All the latest news from Valencia Property

I decided to make a video today based on the fact that I had some downtime while clients did some measuring of a place. Simply put one of the decisions to be made when coming to Spain is the "Do I want peace and tranquility or am I coming to Spain to actually do more?"

When it is cheap but would cost more to make it habitable than you are paying for it of course. How can you decide this though? Well you could come over to Spain and buy a sprawling ruin in the countryside with its standard 10,000m2 of land and then start doing it up.

I had a very interesting conversation with a friend yesterday. We were talking about banks and Spanish mortgages, yes I know but I am that type of person, and they remarked that they were going to pay what they wanted to pay not want the bank wanted to pay. Sounds risky? Let's give you a bit of background.

Just to say since this flaming volcano went off last month I have had between 10 and 12 cancellations of visits and things have rather ground to a halt on the foreign buyer front. Back to normal from Monday as long as the volcano starts spraying it's ash another way and Michael O Leary and Stelios start flying their planes every now and again, I won't even go into the will they won't they saga of British Airways strikes and reaction to volcanoes.

I have previously recommended various services to find out more about Spain, what is happening in Spain and living and working in Spain. Now I want to quickly look at how you can get more from Facebook so that you are never short of information.

I thought I would give you a feeling of a quiet Sunday morning here in Valencia. I have come along to the Urbe exhibition in the Feria to see what offers are on this morning. The facts are rather shocking. Urbe Desarrollo is the big real estate fair for the Mediterranean and it happens in November. I have blogged from there for the last three years about how it is going to the dogs.

Thought I would film a gritty realistic video about working class life in Spain. OK no I didn’t, what I did was to film a video in low light and put it in black and white showing cafe society in Spain.

Sometimes I don't understand Spain. Don't get me wrong, I have been here for over half of my life now, in certain ways I am more Spanish then anything else. However I will never ever be Spanish because I just don't know how to organise myself as badly as Telefonica do.

For a few years now I have held the domain www.valencia-property.tv. I thought it was about time to do something with it. Therefore I have placed many of our You Tube videos on there so that you can browse through some of the videos we have on offer. The site can be searched by category and includes videos on Culture in Spain, Attics for sale in Spain, Spanish Villas, Lifestyle in Spain, the all important working in Spain and much more.

I have just given up €5000 more or less. How? Well I advised someone not only against buying a property I have on my books but against moving to this area to live. Can I look myself in the eye in the mirror tomorrow and possibly more importantly can I look at my bank account tomorrow without blanching?

Currently bank lending is difficult. This was driven home to me this week on taking some Spanish clients to see a house in Cheste, you can see the house at the link video included. They love it. There are many reasons. It is cheap, it is well positioned, it has everything they want yet isn't too big, and it is within their price range… in theory. However bank lending may preclude them from being able to buy it currently.

This is a Guest Blog from Kate Turner. Kate is based in Madrid and started up the Facebook group ‘You know you’ve lived in Spain when...’ The group now has 73,000 members and is still growing. After reading this go there and have a look at what people really think about living in Spain.

I made a post recently about the excellent book Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools by Victoria Twead. Victoria has a newsletter to keep you up to date with the goings on in their lives and also those of the chickens (and feral cats etc...).

There was a caller on Radio Five Live today talking about the mess that is Spain. The complaint, as it was a removals company, was that they were losing money because people aren't coming to Spain at the moment. The litany of complaints about Spain suggested one simple thing to me, go back to the UK and start moaning there like everybody else.

As a follow up to my story on here a few days ago about why I sometimes despair of sellers of Spanish property I thought today it was time to tell the story of the Spanish banks too.. Now Spanish banks had a very easy time in the decade leading up to the property crash and because of this they maybe got a bit too confident in their own power.

We have a great property on the Valencia Property site which is getting lots of attention and has a list of potential buyers coming over to see it. However now they probably will not be able to go and see it because of the avarice of the owners. Have a look at the video below to see it.

I found myself down by the beach in Valencia at 8am on Saturday morning, no don't ask why. Anyway, as it was an absolutely beautiful day and the beach looked like something close to perfection not to mention empty, I thought I would make a video as an introduction to the Cabañal an beach area so you can see what your lifestyle in Spain would be like if you were to choose to buy a property in Valencia near the beach.