jonsol

Fly out to Valencia on Saturday, for 10 days, for a house search, but have already seen a place that " ticks all the box`s ", except one, ( about 9/10 ), in fact it has things I had not thought of, and thats after 6 months looking on the net, and putting over 40 properties in "my specials " , but its quite possible I will return home with having put a firm offer on this place. Now you are all going to tell me ( and it IS good advice,) to take my time, look around , dont rush, there are plenty of other places to check out, but , you know sometimes you see something, and you just KNOW it could be the perfect place .....not going in blind, just excited ! !

keithwalters

It sounds like you have already put in a fair amount of research, so if your gut feeling is ´go for it´ then I would.

I agree totally about sometimes you just KNOW something is right within a few minutes of seeing it.

Good Luck. Hope it doesn´t disappoint you.

Keith

Wendy Nesbeth

Yes I did that thinking it was the house of our dreams. Now I hate the house after 2 months of living here & my husband refuses to sell.

I hold my hands up, we were still in the honeymoon period of being in Spain, & after 6 weeks we bought this place.

Please take your time & don't rush into anything like I did & now live to regret it, & spend the rest of the time very, very unhappy.

I wish I knew how to persuade my husband to agree to sell, he knows how unhappy I am living in this house.

Wendy x

maryann

When we moved here we only saw one house, we had only seen pics of it and we didn't really know where it was......but like you said we had a feeling about it, my husband flew out, looked at it and signed for it. We only rent but it is still a commitment for a year. If we had bought this house we would not regret it. I understand what you are saying, but i think the only reason you need to take your time over here is the system of ownership is not the same as in the uk, i think you need to take time to 'dot the i's and cross the ts' so as to speak.
good luck, let us know how you get on.

maryann

I am sorry you are not happy with the house, that must be rotten to feel so stuck. hope you can sort it out though somehow. xx

Steve Ball

Hi there, I,m a newcomer to this .......... can anyone tell me a completion for Rago 1 bloque 1 ......... thanks

Steve

maryann

Hi steve

you may want to start a new thread with this question so it gets seen by all.
Welcome and I hope we can help you.

love

mary x

spain

good luck Jonsol - like you say everyone will advise you not to rush, it is definitely a buyers market so the place will probably be there in 6 months

we came over house hunting - found a place a didnt want to lose it so at the check in on our way home decided to turn back, headed straight to the estate agents to "do the deal"

bought a lovely place in the country, 5 bed villa with a pool - most peoples idea of living in Spain - it felt right

WRONG

after living there we found that it wasnt ideal at all, living in the country was not all it was cracked up to be

anyway, cut a loooooong story short we sold up and moved 10 mins away into a village and its the best thing we could of done

My advice would be to come over and rent, that way you can check out different areas in your own time and decide for yourself where the best place to live will be. Depending on the type of property you are buying there are many questions you should ask and info to find out and (sad to say it but) the estate agents dont always tell you what you need to know

Can I ask what area you are looking at moving to ?

jdr

Post it in the Ayamonte thread you will get more answers.

Mitzyboy

Jonsol, don't forget to use a lawyer .... I have a good one in Gandia that I can recommend and they are not far from the estate agent you are using. Pay your monies through the lawyer

The house looks great btw

spain

have to agree, use a lawyer, we made the mistake of taking someones (who we thought knew what they were talking about ) advice and didnt, to find out 6 months later that there was a debt on the house

is that Jose Luis, Mitzyboy ? estate agent OB ?

I was speaking to an estate agent from Gandia a few weeks ago, she said that all the agents are struggling to survive and many are closing dont know if things are that bad are they ?

mitzipurr

Hi Wendy

I made the mistake as you did - and still don't understand why - it was not even as if I was new in Spain!! Think I panicked as my house was sold and there was nowhere to go....

Fortunately we have now moved on to another house in the same part of Spain and I am much happier than I was at the first one.

However still uncertain if Spain is really right for us - or maybe I just have itchy feet!!!

crispy

Hi, I think this is the way to break rules!

When I looked back to February 2003 when we bought this house and then I recall all bad things that I have read on this site I think goodness I was so lucky....

We had been checking the net for months and then one day I looked at the map of Spain and see the name CHICLANA and thought I like the sound of that so we booked a weeks holiday arrived on the Saturday, had previously booked with an estate agent to show us some houses on the Monday. We looked at 12 houses, 1st one I loved (Los Gallos) but needed so much work doing, 2nd one didn't like but every one else did so we put offer in but had been taken off the market over night, 3rd one the price went up by 36,000 from getting out of the car and walking to the gate, so our agent told the owner he was taking it off his books (they found out we were English) rest of houses I did not like until the last one in Rana Verde. We went back on the Tuesday for a 2nd look and agreed a price; on the Wednesday which happened to be my 50th birthday we paid our deposit and signed an agreement to pay the remainder within 30 working days.

Now this is the real rule breaker - We left everything to our agent including organising our bank, solicitor, notary, our house insurance, getting the electric paid and changed into our name, contract for the gas, you name it he did it,we even left him large amount of cash to pay bills for us . My OH and I never for one moment thought what we were doing was so stupid we were trusting this man who we had only just meet with so much money and basically our future retirement fund. People at work could not believe what I was doing as I am the original "we will see, let me think about, maybe one day if I, LADY" no one could believe that we went on one weeks holiday and came home with a house.

But someone was looking out for us and the agent was truly one very honest and trustworthy man but if I ever had to do this again I now have a long list of questions that I will need answering before parting with my money.

We most probably would not have done it if we had been younger, and did not have our home and jobs back in England and also we had the cash sitting in the bank to do it. But the whole time I were doing this I had this over whelming feeling that I was doing the right thing and this was to be!

Now I know how stupid this was so I don't need you all to reply at once telling me this but if you do feel you have to say something then please be gentle with me.

crispy

Hi mitzipurr

Know what you mean about uncertain feelings and itchy feet, OH and I both love it here and would not want to go back to England, but we both feel that maybe, just maybe there is a place out there waiting for us, calling us saying we have your name on this house, so we have decided that 2007 will be the year to set forth on our travels on look round at other area's and get the feel of things.

Going to sound really crazy now and I expect I will get a few posts telling me I am round the bend and away with the fairy's but I believe very firmly that things, objects, houses, area's they have they ability to talk to people and we should just take time out of our lives to actually listen to what is being communicated to us and even act upon it. There I have said it now, not to sure if I should have shared that with ANDY PIPKEN but there you go.....

keithwalters

It´s a good post Crispy that redresses the balance a little bit. You would think from these forums that 100% of agents, etc are out to con you, but that simply isn´t always the case. There are some perfectly good, honest ones out there.

I hope you recommend your agent to people looking to buy around the Chiclana area. A good services deserves word of mouth recommendations.