Hello and Llooking to move but not just yet! - Introduce yourselves in Torrevieja - Torrevieja forum - Costa Blanca forum in the Alicante province of Spain
Espana Dream Properties
James Spanish School
Gentlevan Removals
Jennifer Cunningham Insurances SL
Airport Service Taxi Mil Palmeras  Torre de la Horadada
Gran Alacant Insurances
interior building work
AA Free English TV
Blacktower Financial Management
Thy Will Be Done
Car Key Solutions
ASSSA Insurance
Costa Blanca Building Specialists
Expat Services

Join the Torrevieja forum

Join the Torrevieja forumMy name's Alex and this is my website all about Torrevieja in Spain. Register now for free to talk about Introduce yourselves in Torrevieja and much more!

Hello and Llooking to move but not just yet!

Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2021 1:31pm
16 replies479 views6 members subscribed
Frenchy63

Posts: 7

1 helpful points

Location: Benimar

Joined: 29 Jul 2021

Hello everyone!

We are Adam & Carron and we're 58 and  looking to make a permanent move to Spain in around 4years time, so we're starting to put in the research etc now. We thought forums would be as good a place to start as any...obviously we watch A place in the sun (lol) and I spend a lot of time looking at properties for sale on Rightmove etc. From next summer we thought we'd start making exploratory trips, driving around towns and villages looking for what might feel right for us. I guess we're open to possibilities from Costa Blanca North down as far as Almeria, so we're keen to reduce this field of scope, before we start driving around.

A few things about us and what we like. We're very young 58's! (just got back from 10 days honeymoon in Ibiza...whoop!). Our 'ideal' is a 3/4 bed villa on or near the outskirts of a small town with a few amenities/bars/restaurants etc, private but not cut off...end of cul de sac type thing. Not beach front, prefer to avoid overly touristy areas but be great to access the beach within a 20 min drive, based on todays market looking at around Є400k budget max...I think that'll do for the moment. My son goes off to Uni (if he pulls his finger out!) in 4 years time, so no doubt will want to live the student life away from home, so our thought process is we'll only see him at holidays, odd weekends and when he runs out of money or clean clothes, so within an hour max of airports, so he can zip over at the drop of a hat. 

I'm sure plenty of others have posted similar introductions as us, so will start to explore this site more a little later.

Adam & Carron

Herefordjack

Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2021 2:05pm

Herefordjack

Super helpful member

Posts: 874

1088 helpful points

Location: Pego

Joined: 18 Dec 2017

Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2021 2:05pm

Take a look at where I live, seems to fit your requirements and in addition there is a thriving, multi national ex pat community around here and a very nice Spanish community. Urbanisation Les Basetes, Adsubia, 3km from Pego. Two or three villas for sale here at the moment.

Kelvin1960

Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2021 3:04pm

Kelvin1960

Super helpful member

Posts: 1488

1767 helpful points

Joined: 5 Mar 2017

Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2021 3:04pm

I'm sure you will find several communities that meet your needs.

We live here ... 

Your budget will get you a nice place in Campoverde.

Moving to Pinar. Is it as good as everyone says.

GordonH605

Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2021 4:58pm

GordonH605

Helpful member

Posts: 327

341 helpful points

Location: Finestrat

Joined: 1 Jan 2021

Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2021 4:58pm

I can recommend the small town of Finestrat, just a few miles from Benidorm but could be on a different planet.  40 minutes drive from the Alicante airport, fantastic walking and cycling in the local mountains, 20 minutes to the beaches of Benidorm, La Cala and Villajoyosa.  Really easy to get around the area using the toll free AP7 motorway or smaller roads up into the mountains.

Can also highly recommend a local estate agent Torres Finestrat.  If you are visiting I'd call in to the office in Finestrat and have a chat with Alex there.

The nearest equivalent to Rightmove for Spain is Idealista.  The main difference is that you will only rarely get an accurate location and you'll find the same property listed with many different agents, so local knowledge is invaluable.  Google Maps and Street View is a great tool for research while you are still in the UK.

tebo53

Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2021 5:36pm

tebo53

Legendary helpful member

Posts: 4775

4960 helpful points

Location: Benidorm

Joined: 29 May 2018

Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2021 5:36pm

Frenchy63 wrote on Thu Jul 29, 2021 1:31pm:

Hello everyone!

We are Adam & Carron and we're 58 and  looking to make a permanent move to Spain in around 4years time, so we're starting to put in the research etc now. We thought forums would be as good a place to start as any...obviously we watch A place in the sun (lol) and I spend a lot of time loo...

...king at properties for sale on Rightmove etc. From next summer we thought we'd start making exploratory trips, driving around towns and villages looking for what might feel right for us. I guess we're open to possibilities from Costa Blanca North down as far as Almeria, so we're keen to reduce this field of scope, before we start driving around.

A few things about us and what we like. We're very young 58's! (just got back from 10 days honeymoon in Ibiza...whoop!). Our 'ideal' is a 3/4 bed villa on or near the outskirts of a small town with a few amenities/bars/restaurants etc, private but not cut off...end of cul de sac type thing. Not beach front, prefer to avoid overly touristy areas but be great to access the beach within a 20 min drive, based on todays market looking at around Є400k budget max...I think that'll do for the moment. My son goes off to Uni (if he pulls his finger out!) in 4 years time, so no doubt will want to live the student life away from home, so our thought process is we'll only see him at holidays, odd weekends and when he runs out of money or clean clothes, so within an hour max of airports, so he can zip over at the drop of a hat. 

I'm sure plenty of others have posted similar introductions as us, so will start to explore this site more a little later.

Adam & Carron

Unless you have an EU passport..........Do plenty of research into the legalities of moving permanently to Spain such as visa requirements (income and healthcare) applying for visas and residency. There is a host of hoops to jump through now that the UK is out of the EU to gain residency in Spain. 

Steve 

Advertisement - posts continue below

Frenchy63

Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2021 5:47pm

Frenchy63

Original Poster

Posts: 7

1 helpful points

Location: Benimar

Joined: 29 Jul 2021

Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2021 5:47pm

tebo53 wrote on Thu Jul 29, 2021 5:36pm:

Unless you have an EU passport..........Do plenty of research into the legalities of moving permanently to Spain such as visa requirements (income and healthcare) applying for visas and residency. There is a host of hoops to jump through now that the UK is out of the EU to gain residency in Spain...

.... 

Steve 

Hi Steve

Thanks

We realise there are more legal hoops to jump through, I have been advised to get the residency sorted beforehand as well as the Spanish equivalent of an NI number (cant remember off the top of my head)....hence making plans a few years in advance.

Cheers


Adam

tebo53

Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2021 7:25pm

tebo53

Legendary helpful member

Posts: 4775

4960 helpful points

Location: Benidorm

Joined: 29 May 2018

Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2021 7:25pm

Frenchy63 wrote on Thu Jul 29, 2021 5:47pm:

Hi Steve

Thanks

We realise there are more legal hoops to jump through, I have been advised to get the residency sorted beforehand as well as the Spanish equivalent of an NI number (cant remember off the top of my head)....hence making plans a few years in advance.

Cheers


Adam

Hi Adam,

You can't apply for residency until you are actually living here through the visa.

The equivalent to NI is the NIE which you can apply for now if you wish from the Spanish embassy. An NIE is required for a hole host of reasons from opening a bank account, buying property and even required when buying white goods.

Steve 

Di the Fly

Posted: Thu Aug 5, 2021 2:11pm

Posts: 16

11 helpful points

Location: Torrevieja

Joined: 11 Feb 2021

Posted: Thu Aug 5, 2021 2:11pm

Hi,

An inexpensive way of research is Youtube and Google.  If you hear of a place that you think you might like, see what you can find out about it on the internet.  There may even be videos or webcams, so you can view from afar and perhaps confirm or eliminate a visit.

If you do not speak Spanish, start learning.  If you go to an area that is not touristy, you could struggle, as I have discovered that a lot of Spanish do not speak Engish.   If it's a small inland town/village you will know from watching A Place in the Sun that your money will go further.  Your budget can buy you a beautiful home but once you have decided on an area, I would advise renting first, just to be absolutely sure.

Good luck and may your dream come true.

Diane

Frenchy63

Posted: Thu Aug 5, 2021 4:11pm

Frenchy63

Original Poster

Posts: 7

1 helpful points

Location: Benimar

Joined: 29 Jul 2021

Posted: Thu Aug 5, 2021 4:11pm

Di the Fly wrote on Thu Aug 5, 2021 2:11pm:

Hi,

An inexpensive way of research is Youtube and Google.  If you hear of a place that you think you might like, see what you can find out about it on the internet.  There may even be videos or webcams, so you can view from afar and perhaps confirm or eliminate a visit.

If you do not speak Spanish, start learning.  If you go to an area that is not touristy, you could struggle, as I have discovered that a lot of Spanish do not speak Engish.   If it's a small inland town/village you will know from watching A Place in the Sun that your money will go further.  Your budget can buy you a beautiful home but once you have decided on an area, I would advise renting first, just to be absolutely sure.

Good luck and may your dream come true.

Diane

Hi Diane

Thanks for the advice. We'll be having Spanish lessons (probably from next year), so by the time we come out we should have enough to get by and from I've found out so far, the locals are a lot more forgiving if you at least try!

We may very well rent if for any reason we can't fine what we are looking for. We plan to come out fairly regularly over the next 3-4 years so hopefully we'll know what and where we want by then, we'll certainly rent if we don't.

Regards


Adam

GrahamLynn

Posted: Thu Aug 5, 2021 9:55pm

GrahamLynn

Legendary helpful member

Posts: 2495

2357 helpful points

Location: El Raso

Joined: 9 Jul 2017

Posted: Thu Aug 5, 2021 9:55pm

Lots of things to consider.

Do you want to live in an area of Spain, that is totally Spanish or are you happier living in an expat society with lots of like minded people.

Costa Blanca North is totally different to Costa Blanca South, House prices tend to be more expensive in the North and so are restaurants/ bars .

Check out if the area you like is residential or holiday homes. The area’s catering for holiday makers may close completely for the vast major of the year, even things like supermarkets can be seasonal.

Don’t buy a house bigger than you need for numerous reasons. Winters are cold, central heating is a rarity and Spanish houses are cold in the winter. You could possibly be relying on air on for heating, so you will pay a fortune  in heating a big house that 2 of you are rattling around in. Spain is all about outdoor living and you will find that it’s too cold to sit indoors in the winter, outside is much warmer. Then in the summer months you’ll be spending most of your time outdoors. 

Spanish houses produce lots of dust,  and even outdoor areas get extremely dirty and that’s not even consider the amount of mud rain we’ve had this year. You do t want to spend all your time in Spain cleaning - that’s not part of the dream.

Depending on your language skills if you’re in a Spanish area, you may struggle to find an English speaking doctor, or even trying to explain to a Spanish tradesman that your pool is leaking

We live in El Raso, which is only 2 km from the beaches of Guardamar, which is a beautiful town and caters for the Spanish. Where we live is mainly residential so our bars and rest are open all year round. Yes they are much quieter in the Winter when there are fewer visitors around, but they are always open. We also have a good mix of nationalities living around us. We’re not too far from Quesada and you’ll find every tradesman you’ll ever need is British. But is you want to employ a Spanish tradesman there’s lots of them too.

We’re just over 30 minutes from Alicante airport, an ideal distance for collecting the many visitors you’ll have in the first couple of years.

I would say location is the most important thing when looking for somewhere to live. No matter how much homework you do on the internet or looking at property on rightmove  the house that you think is perfect could be inches away from your next property, or in a very hilly area, or the street is full of potholes or that nice little row of bars closed down 5 years ago. So I would just take time to find the right location and everything else will follow automatically. Stop and have a coffee, talk to the locals, everyone is more than willing to tell you more about the area in which you are interested.

We were shown around by estate agents when we were house hunting and the areas we though we wanted to live in, we hated. The more we looked at properties the more confused we got. There was absolutely no way I wanted a house with a bedroom downstairs……….. we bought a house with the master bedroom downstairs, have since realised heat rises, my two upstairs bedrooms are like ovens in the summer and my downstairs bedroom is so cool. That was only one of the things I thought I didn’t want in a house.Talk to people ask for positives and negatives that will truly help you make your mind up

Lynn

Sign up for free or login to reply to this topic

Want to reply to this topic? Login or register for free to post your message:

Find more Introduce yourselves topics from a particular area:


Register for free!

Login to your account

Espana Dream Properties
James Spanish School
Gentlevan Removals
Jennifer Cunningham Insurances SL
Airport Service Taxi Mil Palmeras  Torre de la Horadada
Gran Alacant Insurances
interior building work
AA Free English TV
Blacktower Financial Management
Thy Will Be Done
Car Key Solutions
ASSSA Insurance
Costa Blanca Building Specialists
Expat Services
Advertise your business here
Advertise your property
Help with my computer