Rosemary

Missile and I had a brief conversation in another thread about what makes us choose where we settle and I thought that it would be a good thing to discuss.

So why did you pick your corner of Spain? What was it that appealed to you? What pushed your buttons?

Rosemary

amideislas

Having previously lived in Germany, and having been exposed to Mallorca as one of "the" holiday destinations, ended up spending a lot of time here, and discovering a completely different side of it than what most people know of.

That, combined with the obvious weather benefits, but also the fact that it offers virtually everything from cosmopolitan cityscapes, to mountains, to beaches, to country life, from party resorts to charming old villages and everything in-between, and the added benefit (nowadays) of good infrastructure, within about 50Km in any direction, relatively low cost of living (when compared to northern Europe), with cheap and easy access to most of Europe by plane, when it came time to retire, the choice was obvious.

missile

Hi Rosemary,

Vive La Différence!

Our requirements were a nice location with a view, modern well insulated house with a pool and a garden, close but not too close to amenities like:

Airport
Rail station
Bus station
School
Doctor
Hospital
Shopping
Beach
Mountains

For us Ciudad Quesada ticked all our boxes

pwwm

gosh, I did a blog elsewhere about this, basically we ddnt want costa del brit, we did a few trips to view áreas etc, as you do, we needed somewhere with rocky coast for scuba, slowly worked our awy around the área we thought we would like, first thoughts was a house in the mifddle of nowhere, we soon decided how wrong that could be, Anyway we eventually ended up around Costa Tropical, we didnt want a mortgage, had more than enough from UK to live on until pensioners ( came 10 years before). but wanted a house with enough land to put a pool in, near a town etc.

We found this house in 2002, paid Spanish Price, so not a lot built a garaje put in a pool etc, local pólice in the early days used to come by and ask if e had permiso, always did, now they dont ask, just chat about day to day things lol

It is an older property, an hour to one airport and with and when it is finished will be 90 mins to Málaga. Locals refuse now to accept I am a guiri lol keep telling me I am now a local (nice that) great view, lovely people, free tapas,totally private garden, love it

stuboy

Perhaps you can tell us what did it for you and Graham?

In our case 'it' chose us. We were visiting friends on CB and didn't wish to stay with them as they quite remote so we just plonked ourselves down in the nearest village and hey presto

bxpuser24710519

Tall dark handsome man asked me to come live with him, no brainer so there I was, on the outskirts of the beautiful Sevilla. I miss it. When he died I choose to move to Ayamonte simply because we had sailed round here and met some lovely people. I came twice and had a scout around and decided to rent here for the time being.

Moses2013

If you're a pensioner it's a different story. Would people still go to these locations for work?

cliff b

I consider myself to not know a lot about a move to Spain yet. I did a bit of homework, asked on here, bit of googleing and come up with our first inkling of somewhere we like the look of. Costa Tropical, that is about a specific as we have got so far. Weather is a good start with the sea and the mountains nearby, not to far from airport.
We will know a bit more after October

Rosemary

Graham narrowed it down to somewhere between Alicante and Valencia for the airports, less intense heat than some other areas and I narrowed that down to not too far from the sea, not up a mountain track, not too far from amenities and must have greenery.

Searched on the internet and discounted loads of places and ended up with a short list of three houses and a flat to look at on our first viewing trip. The estate agent advised us not to bother to even look at one of the houses as it was not in a good area so we only viewed three places. The flat was too far inland, the first house was too dark inside so they were ruled out.

The area is green due to the orange groves and the shrubs on the mountains so that was one of my stipulations covered and only about 8 kms from the sea. As soon as we drove into our town I felt at home and could not explain it and still cannot. The house was bigger than we needed even for family visits but we both felt drawn to it and could see how we could make it right for us and we did. What we agreed was that when we eventually could live here full time we would give ourselves a year to settle in and then review the situation because it was Graham´s dream not mine.

What we did not expect was for me to feel so comfortable living here, the people in our town are so friendly, welcoming, warm and caring so I made a lot of friends and their support was very important during Graham´s long illness and after he died.

So in a way although logic was used initially it was a "feeling" that cemented it and luckily that feeling was not wrong.

Wow! What a ramble.

Rosemary

Rosemary

This was a very general question so peoples answers may end up being something along the lines of "I did not have any choice of area because I had to go where there was work" or "My company sent me to that area" etc.

I was interested to hear the reasons for peoples choices because we are all different and have different needs so should make an interesting thread.

Rosemary

marcbernard

Back in 1985 we decided that mainland Spain was calling us. We had previously been to Menorca, which was beautiful, but we wanted to be able to drive from UK to the villa without ferry to an island.
Having flavoured the Balearics, the Costa Blanca seemed a reasonable choice, especially as in those day (?changed yet?) CDS was reputedly full of criminals!!
So we started on a detailed investigation all the way from Denia down to the Mar Menor. As golf was not involved (we used to live on the (West Lancs) Merseyside coast amongst loads of courses but never bothered to learn) we ruled out a huge number of places, and settled for a nice piece of woodland overlooking the sea in Javea. After a decade there we decided to remove our ageing bodies to somewhere more convenient to shops and facilities so came to Benitachell and bought a wreck of a 100year+ village house and rebuilt it. Perfection, until my wife's Parkinsons took her off me last year.
Nothing but nothing will get me back in the UK.

scrubbedexpat095

LOL That is the case with me, I never ever thought about Spain as an expat

I came because the company I worked for as a freelancer in Paris started a joint venture with a Spanish Government company and asked me if I would come here to organise their IT setup, after six months the joint venture then made me an offer I really couldn't refuse so I ended up working here for 20 years and am now retired in Madrid and thinking about moving back to France as I'm much more a Francophile than a Hispanophile

vicske

I didn't choose the place, the place choose me. We wanted to go a bit more toward Valencia, but here a very good housing opportunity appeared here. So we came, saw, fell in love, and loving it ever since.

entrepinos

After enjoying many Spanish holidays, mostly on either Formentera or Fuerteventura, we decided to buy on the mainland but wanted something traditionally Spanish. We did some research and looked at the Costa de la Luz. We used an agent in Ayamonte because his website had some nice properties - which when we arrived to view found either did not exist or required some major work. On our last day of viewing he took us to a property on the outskirts of Hinojos which had cracks so large the sun lit up the room!
As we were leaving we noticed a finca for sale nearby which had potential. Phone calls were made and the rest is history. We had no plan regarding final location, flights, shops etc - just a gut feeling which thankfully seven years on turned out not to be trapped wind!
We now have working holidays there 4/5 times a year. Yes, there is always the house to maintain plus 38 olive trees to prune but when the sun is on your back it somehow doesn't feel like 'real' work.
I can empathize with the Capitans Wench when she refers to the beauty of Sevilla as we have recently started exploring the city and soaking up the atmosphere. Just living the dream!

NickH01

We have just had our offer accepted on a house. Our friends live in the house and we have visited many times and love it. They rent but the owner needs to sell and they don't want to buy in Spain. So more by default really we have ended up with our dream home. Just need all the legal checks to come back ok.