Cup on the way, Bernie Eccleston has permission for F1 round the city and there is a Tennis Championship and Indoor Athletics Championships to boost tourist figures. Jet2 obviously hasn’t seen the light yet as they cease flights in the winter, however good old Ryanair has anounced that they are to commence flights into Valencia soon.

You comments about greenery, I don’t think you could get any greener than the Costa delAzahar with all the orange groves which are unfortunately disappearing to have houses and urbanisations built on them. The amount of money the farmers get for their oranges (I think it was something like .67€ per kilo) who would blame them.

Yep, I would right down to the CDL if I was you not so much building going on there and you will get a foot hold earlier !!!

[Anonymous]

@Barnie wrote:

DO NOT GET A MORTGAGE and expect your rental income (taxable) to repay your mortgage. Don’t sell up in the UK until you are sure.

Why should rental income repay your mortgage? At the end of the day, if renting was more expensive than buying, there would be no rental market – or at least it would be sub-standard with only those who could not obtain a mortgage looking to rent. At the end of the day, who wants to pay rent, getting nothing to show for it whilst your money buys the property for the landlord! Especially with high Loan to Purchase Price mortgages being available.

If moving from London to North Wales, would you retain your London property to be able to return to if you didn’t like the move? NO. Better advice is to make 110% certain that you want to make the move then make it, cutting ALL ties (property etc wise) with the UK. Work hard at making the move work without the complication of a safety net that stops so many ex-pats from making the most of the move. Retaining that safety net is actually the very reason why so many Brits fail out here.

Just remember – to make the move sucessfully, you need to have some finance, it will not work without. With an average wage of about 300€ a week, you will need to have a supplement. I guess the general cost of living in Valencia region to be higher than CDS so you really do need to make sure on that one. I will always tell people looking to relocate to Spain that they must be in a position to finance their housing costs (purchase or rent) WITHOUT working. On the whole, Brits can not live on less than 300€ per week in to the household yet alone fund their housing costs from it!

So many Brits seem to think that they can come to Spain, work Black, and still get a UK wage. Forget it. Why would anyone with common sense pay a British builder 100 – 150 € a day for a part day of shoddy workmanship when a Spanish builder will do the job to a better standard at €50-75 € a day? Dont buy a bar – fatal! There is only one way to make a small fortune in Spain – start with a big one!

Spain is a beautiful place to live, wherever you choose. Integrate and do not stay “with the Brits” either socially or business wise. This is Spain and not Blackpool with sunshine. And by the way, the language is Spanish!

[Anonymous]

PaulandLyn:
I do agree with most of what you posted. I however do not beleive in burning your boats. Immigrating from one Country to another is not for everybody.

I am fortunate that I came to UK as an student and decided to stay so I know very well what experinces and emotions one goes through.

I feel that you can settle easily in a country like Spain where people are very welcoming despite of some of the antics of the Brits.

For a happy transfer of life in any new Country. You have to do your research and ask yourself some very akward questions and must answer them honestly no matter how pain/distastefull the answers are.

[Anonymous]

Hi Piper

living in Piles I know the area of very well.

Oliva is becoming very British with more and more English bars opening. I seldom go into Oliva unless I have to. Traffic is a nightmare because there is no bypass, and the N332 runs right through the centre, so all the lorries use this rather than the toll roads. There are lots of protests happen once a month on a friday about the lack of bypass.

As for property for the price you are looking at you can get a town house of 2 or 3 beds that will need a bit of tlc. However stay well away from the gypsy quarters which is basically the area above San Roc and the Baranc. You can find properties there for less (60,000 or so) but you will never sell them on as there has been documented trouble with the gypsies and foreigners. So stay well away.

Better off to stay at the bottom down by Santa Maria but whether you will dfdin much for 120,000 is another thing.

Piles is a lovely little town, very much Spanish still and a world apart from Oliva (even though they are only 2kms apart they are very different). There are only about 2000 permanent residents and of these about 50 or so Brits although I seldom see many because I live a the playa.

One thing though if you are thinking of Piles the playa is deserted in the winter as only about 100 of us live here full time and it gets cold down at the beach (there is a good 4-5 degrees difference . Although this is getting better.

However on your budget you wont find anything other tan a 1 bed flat at the beach. You may get a townhouse to reform but it will be difficult. An apartment may be possible but the problem is there are only 2000 residents and not many move out so properties tend to be scarce in that bracket, but look and ye shall find.

Miramar, Daimus and Guardamar are pretty much ghost towns and not too cheap either) in the winter. In Miramar town there is a little community but prices are pretty high. But there aren’t many townhouses there

Gandia – you will be pushing it to find a townhouse in Gandia now at this budget, there aren’t that many around and the only place there is any collection of towhouses is by the river (and I cant remember the name of the area) but it is no longer cheap, problem is there is a new urbanisation on te edge of the town and prices start high so no-one is selling cheap

On your budget realistically you will need to go inland a bit – about 15 kms or so. You might find something in Palma De Gandia or Real Gandia, and further inland in Castello de Rogat, Pobla Del Duc, but you are now 30 kms inland.

If you are looking to rent round here then I would say proceed with caution. Most people dont want a townhouse and holidaymakers in general either want an apartment close to te beach or a villa with a pool. I used to have a brand new adosado (effectively a townhouse by the beach) with a swimming pool and 200M from the beach and I struggled to come close to the mortgage (though did it after two years but it was hard work)

Further North the closer you get to Valencia the more you are likely to pay, though if you look hard in towns such as Silla, Sueca, and further inland in Chiva Cheste etc, you may well find something. Most of these places are within a short train ride of Valencia

ope this helps and if youhave any specific places in mind then drop me a PM and I will try and elp out bout the town, prices etc

In short you really need to look at your budget or re-evaluate where you want to be. Whilst there is no doubt you will find something if you look hard enough it is going to be a difficult search and most f the aents will likely tell you they have nothing for that price (and they dont) but if you look round you could find something.

The other thing you could do is place an advert in

1. The Inland Trader (http://www.inlandtraderonline.com)
2. Costa Blanca Levante (http://www.costa-blancanews.com)
3. La Safor Guia (it is spanish)

Stating what you are looking for

Alternatiely try segundamano.es
distrito22.es

or do a google on “Se Vende particulares casa de pueblo Valencia” (or the town you want) and see what comes up

best of luck

Vince

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