Spanish Town Houses

In many areas of inland Spain the countryside is sparsely populated with large estancias or farms. Landowners were granted these lands after successful military campaigns whether against the Moors or the Communists. So the farmworkers lived in the towns. Bearing in mind the security of living in town this made perfect sense and many are built on a hill with it’s own castle.

Old Spanish Town House Construction

Built largely of stone and mud with cane and mud floors these houses often resemble a “tardis” set in a rabbit warren. Old townhouses are built for comfort and nothing is cooler in the summer nor cosier in the winter than a traditional town house. The older parts of the towns are very reminiscent of their smaller cousin the white village, with their narrow winding and generally climbing alleyways they are a romantics dream.

Spanish Neighbours

Neighbourliness is a way of life in inland Spain and do not expect to go unnoticed in your new town it will not happen. Your neighbours will know all about you in days of you shaking hands to buy your new home and what they do not know they will invent. The positive side of this is everyone will want to know you and help you.

Learn Spanish!

If you make an effort to learn the language then you’re in and an avalanche of home made sausages, fresh fruit and veg will make it’s way to your door, alongside a friendly Spaniard with a bottle of the local wine from his finca. I tell people this often and I am sure no-one ever believes me until they arrive. One of my pleasures is weeks after they have arrived bumping into clients who have recently moved and have them tell me how friendly the neighbours are as if I had never mentioned it.

One of the things you should be wary of though is noise, the Spanish are not the quietest neighbours except during the famous siesta and the youngsters do love to rev up their scooters and mini motorbikes, try and avoid busy thoroughfares where the youngsters like to race their bikes, a good agent knows where they are and will warn you a bad agent neither knows nor cares. So ask.

Spanish Town Houses are Good Value

Cost wise town houses are very good value. We have houses in throughout Spain from as little as £20,000 completely habitable, and with all the paperwork in place. Most older town houses will require some work with new bathrooms and kitchens being number one on the list. However these items are not as expensive as in the UK and many houses needing little more than a repaint.

Rural Property in Spain

In the last five years programmes like “Place in the Sun” have featured companies like ourselves who have been opening up new areas to the more adventurous buyer. Whereas rural Spanish properties at the beginning of the decade meant half an hour from from the beach. Some buyers now are even finding their ideal home is more easily reached from Madrid rather than Malaga. Extremadura for example with it’s ample lakes and houses for less than £30,000, most of which would cost ten times that on the Costa del Sol are a chance for the majority to enjoy the lifestyle of the minority. Areas like rural Almeria and Granada can also offer the property hunter wonderful opportunities including skiing.

British Wary of Inland Rural Property

Brits buying a Spanish property, be it a holiday home, or a permanent residence have historically been wary of buying rural Spanish properties a bit like the early settlers in Australia, whether for fear of dangerous natives and wild beasts, I cannot say. The only real unknown that you will find buying rural Spanish property is that rare beast the Bargain. Rural Spanish property tends to be considerably cheaper than it’s coastal equivalent. As for the natives they tend to be far friendlier than the coastal tribes, offering home grown produce and the occasional bottle of local wine to the newcomer.

As most of us do not come from the coast in the U.K. and the reality of living in Spain is very different from the holiday fortnight. A lot of people retiring to Spain can find themselves isolated in the rootless urban sprawl that much of the coastline now consists of.

Less Crime in Rural Spain

The friendliness of people in rural Spain will be much easier to live with than the ebb and flow of life by the sea. The country Spaniard has always lived better than the townie and as everyone is known to and by his neighbour crime and all the other diseases of the urban sprawl such as traffic queues are left to the less fortunate who have followed the herd to the sea.