Beaches...mountains...fabulous cities...exciting festivals. And, of course, sunshine. It’s not surprising that southern Spain is the most popular area for Europeans seeking a second home.
How much for a house in Spain? Well, there’s a huge price variation across the 17 regions...and also from town to town within the regions. But while property prices have gone up in the past few years, it’s still possible to unearth village houses and small coastal apartments for less than $100,000...if you know where to look.
Spain Articles
If a small Italian farmhouse with a vineyard sounds sweet, then look to the Abruzzo (pictured), a region of southern central Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea.
Tucked between the southern regions of Andalucia and Valencia, Murcia delivers the best of Spanish essentials: mild winters, wine villages, tapas bars, fantastic beaches and (for Europe) relatively low living costs. You may ask “why Murcia”—a region that’s almost unknown to North Americans. Especially when Spanish property values have slumped.
I never imagined breakfasting outdoors in December. Not in Europe. Then again, I’ve never visited the Murcia region before.
Even travel writers need escapes. One of my favorite getaways is Alicante, a city on Spain’s Costa Blanca. Yes, I know I’ve disparaged “the Costas” in the past. Spain-without-the-Spanish…paunchy northern Europeans overdosing on sun, sex, and cheap booze…hideous plastic donkeys…concrete jungles…acres of lookalike vacation homes. So why Alicante? Well, there’s a big difference between seaside cities and purpose-built resorts. Alicante is lively, sunny, and inexpensive, for sure. But it’s also charming, fairly sophisticated, and its ambiance is as Spanish as that of Madrid.
The economies of the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain) are in disarray. Europe is in the throws of a banking crisis brought on by (among other things) exposure to Greek sovereign debt. Many of you have been asking if now is the time to jump in.
I’m in Cuenca, Spain, a provincial capital less than an hour by train from Madrid. For budding expats who dream of living in Spain, provincial cities like Cuenca are a great option.
Europe has so much to offer a potential expat…great food, a diverse choice of cultures, stunning countryside where life is quiet and relaxed and the buzz of everyday life seems a million miles away, awe-inspiring mountains for skiing and soft, sandy beaches for wiling away summer days…
But isn’t Europe expensive? That’s the observation we hear most about Europe and the answer is that Europe can be expensive…unless you know the right places to look!
In this report we’ll tell you about our favorite places in “Romantic Europe” and hope to make you dream of new places in the “Old World.”
My friend and contact just caught wind of an amazing firesale deal in Spain (as you may have gathered, he is in this business). A 144-bedroom, five-star hotel (Lady Diana and the Rolling Stones have stayed there) overlooking Mijas golf course (actually on the fairway), 20 minutes from Marbella airport will be sold off over the coming weeks.
I am gazing at the Bay of Rosas, in the northern Spanish region of Catalunya, watching its sandy coastline trace a smooth, lazy curve for 12 miles northward, ending at Cap de Creus.
We ask five of our roving reporters where they’re hot on right now…simply pick the town that matches your plans.
After a decade of runaway demand and floods of cheap money in Spain, the Spanish real estate developers took their eye off the ball. They took on more debt and risk than they should have. They overpaid for land. They over built.
Crisis investing means buying when everyone else wants or needs out. At an aggregate level, markets overreact and overshoot both on the up and downside. Assets become mispriced—and that means profit opportunity for you.
For a lifestyle change, sun-blessed Barcelona is thrillingly enticing. Few other major European cities can deliver on beauty, style, history, beaches, good weather, and arty bohemianism—and also be within a couple hours of ski slopes.
Beachfront property not only makes sense as a pure investment—after all, they’re not making any more of it—but it can also make an ideal second home.
A spacious 800-square-foot apartment in one of Andalusia’s most elegant cities could be yours for $112,000. Feverish ramblings? Not if you’re looking in Jerez de la Frontera’s San Telmo neighborhood.
I walked into a well-known tapas bar in Madrid, Spain, and the first thing I saw was a dead guy. Actually, it was a series of pictures, not only of a dead guy, but also of a number of soon-to-be-dead guys in the process of being gored, trampled, or flattened by finely conditioned bulls in excess of 1,000 pounds. Of course, the bullfighters who won are here too, in a huge photographic display that covers some of bullfighting’s most exciting moments. This particular bar is one that pays proper tribute to the bulls that won their match.
A spacious 800-square-foot apartment in one of Andalusia’s most elegant cities could be yours for $112,000. Feverish ramblings? Not if you’re looking in Jerez de la Frontera’s San Telmo neighborhood.
Breakfast for $2.65. A tapas supper–battered hake and potato salad–for $5. Glasses of straw-colored fino sherry for less than $2.
Following my last rubbishing of Spain’s most famous stretch of concrete coastline, some readers accused me of being unfair. So I returned to the Costa del Sol to see if I was being unreasonably harsh…
