All the latest news from Valencia Property

Yes, we know it's Xmas time and many of you are looking forward to eating and drinking far too much over the festive period so today we thought that rather than giving you more to think about we'd look at our greatest hits from 2022 on a month by month basis. A post you can dip into and out of as you wish to read the most important or sometimes the most popular posts we have produced on the blog this year and also a look back to some images we have taken this year. Without further ado therefore, let's look at 2022 on Valencia Property month by month.

As it's getting towards the festive season we thought it was time to give a gift to those of you who enjoy the odd tipple. And, for the first time in over five years, we get to hear a different voice on the blog (Yes everything over the last five years has been written by Graham, yours truly, here). However if you follow me on social media you'll have seen I have a small problem with beer, wine, cider and others in that I'm ever so slightly allergic to certain elements contained within so drinking is a bit of a Russian Roulette for me, Will I enjoy it? Will I be able to breath in ten minutes? Where's the damn inhaler? Will the sweet release of death take me from you?

For those of you who listen to our podcast you got a preview of this post last week where we talked about what has been happening here in the last year and the perspectives for 2023. Give it a listen if you haven't, you might like it (And remember to subscribe to get future episodes) For those who prefer reading it's time to give a full review of the Valencia Property Market in 2022 and what it may look like next year. Within this post we will also be giving another shout out for our end of year competition, looking at some of the current properties for sale and asking if we go too far at times with our descriptions.

Despite the majority of our clients looking to live in Valencia City or in Inland Valencia towns where you can get a great lifestyle (Yes, we have a post about that which many people think is one of the best guides to the towns around Valencia city) we also get requests for properties with "sea views" or their location being right near the sea. In Valencia City that means you are limited to a few roads in the Cabanyal, Malvarrosa and the Patacona areas with a shout out to El Saler to the South of the city on the Albufera lake. In El Saler, if you are lucky, you'll get sea views to one side and lake views to the other, but apart from that there's not much availability of close up sea views. Valencia is flat after all so you may be just a few streets away from the sea but if the building behind you is just as high as yours then your sea view is blocked.

Last week we talked about the places we thought that were worth looking at (And also Oropesa) to the North of Valencia. Today we go down the coast from Valencia towards and into Alicante to show you places you should be investigating if you are interested in living near the best beaches in Valencia. As we mentioned last week the majority of our clients want to live in or around Valencia but that doesn't mean if you want to live elsewhere we cannot give you the best service possible. Our tentacles reach out both up and down the coast despite our focus being the city of Valencia itself and the areas around it.

We have talked in these pages before about what people are looking for when buying their Valencia Property and we have also talked about what to do as an owner to make your property look as attractive as possible to a buyer. What we haven't done however is to tell you how to add value to your Valencia Property, whether that be a perceived or real value. There are many ways to do this and today we will be looking at some of the best, what these steps are likely to cost you and when and where they are possible.

We are getting lots of requests from people at the moment asking us similar questions but one of the most repeated is "What's happening in the market?" We talked about this in our latest podcast, which you can listen to here, but today we thought it would be an idea to give you even more information about what is happening in the market, what's happening about the offers, the mortgages, the way we are working and getting everything ready for your Valencia Property purchase. 

About a year and a half ago we put up a post called the First Step to Buying Valencia Property. In it we included a form (You should fill it in by the way, I've included it below) where we asked for your must haves, would likes and definitely must not haves. I think it has been our most useful post ever on the site as it gets people thinking about what they really want when they are looking to buy property in Valencia and we get more of an idea of what people really want before they come over. Since we published it, hundreds of people have filled in the form and therefore we have a lot of data regarding people's requirements and we are able to present today an overview of what people are looking for when they look to buy a Valencia Property.

When you go to another country to live obviously you need to learn the lingo sooner or later, it's better sooner so get onto it straight away. Having lived here in Valencia for years all of us here at Valencia Property speak Spanish fluently, some with more of an accent than others of course, and one of the things we understand more than anything is the lingo of the Valencia Property purchase. Today, therefore we are going to help you to navigate your way around the language that you may hear when visiting Valencia Property. Owners and agents can be a bit mad and they will say all sorts of rubbish just to avoid an awkward silence or pause in the conversation. Suffice to say that you can basically prepare a bingo card to play along with as you visit properties with these sayings from owners and agents that you get to hear very often.

As you may have noticed there has been no movement on the blog in the last month. That's because just like everyone else in Spain we essentially stopped for the summer. Our colleague Paul was around as his significant other likes working in August so he goes away at other times and he gave a great service to the few clients around while also listing some properties on our main site, you can see them on the Valencia Property homepage. Over the next few weeks we will be updating the blog every week and bringing out a new podcast episode which is already partially written and we may be updating the main site in a big way but one that you may not notice for a time.

Last year we wrote that the Valencia Property market had gone mad, you can read it here. (We got a content warning from Facebook that the post was discriminatory, go figure) Now we need to write that it has gone ever more mad, madder perhaps or "completamente loco"? The first two months of the year were the busiest we have ever experienced (In 22 years of doing this) and things are continuing that way so far in March 2022 despite...(Looks around and waves an arm in the air)... the World... so we are going to let you into a few secrets about the Valencia Property market as it stands so you can get ready for what is happening when you visit.

One of the strange things that always seems to confuse people is that at Valencia Property we work for the buyer. Our role of the buyer's agent isn't understood completely by everyone outside of the United States but we have built a business based on that model over the last twenty years and it is starting to be understood here too. However, that doesn't mean our advice is limited to what we explain to our clients, the buyers, at times we have to advise the sellers on what they need to do, get prepared for and finally pay when they sell. So just in case you are a seller, in this article we are going to look at your responsibilities, what you need to provide and what you need to pay when selling your house in Valencia or Spain.

Many years ago, back in the dim and distant past of 2017, in the before days, I wrote an article on this blog about the fact that we are not "lucky" to be living in Valencia or Spain but we have planned it and it's all part of Lifestyle Design, you can read it here. Today I want to expand a little on that blog post and emphasise what a good decision coming to Valencia was and still coming to Valencia can be for you. Let's call today the year 2AC (After Covid) And yes I know Covid is still around and causing major misery to people all around the World so maybe better to call it 2SC (Since Covid) In 2SC the consequences of the Pandemic and mad decisions made in 2016 are coming home to roost around the World but today we are going to compare Valencia with two places that made especially mad decisions in 2016, the UK and the USA.

This week there wasn't supposed to be a blog post. The writer of these posts, that'll be me, Graham, was supposed to be away lapping up the cool, cloudy weather of Asturias in Northern Spain, eating too much, pouring cider from a great height and generally swithching off. However, despite what many people think Covid is still around and it's back big time in Spain this week. It probably got brought back to my house last week from my wife's school and Covid in its infinite wisdom decided to hit the whole family at once, meaning that we didn't have to self isolate in a room at home at least.

I got riled by Facebook this week. I know, I know, I should just avoid it like an increasing number of people are doing but I couldn't let it lie this time. Apparently, according to people in Facebook groups at least, you cannot go to see properties in Valencia at the weekend because, and I quote, "all agents are a bunch of workshy cowboys who don't do anything to justify the commission payments they receive on making sales". And as you know people in Facebook groups are reasonable people with considered opinions who are not know-alls at all and know everything about everything despite never having worked in any of the industries they opine on so it must be true right?