All the latest news from Valencia Property

With the move towards townhouses and towns and villages outside the city, whether caused by the pandemic or otherwise, we have been asked many times what is it like to live in a Valencian village or town. Today therefore we thought we would take a look at the aspects that make up a Valencian town. Civic pride is a big thing with Valencian towns and villages and any local council that doesn't work on the physical aspects of a town, and even more importantly the fiestas, will have little chance of being re-elected when the next turn at the urns comes. There are many common themes that we can see in what makes a town so let's look at them in turn.

Welcome to 2022 and Valencia Property. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible with long form blog posts and more but Spain remains on holiday at the moment and Epiphany arrives on the 6th and nothing gets back to normal this year until the 10th when the kids go back to school and the majority of people go back to work.

We have moved into the New Year in Valencia with speed. The first week back after the New Year is not really a work week, everything starts after Epiphany, the 6th of January, also known as Kings' Day in Spain. And in that week we have sold four properties, had two property completions signed, started the plans for two modernisations on apartments, made a whole new Podcast series, identified new opportunities for our clients, listed 15 new properties and made upgrades to the website that mean we can feature price drops and new information in a much better way. 2021 finished with a ridiculous number of enquiries and 2022 has started with even more. I think we are 5x up on last year's enquiries at the moment as I write this half way through the month which isn't a bad start by anyone's standards.

We are getting a lot of interest in townhouses at the moment as many of them offer that perfect blend of space, facilities, value for money and character. On Friday I went to show the townhouse featured in the main image here just to the South of Gandia and I've got to say it was rather stunning. Totally modernised in a stylish way retaining the original features such as the original floors and the arched doorways. However, I also went to see a similar property around the corner but this one required a modernisation. It had a nice facade requiring a bit of a paint but also a litany of issues inside. Read on about the difference because you get all or nothing.

We often write in these blog posts about how good Valencia is in terms of lifestyle. We show you images of properties and areas that show Valencia "in the whole" and give you a broad overview of what awaits you in the city and around. On our social media channels we show you impressive views, great properties, Valencia Blues, the stunning countryside and news about what is happening in and around the city. We even once posted an epic image based post about 112 Reasons for Moving to Valencia. However today we are going to focus on some of those little things that make Valencia a satisfying place to live. Things that we often overlook but increase the liveability of the city. Take a look at 20 great little (and not so little) things about Valencia.

If there's one thing we have always had clear at Valencia Property it's that we will not use photoshop to make photos look better. We will not show you a CGI render, we won't add in details that aren't there or put in an artist's impression and we will not put a plan of the property up which then turns out to be what it could look like once you do a modernisation costing fifty thousand Euros. And this is especially important when you are looking at property remotely.

The refrain we are constantly repeating on every call we receive asking us whether we have anything to rent is as follows: "I'm sorry, we haven't got anything" Every day we receive calls, Whatsapps and mail asking us whether there are any flats for rental and we haven't got anything. Now and again we get an apartment for rental and we are renting it out in days without a problem. As a potential Valencia Property buyer looking to acquire a property for rental this is good news of course as you have a large pool of potential tenants looking to move into your apartments.

For some of the people that get in touch with us via mail, our social media channels or even phone Valencia City living is the be-all and end-all of their property search here. If they cannot get what they want in the city itself then they don't want anything. That's totally legit as a mindset but might be a bit limiting. After all you don't know about something you don't know about, what's just around the corner may be as good or even better than what you are looking at and have set your heart on. Today therefore we are going to look at changing that mindset. What are the benefits of getting a place near to Valencia City as opposed to in the city itself, what are the downsides and where are the best places to look if you are interested in thinking outside the box. In order to do this we are going to take some examples and show what your money buys you in the city and look at comparable prices outside the city in what we can call the Valencia city suburbs.

Finally, we have arrived in Spring in Valencia and the sun is out and the temperatures have risen. It's unusually late this year but we are now looking forward to a long warm spring and summer. Here at Valencia Property we are really busy as always and we start the week tomorrow (Because today, Monday, is yet another holiday in the city) with a day at the notary and afternoon visits to properties.

Here at Valencia Property we generally sell properties that you can see, feel and touch, ones that already exist and we can photograph, measure, takes videos of and generally take the mickey out of in our descriptions. We choose to list only properties that we feel give good value for money even if they may need a little bit of tender loving care (Narrator's Voice: "He said charitably"). There are a multitude of reasons for this including the obvious one of the fact that the legality of the property is already established but there are many other reasons we tend to avoid listing off-plan properties unless we know the developer and the architect very, very well and know the plots where the property is due to be built. In today's article therefore we are going to expand on a theme in our latest podcast about why you should almost never buy an off plan Villa in Spain, or maybe just in Valencia. It may be different in other areas of Spain but if you are looking at the coastal strip it's almost never a good idea.

This isn't going to be an epic long post like some of our recent ones but it is quite important as it explains a concept that we have mentioned in passing before but as it is now becoming more the norm you should know more about it. We are talking here about the concept of the reserve payment to take something off the market while the owner considers an offer. Traditionally the process of buying a Spanish property, which you can read more about at the link, was simple, make an offer, wait until it is accepted or negotiated and then put a deposit down in the Arras contract. Things have changed because of the market which is blowing really hot.

We have been asked to provide more information about what utilities are common when you buy Valencia Property and what the costs are typically of those utilities. Typically you will buy a house or apartment in Valencia which is supplied with water, electricity and perhaps gas. You may also include in the list of utilities internet, telephone and even home security so in this post we are going to look at those costs too because even if they are not supplied you may want to know more about the costs involved in those. Equally we also look into the change of ownership and the council taxes. In other words, yes, this will be a boring but necessary post.

Summer has arrived in Valencia with the accompanying heat both of the weather and the property market. The hot weather, well, the truth is we expect it in Spain but maybe not when it's this hot. Equally, the market we often describe as hot in the summer but maybe not this hot. Even though banks are starting to raise interest rates bit by bit to try and make more money from the current situation in the market, they have just announced record quarterly profits too, buyers are still buying and many are still quite happy to apply for a mortgage even though interest rates are 1% higher than a month or so ago. So in this post we are going to look at the heat of the market and the weather and how to keep cool in both of them.

We consistently get asked questions by clients and many of those questions we get over and over again. So once more it's time to answer some of your questions and also some of the questions we see regularly on social media especially in Facebook groups where they get answered by "Experts*" and yes we have a footnote for that.

For any number of reasons you may have a Spanish property that you are currently not occupying and you may want to rent it out short, medium or long term. However many properties remain empty when not being used by the owner as it may be impossible to get a licence for short term rentals, there remains the sad fact that some owners fear tenants who overstay their contracted time period or fail to pay the rent, or sometimes the owner just can't be bothered with all of the potential problems and hassle that may come up with a rental when compared with leaving a house or apartment empty.

Sometimes we realise that there are certain things that people want to read or hear more about even though there may be other things which are actually more useful. For example it's always useful to know more in depth details about current mortgage rates and offers but those posts will never get as many views as those which recommend restaurants for example. Our blog is here to cover all of the angles in order to give the most comprehensive information about everything. Nevertheless, it's quite useful for us to know what is popular in order to keep people coming back to the site again and again.

We have been waiting all year for Spain's Digital Nomad visa to see the light of day and to look into the details as we have a list of potential clients looking to move from certain other countries which might be basket cases at the moment (Yes, once again the UK we are looking at you) and wanting to come to Spain on the new Spanish Digital Nomad Visa. Now the Digital Nomad Visa is part of a package of measures in Spain's new start up law and finally this week the government announced the details of that law and today we are looking into what it means for those of you looking to come to Spain on the new digital nomad visa. There are couple of details still to be ironed out (We will update this post as and when those details come out) but following is what we know up to now.

We have recently given you a full guide to some of our favourite places to eat in and around Valencia city. However many people have asked us about the best places to eat in some of the towns around Valencia so today we thought we would suggest some places where you can find great places to eat without being in the city of Valencia itself. As we have also written about inalnd towns where you can find a great lifestyle, you can see that post here, we thought it might be an idea to give at least one place in each of those towns as examples. So without further ado, let's go, where are the best places to eat outside Valencia.