We’re thinking about buying a Winter holiday home, in southern Spain. We’re trying to evaluate the best location for our Own Place in the Sun. At present the search area stretches from Valencia to just east of Gibraltar. We’ve excluded the Costa de la Luz, (around Cadiz and Jerez de la Frontera) as it faces the Atlantic and could be rather exposed in Winter.
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There are several factors to consider.

1 Weather – I’ve looked at the average temperatures along our search area and although it’s a couple of degrees celsius warmer in Malaga than say Valencia, it’s also wetter in Malaga. As I’ve said before we’re not looking for sunbathing weather just a more pleasant temperature than what’s on offer in the north of the UK during Winter. It’s around ten degrees celsius warmer in southern Spain over Winter than in Edinburgh.

We’d prefer to be close to the coast as I think it’ll be colder if you head into the mountains.

2 Accessibility – We need to be able to reach the property fairly easily and cheaply from an airport, as we don’t want to always have to hire a car when we visit. This will also be important for holiday rentals. It would be good if the property was close to a railway station or a regular bus route.

3 Cost – I’m sure some types of property and areas are more expensive than others but then perhaps if you buy a property in more expensive area it could command a higher rental price.

The continuing fall of the UK pound against the euro will make property more expensive for us to buy. Evidently property prices are falling on the Spanish Costas. The question is how much further will Spanish property prices and the pound fall?

We have to bear in mind that it may be cheaper and simpler for us to just rent a property whenever we want to stay in southern Spain, rather than the commitment of purchasing our own property and then trying to let it out as a holiday home when we’re not using it to cover our expenses.

4 Location – Of course this is related to accessibility. I’ve already mentioned that we’d like to be near the sea for higher temperatures but I also think this location would be more appealing to potential holiday renters. We’d rather be near some amenities such as supermarkets, restaurants but a lot will depend on the individual property.

5 Minimum Requirements – We want a 2 bedroom property with either a sunny balcony/terrace or garden, preferably with 2 bathrooms.

Valencia, Museo della Scienza

At present I think that the best way forward is to visit southern Spain during Winter on a reccy to get a feel for the various possible locations and the going purchase and rental prices for different types of property.

Do you have any recommendations for the best location for Our Own Place in the Sun?

The Our own Place in the Sun story

(1)The idea

(2)Where in southern Spain?

(3)Planning the reccy to southern Spain

(4) Why we won’t be buying a property in Spain