All the latest news from Valencia Property

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!

Today we are starting a new weekly series in the blog featuring Golden Visa Properties, both houses and apartments. Every week we will feature a new property that you can get for over 500k to get your Golden Visa for Spain. Some weeks we will put together a portfolio instead for those who want to live in one place and have income from other properties in and around Valencia as you can buy various properties to satisfy the Golden Visa criteria.

Bare brick walls, open plan spaces, glass floored walkways to enter the property, Palace conversions and that perfect terrace with endless views over the city. It's everyone's dream Valencia bolthole. However, properties like this don't come cheap and more importantly are like the proverbial hens' teeth, difficult to find.

Valencia is a great city with so much to offer that many people decide it has to be Valencia and nothing outside will work for them. Some of those people drill down to a certain area of Valencia and we have even got a client at the moment who wants a particular street. Of course we say that Valencia is great all the time in this blog, you can check back if you want, but we also appreciate areas outside Valencia.

One of the questions we are asked most regularly is, "How long does it take to buy a property in Spain? The answer is always, "Well, it depends!" If you are ready to purchase then the process can be done in a week or less, at least in the city of Valencia itself where the conveyancing process for the lawyer is quicker. However the answer could even be 3 months or longer depending on the circumstances of the seller and of course your circumstances as a buyer!

We always bang on about how great Valencia is to live, we know we do. We do it because it is. We say Valencia has a great mix of everything you want in a place to live and it's true. You don't have to believe us of course. But if you aren't going to believe us who should you believe? How about the people who live and work here?

In general, people in Spain don't tend to present a property for sale. if you do then you already have an advantage as the initial impression is "cool" rather than "omfg". As agents, we go round to take a look at a property, give suggestions for easy changes to make, value the property and start marketing it once everything is agreed. Once we get the first visits we go back and generally find out that nothing has changed

Last week we published our post about how to add value to a property in the city, usually an apartment. You can see that post here. We said we would return to this subject and look at houses and villas so today it's time to do that. And remember as a buyer this is what you can do in many cases after purchase to increase the value of your property immediately without any building costs, projects or licences. However, bear in mind that everything we said in that post needs to be done in a house too. The below are the extra things that need to be done in order to maximise value in a house. And some of them cost considerably more than the basics in the last post.

At Valencia Property we appreciate all areas of our city. We have written before about the different districts in Valencia so you get an idea about what is available in each location (See the four guides to Valencia here) and we point out advantages and disadvantages of each area. One thing we notice though is that lots of people insist "It has to be Ruzafa for me".

It has been a busy weekend in Spain as the government announced that it will be seeking support in Parliament to implement a State of Alarm throughout the country until May 9th 2021 in order to give regional governments the possibility of controlling the Covid-19 Pandemic. Obviously this will have repercussions in the Valencia region and on people visiting in order to buy property in Valencia.

We are living in strange times as you know. Covid19 continues to dominate everyone's waking thoughts and many places are being placed into further restrictions and local lockdowns. Valencia currently has very low transmission rates of Covid and there are no restrictions in place at the moment. There are hyper local breakouts of the infection which are generally tracked and traced quickly. Because of this life goes on pretty much normally here except that everybody, and I mean everybody, wears a mask and when you walk into a shop or public enclosed space there is hand sanitiser available.

Everyone is different and everyone has their own story. We get some amazing stories from our clients and potential clients about why they chose to come to Valencia and we thought we would share some of the more typical, and maybe a little untypical, ones in this post. Take a look.

People keep asking us what is going on in the Valencia Property Market so I thought it was time to make a video to answer some of the questions we get asked. It's a ten minute video so grab yourself a cup of coffee and take a look