How many properties

[GTWD]

did you look at and regions before you bought in Spain

[MrsP]

Not enough of either first time.
Look at as much as you can of both.

[spanish hopes]

Not many but that was almost 25 years ago and we are still happy with our choice.
The village we bought into is now a town and we have grown with it.
Moving over permanently this year and look forward to a happy retirement.

[BENIDORM]

I believe that nowadays most people considering buying in Spain,spend many months, sometimes years, studying properties listed on the many internet agents lists...However I would suggest that they really are only to be used as a guide, you cannot beat viewing the property personally....
It's difficult to say how many properties you should view before 'taking the plunge', best advice that I would suggest is to view 4 or 5 properties with each agent and try 4 or 5 agents....This way you should get a good cross section of what is on offer and also find the 'best' agent, also a good idea is to ask each agent what they will do to help you, and get it in writing !..So many agents will promise you the 'earth', to secure a sale, but once the sale is completed they will not be so helpful....
Do try and get back to the properties that you are interested in, without the agent and have a good walk around the area and visit as many shops and bars etc, just to get the 'feel' of the place...
Do as many trips as you feel are required , until you find what you are looking for, but be careful that you don't turn into a 'serial property viewer', this 'breed' of househunter rarely actually buy a house....
Again....Homework and Research are still the best methods of securing a good house, in a good area.....

I offer the above advice based on my own personal experiences, and other people may have differing views, but at the end of the day it is your decision.......

[jennyshaw]

I nearly became a serial viewer too, I must have looked at properties with 6 Estate Agents and could not make up my mind, I looked on the Internet and made my choices then e-mailed the agents with them and told them the dates I wanted to look at the properties, I met them in all sorts of locations even at Restaurants in or near the locations I had chosen, but when they took me to the properties they was'nt the one I had requested to view, when I asked why all they could say that they were no longer available, but when I looked at their websites later they were still there.
One tip I would give is that when they ask you how much work you want to do on the properties tell them honestly because when I said we were okay with doing some work all the properties were nearly total renovations, I thought because we said we were prepared to do some work we would get the property cheap, so in the end I told them no work and ready to live in and the price I was prepared to pay, it took some getting there but we did get a property with not much work to do at a good price.

[Bandy]

Looked at areas first from Spanish Islands to the mainland . Then narrowed it to Costa de la Luz and CDS.
Wanted inland and away fro it all but not too isolated. The net is great to look and use Spanish magazines for info........I found the very best was Spanish Homes Magazine which is stuffed full of helpful info on house purchasing particularly in the Andalucia area and the rest os Spain as well.
Good luck and take your time and do your research

[pete_l]

I believe that nowadays most people considering buying in Spain,spend many months, sometimes years, studying properties listed on the many internet agents lists

Yes, that was my strategy. Once I have got a list of "possibles" from the
agency websites, I emailed for details. It turned out that a lot of the
places I wanted more info about were not available (I did wonder if they
ever were available, or were just advertised to draw people in). Some
agencies just never responded at all, some sent me details of other
houses that were similar to the ones I had asked about and some agencies
just gave me a dump of everything.

Needless to say, when I went to spain, the agencies I dealt with were the
ones who had listened and responded with the sort of place I wanted. I
came over for a week and spent every day 10:00 - 20:00 out looking. I
lost count after I had seen the first 50 houses, very few of which had been
advertised on the various company's websites. A classic case of bait and
switch.

Of all the houses I saw, maybe 20 were close enough to what I had told
the agents I was looking for, to be interesting. In the end I got this list of
possibles (a very different list to the one I had compiled from web
searches in england) down to 3 or 4 "probables" any of which I would
have been happy with - so I wasn't emotionally sold on any one particular
house.

Epilog. One year later, and the happy owner of a cave-house, I revisited
the websites of the agencies I had looked at earlier. Since I still had all
the details of the properties I had asked about, I did a check. Surprise,
surprise: most of the properties were still listed. Now I don't know if that
tells you anything about the state of the property market in rural spain, or
if it tells you more about the administration of estate agents' websites......

[sick and tired]

i went to one town on my first visit looked at a piece of dirt and handed over 3000 deposit whole process from landing to handing over deposit 4 hours,luckily for me do not regret a minute of it!!

[masterob]

GTWD asked

did you look at and regions before you bought in Spain

Ask yourself would you buy in a region of the UK that you were unfamiliar with before going and taking a long hard look at both the area and properties? Answer-no. Spain is significantly larger than the UK and much more diverse, so, a long hard look with many visits beforehand has to be the answer?

[Alan-LaCala]

We were lucky.

We came over to La Cala to stay for a week and use it as a base for looking along the coast. This was in January 2005, and we had absolutely no intention of even looking at specific properties as I was not planning to take early retirement until the September.

Top cut a long story short, we saw this property, viewed it, put down a deposit with a contract to complete by the September, and here we are.

That is not what I expected to happen at all. I expected us to move over in the September and rent while we looked at lots of properties.

As for area, we had stayed with friends in Torreblanca previously, who drove us around from Nerja to Estepona while we decided where we liked.

I think that the important thing at the moment is that it is very much a buyers market. There are plenty of properties around and a lot of owners who are very keen to sell.

Alan

[GTWD]

i agree with all comments it took us around 18 months and many trips to areas and towns from huescar to malaga finally found aplace near baza time and effort pays off

[GRANVILLE]

I have had my house for a year and it is still for sale on some web sites.
I think i own it

[GTWD]

well if tha doesent all give thee a quid or rehgt

[Geoff D]

As an ex Yorkie, I fully understand what you are saying GTWD. However I'm not sure about Granville and the others.And dont be too hasty. As the old Yorkshire saying goes "Never do owt for nowt, and if tha does, allus do it for thesen"

[annie_d]

I didn't look at any regions...or houses!
We are moving to be close to my husband's family and he chose the house...............it is nice though! (Well, it will be when it's done)

[ValL]

I did not look either ... I moved into to partners house. He had been living in rented flat in sevilla and when his contract kept being extended he wanted some room and peace from the traffic. We may look at moving with retirement in mind.

[Cassandra]

We had looked at 8 very different houses and apartments, none were quite right and some so far from what we asked to see it was obvious the agent was not quite right.

We were ready to give up and book a second viewing trip (independently of course) when we saw the house we now live in.

It seemed perfect at the time but although we still like the location we are finding little ways to change it to make it better. Like moving the kitchen from one end of the house to the other

[GTWD]

we are planning to knock a bedroom down for a very large lounge but in the me en time still looking you never know what may come on the market

[winkie]

I have had my house for a year and it is still for sale on some web sites.
I think i own it

Sounds about right.

[Miro]

75 in either Fuengirola or Torremolinos - would have been considerably less if we had managed to find just one estate agent who actually listened to us first!