Borrowing cash for an overseas property - Spain

Have you thought about equity release if you are in a position to do so?

I'll give you a good tip about buying a place in Spain, do a very thorough search on your potential neighbours on those who have dogs and how many. It is not uncommon for Spanish families to have at least one dog and invariably they are left out all the time whilst the owners are at work or the beach and they bark incessantly through complete boredom morning, noon and night. One family that I know bought a villa and the vendor got his next door neighbour to take his 5 (yes 5) dogs for long walks when he had a viewing. They bought his place and the dogs caused the Mother of the British family to have a nervous breakdown. The Guardia Civil were just not interested even though he had been denounced several times over the barking. Be warned!

I will give you a better tip.The property you buy can not be willed.

And I will give you the best advice of the lot-don't buy it. Uncertainty after Brexit, Spanish economy, problems with Catalonia, Spanish banks in potential trouble. Think of all the luxurious Spanish holidays you could have for the money you are prepared to spend without a worrying about what's going on while you are not there, and you won't feel duty bound to go to Spain.

Rent.

Wife just came back from visiting an Aunt
They bought a place the Polaris ones fronted by
Jack Nicklaus for around the £180,000 mark think this
was late eighties early nineties.
  They cant sell them now for £45,000 golf course in ruins
etc no facilities and they have to drive to get and food/supplies
or just go for a drink.
  Yes the price is tempting if all you do is sit in the sun
but i think that would just be the start of your troubles

Spain is a busted flush

You are getting some good advice on here.  BUT, step back and ask yourself...Am I doing the right thing if, I need to come on to a gambling/horse-racing forum to seek financial/property investment advice. 

I was a property advisor in Spain and did property exhibitions all over the U.K. as well for 15 years. I'll give gresty my full opinion of what life is like living in Spain now (I have got a place on the South East coast) and owning a property and the pitfalls to look out for tomorrow as I'm off to take Muttley out and go for a couple of pints right now.

SlippyBlue - Not doubting your obvious expertise, but do you think this place/thread is a good source of reliable information for someone seeking the information they obviously need.  Just wondering!

Before i go contacting banks/mortgage advisors who'll probably end up giving me information which suits them best i thought i'd try chit chat financial.

Pretty well sums up the object of the exercise.

We see plenty of people on television programmes who dropped themselves in it buying in Spain.
No doubt they were advised by professionals who had their own irons in the fire.

Don't have to take ANY advice from here. Just use your eyes and ears. I predicted the crash of 2008 by watching traffic flow over motorways and major arterial roads in vital parts of London. I used my eyes. It was obvious there was going to be a problem. If you want to buy, take a holiday in Spain. Sit in town centres, look at how businesses are doing. By the way, I think we may be getting the very early indications of a crash in the UK. I am reliably informed about a major auction house. Very interesting. Can't elaborate or I would have to kill you all! Good luck if you go ahead!

Definitely rent. If it all goes pear shaped you can walk away only a few quid out of pocket.

"I think we may be getting the very early indications of a crash in the UK. I am reliably informed about a major auction house."

about 40% unsold at a UK house auction last week, many 'run of the mill' flats in London zones 3-6 failed to reach reserves of £200-300k

I've been monitoring auctions for a bit, this is the biggest undersell so far this year.... something definitely appearing on the horizon

Thanks for your 2nd opinion suggesting I may be correct, Mr Escapee. I can tell you that houses in the area where I have my London house (a reasonably affluent area) are sticking on the market and several are unsold after a year! Certain Buy to let Landlords are trying everything to get rid!

So much to be said but do pay attention to SlippyBlue re dogs, especially if you're looking at rural properties. Farmers are known to leave dogs chained up outside all night, result is near insanity for close neighbours. You can denounce all you want, but bugger all is likely to happen.

I bought my place 15 years ago off plan for €150K, at the peak of the market I could have got about €450K now I would be lucky to get my money back at a push but it's ideal for friends and family to use and pays for itself pretty much.I'm not up to speed on where is best to get a mortgage as I'm long since out of that industry and moved back to London when the bubble burst and untold amounts of investors done their money but I can give you a rough idea of running costs. A nice 2 bed, 2 bathroom apartment close to the sea could cost as little as €85K plus the i.v.a. which is around 11% on top. Typically your bills for electric, water, building and contents insurance, non residence tax, community charge (maintenance of pool, street lights, waste collection etc) would be around €4K -€5K per annum depending on the local town hall.

I'd say it's still a decent thing to do as you are literally buying at rock bottom of the market and if you use it as a holiday home, let it out for a few months of the year obviously June, July and August are peak rentals but quite honestly being in 38C - 42C every day is not much fun so no great loss there. I spent late September there and it was a pleasant 26C-28C every day. The cost of living is still relatively cheap compared to London anyway. €2 euros a pint and a reasonable 3 course meal around the €20 mark.

blackbarn
SlippyBlue - Not doubting your obvious expertise, but do you think this place/thread is a good source of reliable information for someone seeking the information they obviously need.  Just wondering!

You're missing the point BB. This and any other forum for that matter is a great starting point.
Loads of reasons with 2 being you get nitty-gritty stuff like the dogs and possibly some professional info as well, cue Slippy.
When I was doing some work on my house I sought info on the cost of rewiring and got a ball park figure to work with.

Same here Slicer but my way was the amount of season refunds coming
back to the railway station through 2007/2008 went from 3 to 4 a month to 14/15
a month or along those lines we did have a small increase again in refunds
around 2 years ago but the brexit vote actually increased new seasons.
  But this way of doing things is changing as more and more people buy online
so go back online for refunds.
  The general foot flow through the station is pretty stable but not increasing.

Very interesting Mr Wit-Ham.Interestingly on the radio news today, house prices are rising fast. Really??? Not that I can see. Very little movement in my London area. For sale signs that have been in place for over 6 months and asking prices dropping. "Believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you  see!"

Whereabouts in London do you reside Slicer if you don't mind me asking? In my neck of the woods I have seen 3 'for sale' signs in the last week within a mile or so of my house and they never stay on the market for very long.

My London house is in N London. I know there is variation according to location. It could be that the houses in my area are vastly over valued by the vendors.

Same around here you can see where i am from my name
45-50 mins to Liverpool str 40 to Stratford

Around here apart from the odd one or two(the ones in bad positions)
and those with 4/5 bedrooms(only small families on the whole these days)
houses sell quickly aswell,and massive new developments have been going up
over last 7/8 years.The new city of Chelmsford only 10 mins away.

no point in going to deby to buy abroad ,, rent ans move around is the way yo go

LBC News today reports house prices falling. So what does one believe? Obviously location variation. Massive building going on in areas of N & NW London, mainly flats. Tranches being sold to Chinese. There is one road where every time a 3 bed semi goes on the market, developed into flats and in move the Eastern Europeans. But with Brexit, how long will that continue?

.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-house-price-index-hpi-for-august-2017