All the latest news from Valencia Property

Here at Valencia Property we are proud to produce all of our own content, no guest blogs that have nothing to do with the subject of these pages, no sponsored posts, lots of information in long form blog posts to keep you up to date with all of the market moves and a little bit of humour thrown in for good measure. Today we are changing the format a bit though because I got lazy... Well, when I say I got lazy, for four years now I have been promising myself I'd write the Ultimate Guide to buying property and living in Valencia. And I have been putting it off because it was a big project and every week we put out a long form blog post and also for the last four years we have been a tad busy. Even during lockdown I managed to find excuses not to do it.

Last week we had our first session of Frequently Asked Questions about Valencia Property and today it's time for a second helping. We also look at our latest podcast about what it's like to be an estate agent or realtor in Valencia and bring you our properties of the week and some news from Valencia along with our tip for this week.

We have mentioned our modernisation service before on this blog about how we help our clients to get a property with the "right bones" and then get them a renovation at a good price meaning they get exactly what they want.Some people though have been asking us for before and after shots of what we have been doing. We have never really taken many before shots and the afters are difficult because as soon as we finish the furniture gets moved in and our clients start living there. However after a lot of insisting on my behalf to our renovation team about getting some photos from before, after and even during renovations it's time to show you what we do. However, firstly, a little bit of information... Price. Renovations differ in price according to what you want to do of course. If we have to demolish walls, move bathrooms, install new bathrooms and kitchens, change the plumbing and electrics, changing all of the windows or even more expensive restoring current windows due to building regulations, then it's a little different from just retiling some walls or laying a new floor.

Honestly, we cannot believe the lack of knowledge of people contacting us from the UK expecting to be able to move to Spain to live and sometimes work in 2021 just as they have previously done. Well, Spanish Residency Post Brexit is not quite as simple as that unfortunately. The Uk will be a third country in the eyes of Spain and the rest of the UK and UK citizens will therefore have to satisfy the same requirements to come and live in Spain as other nationalities. In this post we are going to help you negotiate the morass of new regulations for Brits.

Every now and again we see an online listing that is so outrageously fake that we have to take a step back and admire the audacity of it and also wonder how anyone might actually fall for it. We wrote an article last year about one of these scams and today we are going to arm you against all of the scams we have knowledge of so you don't become a victim. Just a little warning first though. Not all listings that seem fake or iffy are. Sometimes there are reasons for the too good to be true listing. One of our jobs here at Valencia Property is to find those pearls in the shell while not tripping up against the more obvious scams. So let's get down into the jungle and find out what scams are out there waiting for the unsuspecting Spanish property buyer.

The truth is we are so busy we don't really get the chance to ask this question to those of you who aren't here already or in our pipeline of clients for the next few months but it's really time to ask the question. In a world of YOLO (You only live once) and INNTW (If not now then when?) what are you waiting for? And yes, this is yet another post aimed at Americans and Brits but it applies to other nationalities to a lesser extent. We have told you about the various Visas you can get for living here, we have told you about the cost of living comparisons and more. We need to ask again though, when are you coming to join us? Why do we say this though? Let's take a quick look at the various things that are happening Stateside and the UK in their two horse race to be the country that can really totally ruin themselves first, and then ask "What is it that is holding you back?"

More or less every quarter we put together our report on the goings on in the Valencia Property market. It's time to do it again even if it is a little late as we are almost up to the end of the first third rather than the first quarter. However as an excuse we have been particularly busy. This week therefore we will talk about who is buying Valencia property through us at the moment, what type of properties they are buying, where they are buying and how they are financing it. We also take a look at the perspectives for the Valencia Property market in the next few months and the rest of the year.

Over the last few years the numbers of Americans deciding to leave the USA and move to a different country has grown massively. The Great Escape was stimulated by the Orange Sh*tgibbon but has shown no signs of letting up. We thought it was time to let you know why Americans choose to move to Valencia, specifically Valencia as opposed to Spain in general. We had our own ideas of course after chatting with so many USA based clients over the last few years but also we sent out the Batsignal to our clients and asked them what it was specifically that made them choose Valencia and we have looked in a few online forums about what others were saying. What are the reasons that made Valencia the choice for them?

I was encouraged to write this article as a result of a few interactions recently by our agents. In the body of the article I will detail what happened and how this makes it more difficult for us, and indeed you, to find your ideal Valencia Property. Firstly though let's lay out the ground rules for this post. The vast majority of people looking to buy Valencia Property work hand in hand with us, sharing interesting properties, their thoughts on each property they see and they give us their wishlist, allowing us to trim down potential properties that will suit their needs so they only see the best.

One of the questions that gets asked always is "How long has this property been on sale? I blame TV property shows because one person once asked the question and everyone else decided that they too had to ask this question (They also need to say "That's a good space", "This has got lots of potential" and in Spain at least "Can we knock that wall down?".) The answer is, "It doesn't matter!" Much more relevant is whether you like it not whether others have liked it or not before. Some properties sell within a day, or even an hour of being put on sale and others take longer to sell. Equally, as we will find later on in this article, some properties will never sell and there is a reason for that, yes, you guessed it, the owner is a... (Click through to read more)

It has been an interesting week here in Valencia. We have never before had so many initial client meetings both in person and via Skype, Zoom and Whatsapp video calls. Monday was mad with just too many coffees in the five client meetings that we had for onboarding people into our service. We also finished the week with four sales agreed (from other clients onboarded some time ago) and a couple of signings completed in notary. Now on these pages before many years ago we called last chance saloon for pensioners before Brexit and got a flood of clients. I wonder if calling the last chance saloon for Golden Visa applications might lead to the same response from people planning to take advantage of the Spanish Golden Visa. And why do we say this? Well, simply put, that's the way things are heading and the general direction of travel.

Here at Valencia Property we like to feel that we help to make the buying process as painless as possible for our clients looking to purchase property here. We prepare things, talk with our clients before their visit and answer as many questions as they may come up with in order to get them prepared then work hand in hand with them to a successful conclusion. We generally avoid the major problems that can come up when buying a Spanish property but now and again we are faced with situations that require experience and advice and this week we had one of those situations. Let's take a look at that one and then tell you about the others that you should keep an eye out for when buying in Valencia or even when buying Spanish Property in general.

As you are probably by now aware, Valencia has been named as the best place in the World to live by Internations... again... Anyway, there are a multitude of reasons for this and this increased visibility internationally along with the development of the city, increasing work opportunities such as Ford's Factory in Almussafes being named as Ford's European HQ for their development of electric cars and Volkswagen planning their Southern Euope Gigafactory just outside Sagunto the laid back and affordable lifestyle of the city and the exceptional climate along with cultural and sporting offerings make the whole package of Valencia really attractive.

A Power of Attorney is something that we have been recommending at Valencia Property for a long time. And not just any type of Power of Attorney, no señor, a full, all singing, all dancing General Power of Attorney allowing the lawyer to do anything for you... absolutely anything, essentially allowing them to be you in Spain. We get a lot of clients who are reticent to do this of course as it's not normal in other countries. Powers of attorney tend to be for specific things rather than for general matters. And people don't trust lawyers... I wonder why. So when we recommend a full General Power of Attorney we are often confronted with reticence. Therefore, today we are looking at why you may want a Power of Attorney, how it may save your purchase and what else it can be useful for.

Or ten ways for getting the best value possible when buying Spanish Property. When you are going to be buying Spanish property you obviously want to get the best value for money. However that does not only mean finding a property and negotiating a price that suits you and then sitting back and congratulating yourself on a job well done. There are so many other ways to save money on your purchase that if you do not do them then your costs for the purchase could be thousands of Euros higher than they otherwise would be. Take a look at ten of the ways in which you can save money when buying your Spanish property.