+1You're both in your sixties. You would be daft to buy. Rent abroad for €550 per month for a 2 bedroom property in a southern Spanish resort. You have the option of spending months abroad and months in Ireland.
Enjoy it, you've done your homework, and remember, you never see a tow bar on a hearse. Life is for living.
Chapter 2:- No humour; just facts and the whole truth as against what many say is the truth. We bought a holiday apartment in southern Spain thirteen years ago. I was fifty with adult family. Mrs Lep and I decided we had enough of drudgery (i.e. another word for rearing children - don't forget at this stage that I promised to say the full truth). We looked at this stage in our lives as "Our Time" and property in Spain was relatively affordable. We thought we could take any hit and property was never going to decrease in value (famous last words!).
I make no apologies, we bought as an investment, to use for our holidays and for provision of a rental income. We were starting from scratch and learned lessons almost by the week. We did all the right things, employed a Gestor (solicitor) to act solely for us as against an Abogado (Conveyancing Officer) to allay fears of well publicised properties being raised to the ground. We knew Spanish workmanship was not great, but thought employing a surveyor would resolve any problems here. He didn't and in Spain you have no comeback. We had to get extensive repairs over the years which could have been prevented by the original builders. However, we got over that.
So you're watching Holiday Homes Abroad and A Place in the Sun etc. I am not saying that the people in these programmes were telling lies, but nearly everything said was far from the full truth e.g. (watching a re-run of programmes recently) I heard a real estate agent talking about a new high speed railway line from airports due to use a stop nearby. She pointed out that you can actually see the rails. You can see the rails but the only things rolling over them are the local fauna. These rails won't see a train for years to come. And another pointed out the new International Airport just up the road which is nearing completion. It was completed 12 months ago and hasn't seen a plane of any description and probably will never see one. Don't believe a word from any of these tv programmes.
You can pick up property on the Costas at good prices at the moment. Spain is not recovering anywhere near the rate of Ireland's. I would advise not to buy unless you can take an extensive hit down the line. You think by handing your property over to a real estate agent for rental purposes you are on the road to an easy income. They take commission, advertising fees, etc and your income will be down by at least 20%. So you think you have 80% for yourself. Take the utilities, electricity, water, refuse, property tax, complex fees etc from that and you might have something left. But, the real estate company contacts you and informs that the cistern must be replaced in the bathroom and a new bed and mattress are required immediately. You have no way of knowing whether these items need replacing but you take them at their word and the cycle restarts the following year.
We got rid of the real estate agent. We rent the apartment ourselves through word-of-mouth and over the years have built up repeat customers.
I have more to say, but I don't want to bore the pants off anybody, and I have to leave for work . . . so I will come back with Chapter 2 (b).
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