Buying a holiday home in Spain

[HolaSpain]

We are looking to buy a holiday home in Spain, south preferably to make use of the apartment all year round weather wise. Does anyone have any recommendations on specific areas to look at?

We know the Mar Menor golf resort fairly well and have started looking here but I’m wondering if there are other resorts we could consider. Any recommendations out there?

Also - any advice or tips if you own a holiday home, would be very helpful to hear!

Following...but I'm looking in Altea/Javea/Denia region.
Spending ages browsing Idealista!

Calpe is lovely. My parents have had an apartment there for 30 years and still love it. They spend 6 weeks there a few times a year and we use it when we can.

I’ve gone down the timeshare route. People are DESPERATE to offload them, even free of charge. You’re then free of maintenance/security worries, legal fees of buying a property outright.
We just roll up and our home away from home is clean, fresh and with all beds made.
You can also rent out or swap your timeshare week if you don’t feel like going to the same place every year.

Since Brexit and the 90 day per year rule, I’d be wary of buying outright.

Sorry, 90 days out of 180.

I thought there was a minimum purchase cost now of about 300k?

Since Brexit I mean

Unless thats what you're looking at anyway

Another vote for Calpe. I have a place there although will be selling in a couple of years.
Just be careful though, having a holiday home can be very problematic and if you're buying one thinking of renting it out do your research of all the hoops you need to jump through. Since Brexit, there's a lot!

Also take into consideration the taxes you will pay being a non resident.

But yeah calpe is lovely, been going there since the 1980's

Bought in Spain 4 years ago, very easy and straitforward. It depends what you want. We started by picking an airport and then how far we wanted to travel. We ended up buying on the coast but in a village near a spanish residential town . We have a tram line 5 minutes from our door. Although it's quite in winter all the shops are open and doesn't feel like a ghost town. We love it.

We bought in La Manga Club, it’s been very easy. You are part of a community and your annual fees pay for the maintenance of pool gardens outside of property so easy for a Brit who is there part time. Plenty of golf. Good airport access.

I am Spanish, and I'd first think what type of holiday home do you want.
Do you want to be in a resort? Or do you prefer to be in a town/village?

The resorts in Mar Menor are a bit in the middle of nowhere but you have the essentials inside. If you prefer a town/village, I would look at areas like San Javier, San Pedro del Pinatar, Santiago de La Ribera, Los Alcázeres, Mazarrón

I hope this helps!

I hadn’t thought of a timeshare, thank you. Why are people desperate to offload them??

I can’t find anything on this, we are looking at way below this budget!

Thank you, am unfamiliar with Calpe so will definitely have a look!
We are going to keep the apartment as a holiday home but may consider renting it out in the future. Is there somewhere that you keep up with all the latest rules & regs?

Thank you, this is helpful. We would prefer to be within a resort with lots of facilities 🙂

I have two homes in Spain, one in a city and one in a coastal summer village. I found the south south too hot - mine are the Valencia coast and the Cantabria coast (too cold up there though!)

They are in different regions and the laws which apply to each are very different. There is absolutely no chance of me getting a tourist license for the city flat for example, I haven’t tried in the coastal flat but I think it would be easier there. The taxes on income for non-Europeans are higher now I believe. So check the regional rules and regs if you would be considering renting.

After Brexit you can only spend 90 in 180 days in Spain (unless you have EU citizenship) so is it cost effective to buy a place on a resort when you could rent the same villa each time for cheaper? I’d understand if you were converting a Catalan chapel and making it completely your own, but if you’re considering timeshares then presumably you don’t necessarily want a place that’s very personal to you anyway?

My aunt and uncle used to have one but they got rid of it and instead just rent an apartment anytime they want to visit now.
It was so much hassle. And not cost effective. Unless you’re going to be living there half the year or something I’d rethink.
The amount of time/phone calls they’d spend on random stuff like rubbish collection fees or water or something breaking, all trying to get it done from a distance. Now they just book and go and let someone else deal with that! :)

“I hadn’t thought of a timeshare, thank you. Why are people desperate to offload them??”
Mostly because of old age. People who bought into them in the 1980s are now pensioners and often have problems travelling. What they may not have realised during the hard sell is that they’re committed to pay yearly maintenance whether they use the timeshare or not.
Forever.
The only solution is for them or their heirs to sell on or renounce the ownership through a Spanish legal document.

I think I might have got this wrong, I think this refers to if you want a golden visa, so to be able to spend more time there or work/have residency, then you need to spend 500k euros as the investment

However, having found out I might be wrong, this means that I might start looking at properties again, we had some rough ideas many years ago that we might buy there but thought we couldnt because of brexit

Has anyone used a property search agent who could line up a few properties to view over a couple of days?

Thanks to PPs who mentioned Calpe. Will add it to my list.

https://www.redvillasales.com/