Financial Pages in Spain: November 2014

Friday 7 November 2014

Spain – The Sun still Shines and Lifestyle is Healthy

Spain is great for holidays, working, living & retirement

The beaches are clean, the Mediterranean is still blue, the food is fresh, lots of cheap flights, great deals on hotels and apartments but forget all that the headlines are bad! UK Press always give SPAIN a hard time

Personal Experience

We bought our first house in Spain on 7^th June 2002; it was memorable for another reason. It was the World Cup in Japan and South Korea, England played Argentina and won 1 – 0 thanks to a penalty by David Beckham.

I thought I’d write down a few reasons why we bought and let you, the reader, decide whether some, all or none of the factors still apply. This is random in no particular order;

The climate is great and the sun shines all year round
It’s two and half hours from home
The flights are cheap if your dates are flexible
We love the lifestyle, street markets, restaurants, entertainment, the beach and I could go on
House prices are cheap compared with the UK
A second home is for the long term, especially retirement
The exchange rate is more favourable than it has been
We needed and easily got a 50% mortgage
We found someone reliable to look after the place when we are not there, giving peace of mind
The family think it’s a great idea

I could go on but I think those 10 reasons cover most of why we bought in Spain.

The fundamentals haven’t changed and there are bargains to bought. There is now also plenty of evidence that people like the concept of Rent before you Buy.

So here are three ideas