wasss

Anyone read this?

Resort of Torrevieja once again named Spain’s poorest town | In English | EL PAÍS

I've never been so can't comment but I'm surprised this is the case if it's so popular with expats, opinions?

missile

Torrevieja is clearly not an affluent town, but I find it hard to believe that average annual household income is lower than in many other towns e.g. Almeria, La Linea or Rhonda.
Many ex pats live on very modest incomes, but again I find it hard to believe 13,997€ is an accurate estimation of their average household income.

cricketman

Yes absolutely. This is well known in Spain

Kind of bizzarre that expats want to retire there. A bit like as if a Spaniard would choose to retire in Middlesbrough

I guess Torrevieja allows expats to live in the sun at a bargain price, but there must be downsides of living in the poorest city in Spain - and therefore one of the poorest places in Western Europe

jimenato

Why not retire there?

If good places for retirement were where the money was then everyone would want to retire to Madrid or Barcelona.

Consider a retiree with a modest income. Would they want to retire to somewhere were they could barely afford a house and all the restaurants were out of their price range and everyone else was much richer than them?

Or maybe they would prefer somewhere they could afford to live much more comfortably - the weather's the same, the people there aren't bad because they are poor - poor areas aren't unpleasant places.

A far better comparison would be retiring to Cornwall than Middlesbrough.

wilsman77

CB/OC like retiring to The Boro! ha ha that's brilliant.

Dick Dasterdly

It's the most desperate tourist town I ever saw on the coast and I swore never to return, however that's quite a while ago so I'm surprised if it hasn't improved since then.
I don't know the area well, but I thought most of the tourist developments were outside of the town ?

I would only add that I have seen a few equally desperate towns well inland.

Dick Dasterdly

Even Redcar, Saltburn and Seaton Carew, Boro seaside towns were a sight better than what I last saw in Torrevieja.

jimenato

I can understand that Torrevieja might be a thoroughly nasty place to retire to but not why it is dependent upon the average income there.

Incidentally Marbella is also very low on that list - lower than Algeciras. I wouldn't want to retire to either of those either.

wilsman77

jimenato, but would you retire to The Boro? ha ha, I think that Dick is on a massive wind up respect......

Fredbargate

I'm surprised La Linea isn't bottom but I suppose the influx of money from Gibraltar helps.

I still wouldn't want to live there though

Dondurma

I don't get it

I don't think €14k is that bad an income

scrubbedexpat095

Its not bad if you own your own place and have no debts but otherwise, well take away 500 Euros for rent and it will leave you with a bare bones existence IMO

jimenato

DD's always on a wind up - can't take anything he says seriously. Have you been following the EU thread?

iano

Absolute nonsense !

iano

More than half the inhabitants of the town are foreign; would hazard a big percentage of the retired folk in Torrevieja will have bought their property outright and be living off their state pension only.

Like others, surprised to see Torrevieja the poorest of 8,000 municipalities though.