We're just buying an apartment on the golf complex Condado de Alhama. 25 minutes to the coast at Mazarron and the same to the mountains of Sierra Espuña and also the new airport at Corvera.

I would take a look at Villamartin south west of Torrevieja and La Marina closer to Elche. Both are urbanisations with a lot of expats.

There are many urbanisations near Alicante and Murcia airports. Not sure if and when the new Murcia airport will open. You may want to investigate that?

The new Murcia (Corverá) Airport is up and flying for the past fortnight.

try La Marina, Gran Alicante, Ciudad Quesada

Entre Naranjos, between Los Montesinos and San Miguel suits all your needs

May I ask if you conducted the research, filtering and negotiation all by yourself or if you had help from any agency while you were shopping for the apartment? We're also interested in buying a house in Alicante like one of these instead of either renting a place each summer or browsing for a new hotel each year since we end up spending the holiday in different parts of Spain anyway. Thus, being complete foreigners to the procedure of buying a property abroad, we started looking into agencies and we really have no clue about who's trustworthy when it comes to Spain.

We bought through a local estate agent but we used our own solicitor, ordered and collected the nota simple ourselves and will be doing our own services contracts.

Some estate agents will arrange the whole package (for a fee obviously). Some are reputable, others I'm not so sure. Best to get local advice.