There are so many reasons not to buy property in Spain - mainly arising from either the cost (prices due to go down still further, the Pound vs the Euro... etc) or the legalities (Ley de Costas, Landgrab, 'illegal homes', fraud and cheats...) that everyone has been put off the idea.
But, there may be a good reason why you should consider buying now - especially if you are thinking about retirement.
The time you have left. Oh, you could wait another five years, but - if you have ten left in this world (possibly more by living in Spain: less stress and a better diet), then cutting your eventual time here by half to save a few thousand pounds may not be that clever after all.
There are lots of safe properties for sale - just remember to take proper care.
We need some new neighbours!

We each have different priorities. Near the top of mine is owning my home. It may be cheaper to rent, but I don't see it as an investment.

What did you do to the old ones ?

I doubt I would buy here as I doubt I could ever truly believe it was legal and would always remain so. It seems they just move the colours of the land around to suit themselves revoke past plans etc etc

I agree. We did buy (and are now in the process of selling - our house, although legal, has massive discrepancies in the 'papers' which is costing us a fortune and endless time to get put right), but would not do so in Spain again. They do move the goalposts as they see fit.

However, we consider long-term renting a waste of money. So, that's Spain stuffed for us then, other than for extended holidays.

(possibly more by living in Spain: less stress and a better diet)

Never quite followed this line of thinking. Life can be as stressful or not as you care to make it, I can't see living in a big city in Spain being any less stressful than living in any city anywhere in the world. If you moved from the middle of London to say, the Alpujarras, of course it would be less stressful, but ditto moving from London to the country in UK. As for better diet, it's entirely up to the individual what they eat, no matter where they are. Agree the "Mediterranean Diet" is supposedly healthy, but how many Brits adopt the Spanish way of eating, these forums are full of threads of Brits seeking out Brit food. You decide what you will eat, the country you are in doesn't decide it. And Spanish kids are no different to UK kids, they are obese, they are eating more and more junk food. For the reasons you have given, I'd have thought buying a property in Spain would give you plenty enough stress! And those that have ended up with dodgy, unsellable properties must be megastressed.

I've recently been working (on a contract) at a London council, and the amount of people taking voluntary redundancy has been staggering - many of them taking a tidy sum for 15 or 20 years service. I suspect though that they won't be interested in buying a property abroad - instead they'd probably be into long-term rentals, and keep their UK property as a fall-back. If this level of voluntary redundancy is the same throughout the UK (and news reports seem to indicate this is so) you may start to see renewed interest by older Brits looking to relocate to warmer lands. But, as I mentioned I don't think the appetite for buying is there - in the UK prices are slipping and so the sentiment is to wait a while, and rent in the meantime.

http://www1.landregistry.gov.uk/uplo...11_sb5ar16.pdf

Logically, if prices have already fallen in Spain, then it's a good time to buy, especially if you intend staying in the same place for many years. But sentiment works against this, people like to see prices rising before they jump in.

Yes I would find that off-putting. Never used to be so, we bought and sold quite a few in Spain but never bought anything after 1999 thank god. I know so many who are caught up in the planning mess in different areas.

In the CDS areas I know prices haven't fallen as much as they should so they still look overpriced. Considering that the pound euro rate is at least 25% less than a few years ago then there aren't many bargains. I would say rent as the house you buy now will almost certainly be thousands less in a years time.

Having only another few years left, could be seen as a reason for NOT BUYING, because in a couple of years time the heirs will have the hassle of selling your house in Spain, with all the expense and legal headache that goes with it.

About the "better diet", as it has been said, people decide what they want to eat, and you can eat healthy food in the UK, you dont have to eat crap there.
i dont know anyone who radically changed their eating habits when they came to live in Spain, unless a change of health forced them to.

Good point re: buying versus renting. The only argument I can think for older people buying a house is they prefer to know how much their bills are going to be: ok rents are low now, but they may suddenly start to rise if high inflation comes back. With all the unstable economical news, no one really knows for sure what will happen in 2,3 4 years time.

Funny thing about the healthy diet. I know people who moved to the Med coast and said they ate a lot more salad, gazpacho, olives etc because it was more available. Go inland and especially towards the north and the diet is more heavy and meat based. But as everyone says, you have a choice wherever you live of healthy or non-healthy foods from the supermarket.

I think there may be more than you think. The ready availability of fruit, onions, peppers, tomatoes, olive oil, at much much lower prices but higher quality than in the uk will make more people change their diets. Yes, they may go from 3 meals to 2 meals a day, eat later in the evening, which means they are eating less, but all will result in a better diet.
Even when I have just been visiting Spain for a week or two my diet has changed during that period and I leave feeling better for it. It can't all just be the sun or the lower latitude.

The official Spanish housing market numbers, understated as they are, have shown a steady decline in value for the past four years. The future predictions from reliable Spanish sources show that a further decline is inevitable for at least the next few years, possibly many years.

To put it bluntly, if you buy a property in Spain now, it will be worth considerably less next year and even less in the years to come.

Yet people still come to Spain and buy property. They're the same people who still buy time shares and probably the same people who send their bank details to those nice people from Nigeria.

There are four boarded up bars, almost next to each other, in a nearby shopping centre. An English couple, both pensioners, have just bought the lease for one of them. It has got to be the sun.

You couldn't make it up could you. Makes the UK sound like Zimbabwe. You really should move from where you live in the UK No more expensive to eat healthy than gorge on steaks and chops. A lot on this forum seem to be very unhealthy, most have some illness if it's only a bad back!

it has to be something.
on a much larger scale you now hear of major companies who went on a spending spree a few years ago, borrowing heavily against rising share prices and shareholders funds, are now having to sell off at great discounts, hoping the new owner will be prepared to accept the transfer of the loan and pension commitments. Many are just sitting on the sidelines waiting for them to go bust and pick up the pieces for a song.
meanwhile the directors are taking their grossly inflated salaries and golden parachutes.

If someone can start a business without borrowing even from themselves then it may make a break-even but the thought of running a tea shop in Somerset fills me with as much horror as running a bar in Spain

neither a borrower nor a lender be

Yes, wish we could have things like fruit, onions, peppers, tomatos, olive oil in UK. Things we can only dream off, eh?

never been to Zimbabwe, it hasnt got a coast.
I am moving shortly.
Its when I compare prices and in the uk they are 2-3 times those of Spain, is it small wonder there are so many eating unhealthily. Tinned this, processed that. Even forced to have a specific size and shape because the supermarkets say that is all that will sell. The "misshapen" produce in Alcampo tastes just the same at 1/3 the price.
alot on this forum are "elderly", with which comes aches and creaks, generally caused by Anno Domini.