jc_bromley

Hi, I'm at the stage in life where I need to think about retirement. I'm 53 & single. I have a flat in London that I own outright. Work wise I'm currently contracting doing IT support.
I can't draw my first pension until I'm 60 so here's my plan...

Move to Spain, somewhere with a large English speaking Expat community.(I can't at this stage speak any Spanish) Somewhere would really good internet speeds would be necessary as well.

Initially rent an apartment/villa/? and run a one man band IT support "business" from there. My target audience would be Expat home users/ very small business's.

I'd very probably give it a 6 month run first before I made any serious financial commitments, as such I probably wouldn't want to be registering
anything for the trial period.


I'm thinking about the Malaga - Marbella area, with a preference towards Marbella.

So that's my plan, questions wise I have too many...some probably not relevant and there's probably lots of things I haven't thought off...


So I'd like to ask you for your opinion/advice as to whether this is a good idea or not....


Many thanks for taking the time to read,


John

Rosemary

Hi and a warm welcome to the Spanish forum on BE. Myself and Fred James are the moderators for the Spanish forums whilst BEVS moderates Europe. Moderators are there to ensure that the site runs smoothly within the rules of BE. This is so that members gain the information that they are looking for and find their experiences on the forums to be friendly and worthwhile.

Problems and complaints should always be addressed to a moderator who will look into the matter and deal with it efficiently and fairly. Our members who post in the Spain Forums are usually friendly and helpful with a wealth of knowledge about the issues of living in Spain. I hope that you enjoy your time participating in the forums.

Please let me know if you need any further help.

Rosemary

cricketman

I think your best bet is simply to rent out your flat in London and live off the proceeds

jc_bromley

Perhaps I should have been clearer...London Borough of Bromley!!

I perhaps could live of the rental but it would be a frugal existence....

mikelincs

Internet speeds is your major problem, outside the major cities like Madrid and Granada and Barcelona much of Spain gets by on speeds of 5mbps or less, forget the speeds you get in the UK, there are still many areas of Spain, and not out in the boondocks, that are getting less than 3mbps, and others that can't stream TV due to the slow speeds.

Moses2013

Why Marbella? You could consider moving closer to Barcelona, as that's where you'd find work. If you have enough money saved and a secure job with decent income, certainly an option. On the other hand, you have a flat in London and no additional costs, so why not stay where you are until you actually retire. That way you could save more money and maybe retire a few years earlier, or just use the money for a few holidays in Spain without the hassle.

Horlics

Hi Jc,

If you ask for "really good" Internet speeds people are going to tell you that's not possible. They'll be comparing Spain's speeds with the UK and it's certainly true that the UK has much faster Internet, so they're right to say most of Spain's Internet is slow.

That said, how much do you really need? Most IT jobs require stability more than speed, and a connection quick enough for streaming TV is probably more than twice as fast as most IT guys need.

I regularly use my 6 ish mb ADSL connection to take remote control of systems in the UK and other places and the screen update speed is more than acceptable. I can map drives across a VPN and shift files as quickly as I need to because they're not very big. I use a VPS in a data centre in Amsterdam to stage any big files I need to shift around, and the screen update on the VPS is great.

In the UK I have a 50 meg connection with Virgin. They could drop it to 10 tomorrow and I would probably not notice. Unless you have a house with a wife streaming BBC in one room, a couple of kids on Youtube, and some music coming in from Spotify or the like, you'll find the average connection in Spain to be fine (unless you need to shift huge files around).

cricketman

[QUOTE=Horlics;11581650]Hi Jc,

If you ask for "really good" Internet speeds people are going to tell you that's not possible. They'll be comparing Spain's speeds with the UK and it's certainly true that the UK has much faster Internet, so they're right to say most of Spain's Internet is slow.

QUOTE]

Well, that isnt really true. I used to live in Benalmadena Pueblo. Even 5 years ago we had a 10MB line in from Movistar. I worked for 3 years from home and it never failed once

Now in Oviedo I have a 50MB fibre optic line

People who complain about poor internet usually live outside of the urban areas. Internet in Spain in the cities and towns is actually very good. In the countryside and new urbanisations, it is terrible

cricketman

He is an IT support person, not an IT developer.

An IT support person will need to speak Spanish and Catalan anywhere near Barcelona. A coder/developer may be able to work in English, but a support person has to communicate with his customers

Moses2013

You don't have to speak Spanish or Catalan and many companies offer you free language courses. Just because a company is in Spain, doesn't mean that you're dealing with Spanish customers. It also depends what kind of IT support we're talking about.

cricketman

Well good luck with that one!

Moses2013

Well, it just depends on your skills so no luck required. You have plenty of Spanish people working in Germany and they don't speak a word of German. I work in Ireland and usually only speak German. Of course a 2nd language is an advantage, but again depends on your skills and what kind of job we're talking about. My company also has offices in Barcelona and plenty have moved over without a word of Spanish (Inside Sales for UK).

chrisjolly

Hi John..Do some market research first because I know of a lot of guys and companies already offering the sort of service you are writing about in the Marbella and Malaga area with offices, shops and repair workshops so you will be up against it. There is one guy I know in Fuengirola who has been repairing computers and such like for years but it has taken him a long time to build a client base. If you could live off the rent it would be better. All the best and good luck.

cricketman

Again this really isnt true, at all

There will be a tiny number of companies where the Spanish people could work in English in Germany. The rest will either be working in the fields or as waiters/cooks etc for minimum wage with their broken German

Most simply stay for 6 months, don't find a job and come back to Spain

I had a very good job in Barcelona where I only had to speak English, but there must be 20 jobs in the whole of Barcelona like this, maybe 50 in the whole of Spain. The rest (in my field) need Spanish, English, Catalan plus one other language

amideislas

Funny, around here, the latest thing is German classes. It seems learning German (and English) has become a local obsession as of late. Surely it's not just for fun.