As Valencia continues to grow in terms of its importance for foreign buyers looking to establish residency in Spain we often hear the mantra "We don't do it like this back home" or "Why is this happening? I've bought loads of places back home and it wasn't like this". Get used to it. This isn't back home. This is Spain and things are done differently in the process of buying property here and also of course in many aspects of daily life. When you are looking to purchase property in Valencia or anywhere else for that matter, the importance of understanding those cultural differences can be critical in getting your purchase over the line because "We don't do it like this back home!" carries no weight with a Spanish seller or indeed with the Spanish system of property purchase. Today therefore it's time to learn about navigating those differences without destroying your potential purchase, get to know the nuances to ensure a smooth process, or even better just rely on our 25 years plus of experience to guide you.

When you look online at the various Spanish property portals you will find a wide range of prices for what seem to be, at first sight, similar properties. You might come to the conclusion that someone has just picked a number out of the air and decided to list it at that price and at times, you'd be right. Many times the owner says "I want X" and the agent says OK. No pushback, no valuing, no advice on the market value, nothing. They list the property in the hope that someone comes along and buys it fresh off the banana boat and at times it works.

It's that time of year again, when Valencia's normally vibrant and loud streets become, well, more vibrant and louder. Firecrackers, bangers, bands and huge amounts of gunpowder mean it's Fallas. The biggest Fiesta in Spain, txhe bane of family pets, is back for better or worse and up to a million people extra will be in the city over the main five days of the event while many of us will be escaping off to other parts of the World for a bit of peace and quiet.

With the introduction of the new so called Spanish Digital Nomad Visa or Remote Worker visa as we prefer to call it we are getting lots of enquiries as to which visa option is best for people. Now obviously there is not a single "one size fits all" answer to this question. Everyone's circumstances are different and therefore the required visa may be different for each person. Therefore today we are going to look into the different visas for coming to Spain and who they may suit. Apart from that we have some news from Valencia Property about our opening hours for Fallas and we look at what's happening with prices and availability of properties and why 200k is the new 150k, ie the minimum required for buying in Valencia right now if you have standard criteria.

One of the things that we have clearly stated over the years is that Valencia offers great value for money when you are looking to buy a property. This has been true through all price points but we have never really concentrated on what that actually looks like at the higher price points. To be honest it has been a blind spot for our business as we concentrated on getting great deals for people at excellent prices in fantastic locations. 80% of our sales in the last few years have been in Valencia City itself but prices have been rising and the number of sales we have made outside of the city but within touching distance has been increasing slowly, from the obvious places such as top suburbs, L'Eliana, Ribarroja and Godella to more affordable places like La Pobla de Vallbona, Betera and Naquera.

You look online and you want to find your ideal place in Valencia (or even beyond) and you keep seeing the same thing in all the properties for sale; the Billy Bookcase, the Hemnes Bed, the Ektorp Sofa (Apparently now RIP but I'm sure I saw one there recently), the usual IKEA decoration touches and one of those obligatory tea candle holders. Yes we are all being Hygged, we are all being Abba'd we are all turning into Swedes while eating meatballs and pork knuckle. But it doesn't have to be this way.

Last week we had a sale in Valencia and we spent five hours sorting out the final signing in the notary because banks are useless. Or rather in this case one particular bank is useless and in this post we are going to tell you what happened and why it's important to choose the right bank and of course why that bank should never be ING Direct!

Two and a half years ago we wrote the most useful post ever on the blog (From our point of view definitely and from what our clients say quite often from theirs). It was a post about letting us know exactly what you are looking for when you are moving to Valencia, the first step to buying property in Valencia. It was the most useful because it got clients thinking about exactly what they wanted on buying here and it allowed us to have an excellent communication tool for our team actually written down. The majority of our sales come through this channel as the first point of communication with the second being the individual property enquiries from the main Valencia Property site and the third being the Valencia Property Podcast (more on that later)

Every property transaction in Spain is signed, sealed and delivered at the notary's office. It's where you buy your property and get the keys handed over (usually). It's the end of the process and for many the start of a new life. However, notaries in other countries are rare birds, only seen in specific areas of law and not really a part of the real estate process at all. Here in Spain they are essential so it's important to know what they do for you and also what they do not do because some people think they shouldn't be using a lawyer because the notary will sort it out. First though, let's look at what the notary does.

As we are now into February we thought it was time to give a little overview of the current market. This won't be a full investigation into everything that is happening but it is a quick look of what we are experiencing at the moment in the Valencia Property market and what we have learnt from other agents' experiences when talking to them.

If you have been looking for a medium term rental in Valencia then you will know the world of pain that can be involved. There is little available, the owners won't accept foreigners, prices are off the scale or you have to pay ridiculous fees to the platform (Looking at you Airbnb) Luckily a couple of years ago we solved the problem for many people through our sister company Stepping Stone Rentals. Today we are going to look at some of our available properties on the website as we move more deeply into 2025. First though let's go into the advantages of Stepping Stone Rentals for your Valencia medium term rental.

Sometimes we don’t know what we are missing until we are not living in a place and we get as the Spanish say “Nostalgia” otherwise known as "Homesickness". However, the reverse is also true, you can discover some new delights when you move to live in a place and Spain has plenty of delights for you of course. So for your delectation today I went back to a post I wrote back in the good old days of the early 2010s to let you know some of the things you can look forward to when you come to live in Spain or even when you buy a holiday home over here. Take a look and tell us some other things you would add.

Earlier this week the leader of the Spanish government Pedro Sanchez announced various measures to ease the problems of the Spanish Property Market. Most of them were well thought out and reasonable, whether they will work or even be put in place is another matter. However one of them sent shock waves through our commnity here, not to mention our company. In this post we will take you through what may have been proposed and what effect it will have on you as a potential buyer of Spanish property along with what you can do to avoid having to face the potential consequences.

In 2021 we wrote this exact article and looked at how much you would need to earn or have in passive income via pensions, investments etc to live a comfortable life in Valencia. Since then we have had a lot of inflation in the system the World over post-Covid and the supply chain shocks that came as a result. Therefore we have been asked to update the article for 2025 and today we will look at how the cost of living compares in Valencia compared with 2021 and also once again compare Valencia with other popular international destinations.

We have been working in so many ways with clients over the last few years and have written previously about all of the services that we offer but we think that a lot of things are getting lost as there is just so much information on our blog and main page that we thought it was time to bring it all together in one post. A quarter of a century of experience in the Valencia Property market is difficult to distil down into a single blog post and service offers but we have tried here to make the best use of our time and also to give the best service possible to our clients.

Welcome to 2025 everyone. As you probably know we regularly write stories about the Valencia Property market to keep you up to date with what is happening on the ground. We always mention the trends we have seen and also the official figures that are being produced and this article will be no different.

As we suggested last month when the law was finally taken to the Parliament for approval the withdrawal of the Spanish Golden Visa was definitely going to have an end point this month and now we know what it is. The 3rd of April 2025 will be the final date for the Golden Visa. Applications made up to and before this date with all of the correct paperwork will be accepted even if they are not resolved beforehand.

Living in Valencia I have never seen anyone walking about in a flamenco dress, I don't know any bullfighters, not everyone you see is a foreigner, the place doesn't close down in the winter and we don't only rely on tourists to have anything resembling an economy. Valencia is the third biggest city in Spain and it is a totally first world, modern, thriving city on the Mediterranean coast.