All the latest news from Valencia Property

This time last year we were well into the first week of our severe lockdown. The Fallas fiestas had been cancelled on the 10th of March after quite a few Mascletas had already happened, Levante had played their last home game on the 8th of March with 3000 fewer fans than normal, many choosing to avoid the match due to fears about the new virus and on the 14th of March the Spanish government ordered lockdown... and it started to rain in Valencia...

We have been asked to explain a bit more about the "Community". The majority of people in Spain live in apartments and if you want to join them then you need to get used to the idea of "The Community" (Homeowners' Association in the States). Today we look at what the community is, what it does and what issues you may have with the people you live with. This is not just for people buying apartments though, oftentimes you will find that there are community costs with houses which we shall also look at.

Described by many as Valencia's bohemian heart, by others as Valencia's Soho and by East Coast Americans as Valencia's Greenwich village, Ruzafa has long been on our radar as a great place to live due to its proximity to the centre of Valencia, the vibe of the area and the classical facades amongst other reasons. However there are others who describe it as overhyped, too noisy and a bit grotty. Of course the truth lies somewhere in between but on a scale you would get closer to the former descriptions rather than the latter. Today we are going to explore some of those reasons.

After receiving a few enquiries about whether it's better to rent or buy a property in Valencia I thought it time to put together a post comparing the two options in terms of costs and what your "get out position" is at the end. Obviously there are other considerations apart from monetary costs but we will focus here on the costs and then look at those other considerations at the end. We are going to go with a similar property in both cases and look at five, ten and twenty year horizons. For the numbers we are going to use an example from last week where the client took on a mortgage at a fixed rate over 20 years.

Not the usual type of post today but just to let everyone know that a new activity starts up in Valencia today. After a few weeks of evening practice under the Alameda bridge in Valencia, cricket comes to Valencia at the baseball pitch in the riverbed from around 2.30pm onwards. A touring team comprised mostly of Aussies and New Zealanders but based in London is in Valencia for a game of cricket against the Levante Select XI. Our first game. We may have to ask them to go easy on us.

The Spanish Golden Visa for non EU citizens has brought many people into Spain from all parts of the World to enjoy free movement around the Schengen area, security for their families and an excellent quality of life in a safe and accommodating country. All around Spain people have been buying up places to live so they can enjoy the rights that a Golden Visa gives them. We have sold many properties to clients as part of a portfolio so they can get the Golden Visa but it is much more common for clients to buy a single property over the threshold of 500k and use that as their base for exploring the rest of Europe

One question we get asked often is do I have to be in Valencia (Or Spain) to buy a property? Many people, especially investors, want to buy their property now but for various reasons (travel restrictions, Covid, timing, work) they cannot get here right away. This week we even had a client who asked if the owner could wait until September to start the process to purchase a property they wanted to buy because that will likely be the first time they are able to visit. Of course the answer was "No!"

The answer to the question "Why are you always droning on about Valencia?" is self evident. There's a lot to write about, it's a great place to write about and we actually enjoy it. Whether the droning on is on our instagram page with great images of houses and places in Valencia, making videos for our Youtube page, updating our Facebook page without fomenting a potential revolution and storming of the Capitol building, making walkthrough and flyaround videos of properties for our potential clients like the one below or just writing stuff like this post on the blog.

After writing a few days ago about lockdown properties in Valencia for all price ranges and starting with the 50-300k brackets, today we are looking at your options for lockdown properties at higher price ranges. We are going to start just under the 300k threshold as an owner has just sent us some lovely new photos of his place in Serra and then we will move onto higher price ranges and show you what your money can buy for you both inside and outside the city.

Covid19 is a pain in the butt. There I've said it. There are more restrictions in place in Valencia right now but as far as we understand it we can still show properties at least as I write this. We are being ultra careful with the way we show properties: Social Distancing, hand sanitizer, multiple cars, windows open etc... where possible but the process of buying continues to work.

Valencia gets great publicity without really trying. That's because it's a great place to live (Have we mentioned this before? Maybe once or twice right?) The last few weeks have seen even more great publicity for Valencia but remember "shhhh! we are trying to keep it quiet." Anyway, let's look at some of that excellent recent Valencia publicity.

We completed our first sale of the year today at the notary and also took a client to a second visit of a property they are very interested in up in Naquera. This week has also included the acceptance of an offer for a place in Valencia City for our highest ever sale price in the city. We currently have three sets of clients here looking for the Spanish Golden Visa and their ticket into the Schengen area through purchase of property in Spain, one American couple, one Australian and our first British clients taking this route to maintain their freedom of movement (They didn't previously need it of course)

For what is maybe our final post of the year we thought it was time to look back at what was learnt in 2020, a different year of course, the year of Covid and Brexit, what many people have called the worst year ever. However, in terms of Valencia and its property market the year wasn't too bad. In short the market continued, it adapted and working methods changed.

It has been a slow start to 2021 in Valencia. This always happens due to Kings Day on the 6th January (Epiphany) but this year it has seemed slower. We were due to have a signing today, 8th January, but it has been put off until next week as the bank sent the papers for the mortgage to the wrong notary (Spain happens) and then the regional government put in place new restrictions on movement including some towns completely shut down, see below, and then the weather decided to go really bad and maybe we will get some snow, Requena already has some!