If you are considering a move to Spain, you may be contemplating whether renting or buying property in Spain is the right choice for you. Coming from the US, the real estate market is very different in Spain. There is no centralized Multiple Listing System (MLS) and buyer’s agents are not something that is common here. This can make finding a property as an expat somewhat challenging, especially if you are trying to buy property in Spain before you move.

Why we chose to buy vs rent

Homeownership levels in Spain are high, with around 80% or residents owning their own property, and many without a mortgage. While the real estate market had been pretty stagnant in recent years, prices in Spain have been on a steady incline and demand, especially from foreigners, has seen historic growth according to Spain’s National Institute of Statistics.

We chose to buy a property in Spain instead of renting because we already knew the area we wanted to live in and have traveled there many times. But, if you are just starting your exploration of moving to Spain, I would recommend renting first so you can really settle on an area before making a large investment. If you are planning on buying property in Spain, here are some tips based on what we experienced during the process of finding a home in Spain.

To Build or Not to Build

When we first decided to move from the United States to Spain, we originally planned to build a house on a small piece of property my father already had. Unfortunately, once we started exploring it further, we discovered that the property was considered rural and was not “urbanizable” which meant, we couldn’t build on it. We were gutted. There were several houses already on the street and my father’s cousin had built a huge house on the lot next door in recent years so it was definitely unexpected news that we couldn’t build a house there.

Once we figured out we couldn’t build on the property we had, we started looking for a different property to buy and build on. As we started talking to builders, we found a new build would take anywhere from 2-3 years to get completed. Between architectural plans, material shortages, scheduling, and permit bureaucracy, our dreams of building a new home in Spain would take longer than we had time. After all, we planned to move in less than 2 years.

Let’s Buy A New Construction Home

Since we couldn’t build on the property we already had access to, we started exploring buying a new construction home or an existing home we could renovate and make our own. New houses in subdivisions were available, but they simply didn’t have the features we wanted or the land we were looking for. We also didn’t particularly want to live in a subdivision. Coming from a gated community in Florida with no back yard, we were looking to live in the country side so a subdivision wasn’t exactly what we had hoped for.

Let’s Find a Fixer Upper

We pivoted again, and started looking for existing homes on the market that we could either renovate or add onto to get what we wanted. We knew we wanted something within 20 minutes from my family, space for our dogs and son to play and run around, and property to plant grapes or with an existing plantation.

We finally found a beautiful property, with an old house that we could renovate and add on to. The property was on a hillside, overlooking the river, with beautiful mountain views to the south. We could even see my parents’ house less than a mile away, from the property. It had been on the market for a few months, in fact, my parents had mentioned it before but I had not paid much mind to it because of all the work it needed and we really had our heart set on a newer home. We live in a house that is less than 5 years old now.

The property had just taken a drastic price reduction and with our dreams of a new build evaporating, we had them take a look at it again. Luckily, the realtor was an old friend of mine, which I thought would work out beautifully. She knew our circumstances and I would be supporting an old friend’s business. Win, win right?

Making an Offer

We made an offer on the property and the seller accepted. We started the mortgage approval process and then things went sideways. When the bank asked for the paperwork from the land registry, the realtor was unable to provide it. They discovered that the seller was not listed as the property owner. The seller was based in Germany and had inherited the property from an uncle.

The story we were told, was that the seller had hired an attorney in Spain to handle the transfer to his name. During the process of us trying to buy it, they discovered that the lawyer had not completed what he was hired to do and the property was still not in the seller’s name. We were told the seller was going to be traveling to Spain in May and would sort it out while he was there.

June came, no word from the realtor…. We reached out and were told he was now coming in July and would sort it then…. July came and went and still no news. To this date the realtor still has not reached out… disappointing for sure, especially when you know the realtor personally. After nearly 4 months of no progress, we decided to move on and continue with our search. We were back to square one.

Finding our Current House in Spain

I followed every realtor’s FB page I could find and joined local buy/sell groups on FB, hoping to find something in the area that I hadn’t already seen multiple times on Idealista. And then, someone posted a listing in a local buy/sell page for under $100K. Based on the price though, we suspected it was off-grid and not a property you could build further on. Sure enough, the original post we enquired about was not something we were interested in, but the realtor told us he had a house nearby that was within our price range and fit most of our criteria.

The house was not listed on any of the real estate portals I’d looked at, and believe me I scoured them all. By the way, this is how you find most deals.

We bought our house well below appraisal and while it may have a slightly smaller yard than we hoped for, it ticked all the other boxes for us, was move in ready, and in the area we were hoping to buy in. We are doing some renovations and will be building out some unfinished spaces eventually but at least we finally have a home of our own. In the end, it took us about 9 months to find the property we bought in Spain.

We realize how incredibly fortunate we are to have someone in Spain to look at properties for us and handle the transaction. My parents have been a blessing and really helped not only locate a property for us, but also working with the bank to finance the purchase, sign for us at closing, and watch it for us while we plan out and finalize our move.

If you want to learn more about buying property in Spain, here is an in depth how to guide we put together based on our experience.