Madrid.
Valencia.
Sevilla.
Marbella.

Which has the highest cost of living? highest rental prices?

Can I use my "phone a friend?"



or 50/50.

I was looking for cost of living comparisons and found this. Now I dont live in spain - Have no idea how accurate this is, others on here who do live in spain will be able to tell you how accurate it is. It allows you to compare places. However I also dont know how the recent economic situation effects it. But might be worth a look at.
http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/

Marbella is probably the most expensive because it's not really a city, more of a high class holiday resort (though I expect someone will shoot me down for saying that). The rest are big cities and rental prices will depend on how expensive and exclusive the neighbourhood is, but they will all have cheaper districts too. Because public transport is very good in Spanish cities, you can easily live in a cheaper district and not miss out.

I think you may be right. We have been for odd weekends to Madrid and found it cheaper than Marbella.

Do you live or even know Marbella? It is a tourist town like many in Spain but has the heart and soul of any other town. Maybe it beats a little faster than most people can cope with.

I wasn't implying there was anything wrong with it, but it has a completely different economy than the other three cities, which is mainly based on tourism. In 1950 it had less than a thousand inhabitants. Are you saying it isn't more expensive than the other three cities?

Actually in my experience Marbella isnt so expensive, it used to be a few years ago. I would say..

Madrid
Valencia
Sevilla
Marbella

In that order. Of course it will depend on exactly where you want to live. In the nice parts of Madrid you are talking 2000 euros a month for a 2/3 bed flat. In the bad parts, maybe 800 euros

If it is any help El Mundo has a map on which you can compare house prices in the various regions. I imagine rents would be correlated with prices to some extent.

http://www.elmundo.es/suvivienda/sv/tasaciones/

I would say this would be the right order:

Madrid
Valencia
Sevilla
Marbella

my apologies to the OP but there is a city missing from that list - Barcelona !

I am sure those who live there or even have visited will say it should be at the top or vying for the top of the list.

very interesting site. And if true does show the arguers here that Spain is cheaper than Britain. And, as I suspected Japan is twice as expensive! It depends what kind of life you want to live which is going to be most expensive of the big cities though. The tourist areas of all will be expensive if you live in bars. But as far as a rental goes I would imagine Seville would actually be cheaper than the others for similar flats near to the centre of the city. But, as I say, this is just a guess.

It is a good site. Not definitive though. eg. someone moving to the UK from Spain could be a few thousand better off with paying less tax. We have had houses in the UK. Florida and UK and Florida is definitely the cheapest to live.