valenciatim

My House is between Cheste and Lliria and they speak in whichever language you prefer! 25 minutes from the airport by car, 30 from the city by car or metro, very few urbs, and much more for your money!

HBG

Thank you for the information, it will be considered. We could do with another visit to Valencia in the near future, I love the place.

HBG

That's what I want to do, the other half of the team is babbling on about security, I'm trying my best to explain . . .

Splatt

Just to clarify, I'm on about how much money an asset can produce. In the case of property that includes if it used as a holiday let. If a property can only generate 12k even with a bit of lateral thinking, then it really is only worth 168k.

Everything has a price. If no one wants to rent a property then the rent must be lowered until it finds a taker. Then the usual valuation rules apply.

Again don't forget to assess it based on what it could earn as a holiday rental. (If it's in a resort area).

In my opinion (and experience), if you stick by the formula, even when buying somewhere to live, you won't go wrong. I'd always rather be buying than renting, in fact the first six months I was here is the longest I've ever rented anywhere.
As for a get out plan, property is always a long term investment, only sell when it is to your advantage. A property bought with a deposit and whose numbers 'stack up' as they say will look after itself.

Those are my numbers (7%) BTW, different investors have different risk strategies. To think my first house investment, (when I was 22) yielded 18% and I thought I'd paid too much!

Those were the days.

Ste.

cricketman

Long gone are the days when you could make money from holiday rentals on the CDS, there are just too many of them. I know people who have villas and apartments for holiday rentals and get between 0-6 weeks a year. Very low returns.

There are so many British people in the South of Spain, that those who want to be here already have property in Spain, have family with property in Spain or know friends with a spare bedroom

pete_l

Don't forget that if you're planning to sell to a british buyer, they'll mentally convert your Euros price into Sterling - and the pound has dropped by 30% in recent years. So if when you bought 10 years ago, the place cost €200k that might have been around £130k(at €1.55/£ as was then). If you're now trying to sell at €200k, that's gonna cost the british buyer £180k. Once you take into account the tax you paid on the purchase and the commission you'll pay on the sale, you;d have to be prepared to make a LARGE loss, in Euro terms, to get any interest from brits.

steviedeluxe

This is the danger of currency fluctuations. However seeing as the UK is not going to join the Euro (in my view not in the next 10 years, and so perhaps never), the next best thing would be for the pound to appreciate in value. It is currently doing so, but I wouldn't bet my house on it continuing to rise throughout 2010, as the UK has a massive debt problem We can only cross our fingers and hope..

HBG

I bought in Pesetas, before the Euro, and I’ve long forgotten what the exchange rate was, but it seemed better at the time than now. You could get a coffee and a brandy in Eduardo’s in Benidorm for 100 Pesetas, but I haven’t been back there for a while.

For practical purposes I’ve been counting the pound at parity for the last year, unfortunately.

poolboy

House valuation as a multiple of earnings is a good start but 7% is not easy to get in Costa Blanca area. More like 4-5% which is similar to UK.

Yield is nice to have but the smart money is in the capital appreciation, bit like the dividend & growth in a share.

Villas do sell here but at realistic prices - its a bit of a false market. The overpriced stuff failed to sell for years in the boom years & just makes the fairly priced stuff look even better value.

pete_l

I pulled that rate from www.xe.com Go to tools and then historic rates and you can dial in whatever currency (incl. pesetas) and date you want to get the rate for. I just used the £/€ from Jan 2001

HBG

Thanks. I bought in ’09, but it was at the time of daft values on the escritura and bundles of money stuffed in underpants on the anxious walk round to the notary’s office. I suppose that will be another problem if I manage to sell, along with all the bits added on without planning permission 20 years before I bought the place. And a couple of bits after I bought.

Our reason for selling is to downsize due to family changes, so it’s not urgent, although I’m totally fed up weeding a large plot. There’s a two-and-a-half metre wall on three sides (for the burglars) and some weeds are up to the top of it.

Peter1954

What is all this talk about yields and percentages? Doesn't anybody remember what houses are for? To live in? Does it matter a diddly squat what it's worth after you've bought it if you actually live in the thing? Pete

jackytoo

Cos he is trying to sell, best to read the post again.

Peter1954

I have read the post. Anyone who has been a house owner over the last 20 years has probably experienced negative equity. If you buy a house to live in and not as 'an investment' prices shouldn't matter. If prices are low - don't sell, Wait until they go up again (which they will). It's no good complaining if you can't get the price you want. For the record, I put a property on the market in the UK for £400k. It's still on the market - for £200k. And still hasn't sold. I'm not complaining, that's the way things are at the moment and I suspect the value of my Spanish house has gone down too since I bought it in 2006. But I don't really care because there's nothing that can be done about it.
Peter

billymacker

send me a link to the property in the uk i could be interested.