All the latest news from Valencia Property

It was in the last century that I decided to set up as an agent for buying property in Valencia. The experience of buying my own property and using agents had been so teeth grindingly awful that just one thought was going through my head of course, I can do this so much better. So I did. Setting up as an estate agent in Valencia was easy, websites were few and far between, I had a good network of connections through my friends and colleagues in the international schools and most importantly of all I spoke Spanish and I spoke it well.

It's been a month almost since the last post because three days after it I went on holiday. Barcelona, Nimes, Avignon, Paris, Shrewsbury and Asturias were seen and pictured and now I am back and ... boy did I have to hit the ground running. Lots of clients heaps of enquiries, amazing social media connections, huge new business opportunities coming up and the dire need to get even more properties onto the books to satisfy demand.

Over the years we have had a load of excuses for not buying a Spanish Property. Some of them are fair enough, some of them are rather strange and some of them are on the cusp of a deranged mind working overtime. I really don't mind if somebody doesn't want to buy a property, as long as they are honest. After all I try to be honest in the descriptions, my opinions and the properties we offer. But please don't BS me. So here in no particular order are the top ten mad reasons for not going through with a purchase of a Spanish Property. Over the years we have heard all of them and no doubt we will hear more of them in time.

A friend of mine passed me on an advert sponsored and promoted by "A Place In The Sun" offering "Opportunities" in Murcia through Blue Med. The offer seems too good to refuse of course, properties from 61000 Euros in Murcia on the Condado de Alhama Golf Course with 110% mortgages and interest rates of 1.5% for the first two years. Hold on! 110% mortgages? I thought that these were one of the main causes of the negative equity problems of any number of hundreds of thousands of Spanish and foreign property buyers in Spain.

If you are from outside the EU you now have the possibility of getting residency in Spain at a cost of anything over 500,000 Euros, the minimum spend required, mortgage free, in order to apply for residency which will be granted automatically. Over on the Spanish Residency Site we have detailed the requirements for getting residency if you are not an EU citizen and you can see that post here.

It's a New Year and it's a new project. The Spanish Property Network is now up and running and building up to covering the whole of the country. As a result we have now made the Spanish Property Magazine free for this issue and maybe for the future too.

Today the #WABAS12 video project starts. This is a project undertaken by 12 people from my Facebook group of Writers and Bloggers About Spain (Thus the initials WABAS) where we are going to release 12 videos over 12 days from today at 12pm midday.

When you are looking for a Spanish Property and it is a house as opposed to an apartment (Although we do have an example of a potentially illegal apartment, see number 5), there are certain things you need to bear in mind. Obviously your lawyer will look to see whether the property is illegal but you can save yourself some money by not even suggesting an obviously illegal property to your lawyer to look at.

Today marks the 56th anniversary of the huge floods that changed the face of the city of Valencia forever. I have written here before about why Valencia has the biggest garden n Europe but today i have been outdone in research and even images by this fantastic post on Caroline Angus Baker's blog about the Gran Riada of 1957. Well worth a look by anyone interested in Valencia's history.

Each to their own and every person looking to buy property in Valencia has different criteria. Nevertheless I am often asked which property I would buy and why? The answer to that question is not an easy one as each and every person is different in their requirements, likes and whims. Therefore I have put a few examples of great value properties for different types of buyers in this post with links to the properties themselves.

My head is hurting today. It has been for two days to tell the truth. It's not hurting because I have a headache it's been hurting because I have spent the last two days banging my head against a brick wall not believing how stupid the Valencian government has been. (What? I hear you ask. A government being stupid!! Never)

Today I got three phone calls dropping the price on already well priced properties in Valencia and I took pictures of an absolutely lovely well positioned place in Olocau although it was a grey day so the pictures are less bright than they normally would be. I thought it was time therefore to let you know more about these great bargains so you can see the value for money now available on some property in Valencia.

If you live in certain areas of Glasgow and are a middle aged male I would get out quickly. The latest report about life expectancy in the World shows that men in certain areas of Glasgow have a life expectancy of around 55 years old. Spain meanwhile has the highest life expectancy in Europe and even more importantly the highest healthy life expectancy. As posted in the report and quoted in the Guardian "They may be out of work and struggling with financial disaster, but the Spanish have the highest healthy life expectancy in Europe – and beat Australia, Canada, Norway and the USA as well.

March has come around with grey skies for a whole day or two, until today when the weather is stunning, and Valenia looking good in the pre Fallas festivities. So just a couple of videos and some pictures to show you today. Firstly it was raining yesterday so we managed to get close to the first Mascleta of the Fallas fiestas (A Mascleta is a pile of firecrackers and fireworks going off for around 5 minutes sounding like a war zone.   There are 17 more of them to go before the fallas fiestas end every day in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento at 2pm.

It is time for you to see some of the properties placed onto Valencia Property recently. However bear in mind that many properties we have on the books are not yet on the site due to time demands. So take a look at some of the latest properties on the site and if you are interested in these are would like something else just send us a mail and tell me what you are looking for.

2013 in Spanish Property was an article originally featured in the Spanish Property Magazine for iPad, get your copy at the link. I thought it was relevant for here though. Here is what you should be looking out for, what you need to be aware of and how you should be thinking if you are thinking of moving to Spain in 2013. There are opportunities everywhere but there are also traps the unwary can fall into.

It took Apple a long time to approve this time, it seems that they don't rest on the eighth day though and finally Spanish Property Magazine issue 5 was approved and is now in the app store. This is the longest issue yet with an extra special on the Spanish Road Trip following on from this month's issue.