Lesley Carroll

Hi folks, my partner and I are taking a 'gap year' - very belatedly!! and we want to live in Malaga city.

Does anyone have any advise, tips or guidance which may help us please?

Our Spanish isn't the best and this is something we want to improve.

Cheers

jojojojojo

Do you want to know anything specific??? Its pretty much like most cosmopolitan cities, obviously with a Spanish flavour. The old town is lovely, the outskirts arent. You should get by without speaking spanish. Its not the dearest city in spain, but not the cheapest!

Jo xxx

steviedeluxe

Why Malaga? As one poster never tires of telling us, it tends to have the highest unemployment in Spain. You say you want to improve your Spanish. Again, not sure that Andalucia is the best place to do this - an inland Castillian city like Salamanca, Leon or Valladolid would be better in that respect. But, these are all guesses - can you specify what you intend to do in your "gap year"?

cricketman

I may be moving to Malaga City myself, I think its a great little city

You will struggle if you dont speak Spanish, Malaga doesnt have a British bit

The posh neighbourhood is called Malagueta, Limonar and Cerrado de Calderon which are the suburban houses and flats between the port and Pedregalejo running along the beach. The closer to the beach and the city, the more expensive.

If you want to be right in the middle then they have redone a lot of the flats in the old town which have high ceilings and lovely windows and it is also cheaper here. I saw a cool loft type apartment, 2 beds 80m2 for only 550 euros/month, this would be 750 a month in Malagueta. You may want to check for noise at night though in case there is a bar nearby.

Whatever you choose, Malaga is a much much cheaper city than Barcelona and Madrid, and though it isnt really lively it has a very cosy and liveable feel to it.

alig2010

Hi Lesley,

I think that it is quite difficult to give advice without knowing a bit more about what you really want to know. I don't know Malaga at all but there is lots of generic information on this forum about living in Spain which you can trawl at your leisure and find out lots of helpful and interesting things.

A couple of things that I would pass on.

Finding somewhere to live:
There are online ads (be wary of scams and only pay once you have seen somewhere and are sure it is genuine), rental agencies (you will generally pay a fee) and private ads for all types of properties that you might be looking for. If you arrive 'off season' then you can probably find a holiday rental for a couple of weeks or a month that will be relatively cheap and that you can use while you look for the area and price that you want to pay for the rest of the year. Generally the price for a month off season should be about 2 weeks times the quoted weekly rate if you pick a slow month like February but will go up to 3 weeks per month for busier times of the year and no discount at all for high season.

Walk the streets of the city and look at the buildings in any area that you like -there will be signs for 'alquilar' all over the place. Ring them up or speak to the door man 'razon portera' and arrange to see it. You will need a bit of Spanish for this obviously. You may be asked for a 'senal' (with the squiggle over the n) which is a holding deposit while you wait for the contract etc. to be finalised. Don't be drawn into giving them too much - it is a show of intent at this stage and is different from the 'aval' which is the deposit. Some ads that seem private will actually have been placed by agents and make sure whether they are going to charge you a fee or not. If it is ever more than one month's rent then WALK AWAY very quickly.

Check whether the rent includes the 'comunidad' which are the building's service charges. These can add up to an extra 100 E very easily and cheap rents might only be cheap because they don't include it.

There IS a recession here - make the most of it when looking for somewhere to stay.

Bank accounts:
If you are going to be here for a while then open a non-resident bank account. It can be tricky as some of the banks want various bits of proof that you aren't resident. I have found that an account at the smaller 'caja', which is like a building society, was much more straightforward to open. Yes, you can queue at the council office and get your non-resident cert etc. but why pay the money if you don't have to. You will probably need the account to pay the bills - unless you want to be crippled by transfer fees every time something gets transferred from your UK account. Do the maths about which way of paying bills etc. works out cheaper. Google is your friend here.

Carry your passport ALL the time when you are looking for somewhere to live - signing docs - getting services connected etc. because they all want your DNI. You might be asked for your NIE - but just tell them that you are visiting and not living here and they will accept your passport number.

If you really want to experience Spanish life then I wouldn't restrict myself to one city. The different areas are so diverse and interesting - get out and about. Look at the fiesta calendars and go where the action is. The scenery, food, ambience, culture, personality of each place is so different.

Holiday lets, camping, couch surfing, house swapping - go for it.

Spain is not as cheap as you hope it will be.

Tapas are not as tasty as they should be.

Spanish life is louder than you thought it ever could be.

Lesley Carroll

Goodness, how helpful you all are, thank you.

Why Malaga City? - it's easy for family and friends to get to from Edinburgh. There are good train links and it's warmer than Madrid.

I am hoping to get some work as a TEFL teacher having gained my certificate earlier this year further to being made redundant. My partner thinks he is going to play a lot of golf!! We both want to enrol on Spanish courses and are taking lessons here in Edinburgh at the moment.

I suppose the advice needed is about renting, references required, deposits, what to look for in the letting contract etc. some of which has already been covered by alig - thank you. Can we open a Banco Halifax account? Will this be good enough?

I have been looking for holiday lets for January and have seen some quite cheap ones.

Is there anyone out there who lives in Malaga city? Lx

Lesley Carroll

Hi, thanks for your advice. I didn't know about these flats so will definitely have a look.

Lx

Zaragozaram

Although we live 30mins away from Malaga, two of our friends have just moved to the centre to live and work (teach). If you PM me with an email, I can put you in touch with them so you can get their take on it.

poolboy

hi, sorry I can't help re Malaga but what a brilliant idea post redundancy to sit out the recession & pick up some new skills.

Surprised more people don't do it. My accountant once told me - if you are going to sit around doing v little try & do it in a warm country. 8 years later I still smile when I remember his pearls of wisdom.

Best of luck with the plans, I assume you are letting yr UK property too, if so, happy landlording too.

SaritaBarcelona

One great thing about Malaga city is being able to explore when you aren't working, there is so much to see and do in this part of Andalucia, and bus and train travel is cheap and easy if you don't have a car (which you probably won't, I guess?). I'd say go for it, and maybe sort yourself out an intercambio when you get there, you help someone with their English and they help you with Spanish, and you'll probably make some local friends too this way. Having lived in an inland Castillian city, I agree with StevieDeluxe that they are good places to learn Spanish, but Malaga has some excellent language schools and of course it has the amazing climate and it is so easy to get to for your visitors, unlike many parts of "inland Spain".

jonnyx

I agree to that Malaga is a good choice for anyone who like to live in a small big city. But you can also chose some of the smaller towns around Malaga. I live in Mijas Costa just outside Fuengirola and it takes me just 45 minutes to reach Malaga with the commuter train, and its cheap to.

cricketman

Not good a place to get an experience of living in Spain though. Mijas Costa is extremely British.

jonnyx

Mijas Costa is big, some part of it like for instance Calahonda or La Cala is extremely British, but other parts is not. I live close to a small village and here are no British people at all. Mostly Spanish people but also some Scandinavians and other nationalities. You can see were I live here.