House Prices

Our experience here in Spain has taught us that normally when you make an offer you should not go down more than 10% of the price and you will usually get somewhere in between, usually 5% or a little more, agents anyway usually recommend an offer price if they are good agents. 

Regarding lawyers, you have to be very careful, we had to change twice. I recommend Elisa Saraci of Balms Abogados in Marbella, she has been brilliant with us. Her email if you want to contact her is [email protected].

Good luck 

Hi

  With your budget you should find a great place.. my experience is i have bought and sold several properties in Spain and I am a U.K. property landlord.

The first thing to consider is don’t buy work out here, do er uppers are ok but the trades people and the stuff to do them up are very expensive (I’m from the U.K. north and I find some of the prices over the top) and working here is frustrating and defeats the object of an easy life.

Secondly if you buy a larger house, you will spend all your life cleaning, sweeping up, trimming trees and cleaning pools etc. Although  some house work is good, too much is a burden.

Now the market which is another example of smoke and mirrors in Spain and as you say there is no discernible market analysis point such as zoopla as in the U.K.

I find that the best way is simply hard work, and study the market, hone in on the area you like and simply by study the answer will become apparent!

Agents who are on the whole vultures, will show you what they want to sell to you, ie the ones with the biggest commissions (I thought I was being clever negotiating a lower commission on a house sale, low and behold no viewings, I asked why and I was told if you pay the full 5%, agents who share the listings will push your property as there is enough commission for two agents to have a bite of the cherry, I decided to pay the 5% and sold in a week) 

Agents are useful to see what is available, but the best way is to suss your areas, and walk, cycle around see se vende signs from the owner, they are not paying a fee to an agent so you are likely to get a far better deal, bearing in mind 5% of 650k is a lot of money.

Agents also ask when you are selling “how much do you want for it” rather than the usual U.K. thing whereby they give you a market assessment. This leads to some wildly over priced houses, usually Spanish people  who think “ the foreigners will pay anything” so you must be on your toes not to pay too much over the odds, if there was another crash, which there is a possibility of, houses in your range are more difficult to off load! 

Study, look for people selling their own homes and be very careful of agents!

Good luck

Al 

Just a tip on obtaining the Golden Visa (which we have done). One of you has to own the 500k euros investment in the property. You cannot aggregate that between you so make sure your lawyers set up the purchase in this way.

Hiim thinking of buying a small town house in TOLOX....I've lived and worked in France for years but need a change....I am looking for a place that has art courses yoga and a good few bars mainly for winter my months.....thank you for any tips