darrell1966

Sorry for the naff title, I don't really know what I am asking on this post.

I have decided to uproot and move us to the Costa Del Sol (CDS) next year, it will be the usual unremarkable move, move to little England, buy a little bar and see what occurs.

I have lived there before, for about eight years, but left in 2001 to come home and make my fortune.

Well it is dull as ditchwater here and I am due a return, mainly for the unhectic life and the views/weather.

I have been looking at property prices and find there is some very affordable property, so the move looks even more likely.

However, I look at property prices on The Costa Blanca and they are massively lower than the CDS. So I ask myself, is there anywhere on the other Costas that is as good FOR ME than the Costa del Sol. I have lived in Calahonda, Riviera, Miraflores, Almuneca (costa tropical), Fuengirola, Los Boliches at least, and I like these places.

My father had an apartment in Caba Roig on the Costa Blanca and I saw some noticeable differences, mainly to do with the look of the place. I think the CDS is quite pretty and is finished off well, the grass is kept green, there are well finished pavements and roads and the it just looks better kept than I saw round Cabo Roig. And obviously all the other places we drove to etc.

So is there anywhere else that I can contemplate?

I will have to start my own bar or cafe so there will have to be English types to buy my wares, I do not want to travel too far from home to my business.

The holiday makers will tend to be families or more mature couples, not too many lager louts (obviously Benidorm is out) and be nice people, in the main. There willl be ex-pats there to drag your business through the winter, when the weather will be mild except for a couple of mental storms.

The complexes will be very pretty and well tended and and areas of the town will not be left unfinished or covered with rubbish. Grass will be watered.

So basically I would like the niceness of the CDS and the ease of opening a business like the CDS, but somewhere else

(By the way, my expertise is actually in mobility scooters and wheelchairs if you can think of any place crying out for them)

Any ideas?

EllisG

bring a lot of money...cafes and bars barely here struggled to find enough people to see them through summer let alone winter

pwwm

Well, this post sounds like a pxxx take to me, out of all the ones that actually want utopia lol

lynnxa

agreed - Jávea fits perfectly otherwise though


and just about every bar is for sale at the right price

darrell1966

I will bring enough money, there is not much doing in England at the moment to be honest. I would rather be mismanaging my money in Spain than here.

Hillybilly

If you really have a sudden and overwhelming desire in order to earn a living, I would suggest you do it in the UK, not Spain.

If you really want to enjoy then don't open a bar or cafe in Spain.

darrell1966

Utopia would be nice, do you begrudge me that?

I know the Costa del Sol and I feel myself being drawn back there but I noticed property is much cheaper elsewhere so I am simply asking, really, can anywhere else offer the quality of life that the CDS can?

If that sounds like a pxxx take to you then you must be used to reading some pretty mundane questions.

darrell1966

Hi, thanks for answering.

Are you going to justify your statements?

darrell1966

Javea? Thanks a lot, I shall investigate.

I understand that everything, not just bars, is for sale at the right price, but I would be in no rush and I would make sure I got a bargain. There was plenty of them when I lived there last and the economy was being much better behaved.

Hillybilly

Can do, but I would have thought it was obvious! Spain has the highest rate of unemployment in the EU, it is the depths of a deep, deep recession, it is dead. Businesses are failing every week. There are empty shop premises everywhere. People are turning to soup kitchens and crime, times are that hard here. You might be able to pick up a bar going cheap but there won't be many people with money to spend in it. You'll be competing with all the other expat bars for the brief holidya custom. You would stand a far better chance of success opening a bar or a caff in the UK - if that it what your vocation in life is.

With regards to my second statement, it's obvious you've never run a bar! If you believe that running a bar (successfully) is going to allow you to live an un-hectic life and enjoy the views and the weather then I suggest that you try it first in the UK to get a feel for it there and then multiply any stress factors, problems etc you encounter by a very large number to get a feel for how your life would be in Spain ;o)

darrell1966

I have run bars.

I am a confused by your answers here. On the one hand you are telling me that I will have no customers and on the other hand you are telling me that my life will be hectic.

I do not have a desire to open a bar or cafe, I have a desire to go back to Spain. I enjoy living there, it suits me.

Would you suggest another business to get into?

Do you have a bar or a cafe? Is it performing poorly? Did you have a bar or cafe in the UK? Where on the coast do you live?

I ask these questions just so I can get a rough idea of where is struggling most.

EllisG

If Hillbilly won't as someone who ran a chiringuito last year and got out, I will. Last year was horrendous..this year the people who took it over are finding it even worse. My local chiringuito , in where you can historically never find a table at weekends, had plenty of availability this year even though the beach around it had more people than ever.

For many who are taking the decision to come out the emphasis is firmly on the word budget and since tourism is the main source of business for many ex pats your two target markets are due to be depressed ones for quite a few years to come.

Also you refer to starting your own bar cafe which requires English people to buy your wares ? Are you intending to come out here offering more unfortunate tourists the opportunity to obtain a greasy bacon sandwich or a sunday roast with all the trimmings ?...if so I sincerely hope you rethink your strategy there is little demand for that sort of place on the UK high street let alone the Spanish one.

Saying all that I cannot knock your desire to swap the UK for Spain just urge you to give the income stream a little more thought, this is a very different place to the Spain of 2001 and will need to change a lot more to before it starts to turn a profit again

lynnxa

sad but true

my local was open 7 days a week last august - the rest of the year it closes on sundays

it's a community, not a tourist bar, with regulars of all sorts of nationalities

this year they have decided to close weekends - the town appears to be busier than last summer - but no-one is spending

you can very easily get a table at just about every restaurant on the main tourist drag - some have had only one or two tables in use when I've been there even at 'peak' dining hours

there's a rocky beach between the port & arenal areas, where all the chiringuitos are - a couple of them are busy - most seem to be pretty empty though

but the beach itself has been heaving at night - huge family after huge family there with their tables & chairs & bbqs or paella pans - cooking dinner for themselves & no doubt bringing their own drinks, too

EllisG

the area struggling most in Spain is the bit in between Bilbao and Tarifa

lynnxa

if you have run bars then you know that the hours will be long - even if you have no customers