Spire

Hi all, could someone, advise me on where to start looking for, reasonable prices apartments, on costa del sol, or near.
Tia.

Loafing Along

Web research to start such Idealista.com , several similar sites but most in Spanish, Idealista offered in english.

Spire

Thankyou.

Leper

1. Do you want to rent or buy?
2. If long term rent (i.e more than two weeks) is it in the off season you wish to travel?

Spire

I am looking to buy, but would consider a long term let to
get to know the areas, and look around, are there any recommended agents, or people to book with.

mikelincs

Are you looking to buy as a hoiiday home, or for a permanent move, if the latter please ensure you can get a visa for the move, it isn't like it used to be, just move over and sign up. You can even find plaes, in Spain, on Rightmove

Barriej

This may be a silly question but what is your idea of a reasonable price?
I bet its not the same as mine...

The costa del sol is also a rather large area.
Do you want to be front line, in town, costal road, campo, Urb or private block, low or high rise?

Some parts down there are like towns up here, totally empty in the winter but so busy in summer the locals can't park.
In the summer I can't park outside and have to put the car in the underground garage as the second homers and tourists fill the two car parks and all along the front of the buildings (and I live in a tiny village off the beaten track)

Your best bet would be to use google maps and pick areas you like the look of, search for local and national information and then use the little yellow man to 'walk' around.
Obviously this will only give you a snapshot but you will be able to see how good (or bad) an area looks.
then come back and see if any of us have inside info on the places.

If you are looking to move permanently then I would suggest you come over and look for a month or so. And then either long term rent for the first year and really explore before buying.

We visited various parts of Spain three times a year at differing times, to see where we wanted to end up, I'm now early retired (you could say it was forced) and we ended up a couple of km away from the FIL in the end. (you need to see somewhere in the winter, on saturday afternoons when the kids are all out)

Dont rush into buying anything, property here is nothing like the investment it is in the UK (remember there is about 10% tax to pay on top of the purchase price)

Spire

Thankyou for the very helpful, insight into, what is turning out to be, a lot more involved than I imagined. I think the first step will be to head over, and look around, as suggested.

Loafing Along

Far and away the best solution. We spent five years of holiday breaks "doing" the Mediterranean coast before deciding on Costa del Sol - basic reasons - Malaga an excellent airport , also great train service , Costa del Sol climate , but that is true of most areas, excellent hospital near Marbella ( think old age and healthcare ) , great selection for shopping of any sort from Ikea through upmarket furnishings, same for clothing , groceries also applies to dining out , whatever you like to eat you can find . Best though was easy access to interior of Andalucia , a fascinating region and little can beat a gentle stroll down the beach and cheerful chiringuito. As an after-thought if you are a golfer, fantastic selection of courses.
July and August not so pleasant.

Bobley

There's a company called Salamanca Spanish villas who were extremely useful for me. Hooked me up with agents, solicitors, bank account, health insurance etc etc. No pressure, no forms, no money, just a really nice old boy called Alan who just sorted it all out.

Leper

Spire, we don't know what age you are or what you are looking for. Perhaps you yourself don't know what you are looking for?

If you are retired or nearing retirement you could do worse than booking a place (any place) now and rent for 5/6 continuous weeks between November - March. Use that 5/6 weeks and not only will you discover if that area is suitable for you, but if Spain is for you. It could be the best few bob you ever spent and rentals then are much cheaper.

For the record we are retired in Mojacar Playa, Costa Almeria (marginally warmer and drier than CdS) and don't regret buying there.

Mark604

We were coming to southern Spain for ten years or so at different times, firstly just to have a holiday but we soon decided to buy somewhere. For eight of those years we came with the purpose of looking at different areas and I even came by myself several times, hired a car and made time to do research. We also must have looked at about thirty to forty properties before finding the right one in the right place. It did take years but we went on the theory that it'd be extremely unlikely we'd find what we wanted just by coming once or twice and trusting to luck.
Rent somewhere first, I'd also get some transport and call everywhere you can in and around the area you may decide - for example, we looked at loads of places (non-coastal and we didn't want that) from near Almeria all the way to near Seville.

Moses2013

I think Barriej made a good point here: This may be a silly question but what is your idea of a reasonable price?
I remember when we were looking at buying urban land in Spain and I probably covered the whole coastline (max 10 km from coast). We had a good idea of what we wanted but the Costa del sol was just too pricey and anything we liked would have cost more than 100K vs 20-30K which was our budget at the time.