Four weeks in and we are still taking stock because.....

The teased view from our front driveway!

We now have signed for our new home here in Bedar, Spain! We have kept this fairly closely under wraps as we wanted to wait until we had signed the contract and paid the initial deposit fee to take the house off the market so we knew it was ours!  Over here now if we backed out - not a chance! - we'd lose our deposit. If the seller did then they would have to pay us! The sellers are already making initial preperation to pack so we know things are moving along!


When we began our house search a few months ago we looked through hundreds of properties online and gradually whittled them down as we applied our own agreed search criteria to the list. We eventually had about 23 properties that we wanted to see in person as they had stood up to our reasonably strict criteria. Some houses we looked at look great on the web but left a lot to be desired in person. After we'd done a week of house viewings on our second week there we were with two clear front runners. One house in Los Gallardos was bigger, came with furniture, had a bigger pool but it lacked kerb appeal and had less than stellar views. Stuart has always been spoilt with homes with amazing views while being a Brit I was more used to smaller plots being closer to other houses so the decision for me wasn't as emotional. I would have been quite happy with the bigger house as it was cheaper too! 


As it was we plumped for the house we viewed on Day 5, it has views to die for on close to 360 degrees around the property. It sits on a 10,000 sq meter plot but a lot of that is based on the hill it is built on but it has lovely landscaped gardens with some fruit trees. It has some amazing features but I'll post lots of pictures now and then write more further down the page!

Our new home in Bedar - wonderful kerb appeal! No the dog doesn't come as part of the deal!

Family/Guest Bathroom.

The completely private pool.

Covered decking area to the pool side of the house with views to Mojácar Playa and the valley below.

Main lounge area with log burning fire.

The main kitchen, a second large utility area with all white goods and half bathroom is off to the left.

Current guest room -  note hot & cold air conditioning in all rooms (all furniture on pictures is vendors own)

Second guest bedroom.

En suite master bedroom with walk in "wet room" type shower.

Existing dining area off the lounge.

Another view of the master bedroom with built in wardrobes - one of the guestrooms has them too.

The front patio area showing the views to the coast.

One of the rear landscaped garden areas

The master bathroom walk in shower with dual shower heads.

Another view of the lounge looking back towards the entrance door from the hallway.

Another view of the covered patio area showing more of the 360 degree views above and beyond the house.

Another dog not included in the sale....the entrance currently called Casa Laurel but soon to change!

The house is everything we could wish for.  It has 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, a big kitchen with added big utility area able to accomodate an American sized fridge freezer and all the rest of the white goods, granite work surfaces throughout the kitchen/utility room, a large L shaped lounge dining room, big covered patio area with fly screens and amazing views and a large garage/workshop and parking outside for about 5 cars! Landscaped garden areas to the front and rear frame all the vistas and not to forget the Roman stepped pool for us and out friends to relax in and around! 


We love this house and can't wait to be living in it! We are completing on May 21st and that gives us 10 days grace to move out of our rented apartment and move our possessions up to Bedar. We have lots of furniture already on order. When Stuart returns from Los Angeles next week we are going to be getting more needed home supplies and checking out electrical stores up the motorway in Lorca!


We have to thank our wonderful solicitor/lawyer Maria Maroto who we can't praise enough for her help and patience through this process.


Here's to our new life and our new home together in Bedar, Spain!

Another milestone/purchase is reached!

A hand made panorama of Mojácar Playa with the
Hotel Best Indalo to the left

One of the other big things we have been trying to get sorted out before our month long car hire period runs out is to buy a car. Now just to give you some background as already detailed elsewhere you have to have an NIE number to buy anything major and open bank accounts etc. We got that sorted out within the first two weeks and thought we were golden to get the car! Not so! To buy a car you also need to register with your local Town Hall and then they give you a thing called a Padrón which is basically a list of all the people who live in a certain town. You need this registration to buy a car and as we were only renting we had been under the mistaken impression we couldn't register until we bought a house.


Our solicitor who is handling our legal affairs for our potential house purchase told us we could register using our rental agreement and that wherever we ended up buying and re-registering it would transparently transfer our detials to our chosen place of residence. This enabled us to then go for the car. Now I've already detailed the car buying process we'd gone through and how wonderful Hyundai in Cuevas De Almanzora have been. Victoria & Pepe Alarcón who own and run the dealership have been so helpful and kind to us and helped iron out some potentially big problems for us with our hire car and some silly bank issues. Our hire car was only on hire till the first of May and we had to extend the hire until Friday the 4th to allow for the registration of the car and the arrival of the number plates from Almeria.


Well tonight we went to the dealership to pay the last part of the payment for the car. We'd paid a 2000 Euro deposit and as you may have read we then fund our debit cards had a 1000 Euro limit on them for security purposes. This was totally impractical for us as we have so many things to purchase, such as the car, furniture etc! so the bank raised our individual limits to 6000 Euros so we can make these purchases and after we will lower them back again. Tonight we found out banks here operate on 24 hour periods not on day/date changes! Anyway after waiting an extra 15 minutes we'd passed the previous day's payment times and made the final payments on our beautiful, shiny, still wrapped in plastic on all the right pies Hyundai i40 Techno!

Stuart is overjoyed with the new car!

Sleek and very sexy - the Hyundai i40 Techno

With yours truly snapping away, note no plates yet!

We are both bigger guys, but this has so much room it is wonderful!

LED lights snake round the main headlights - sexy!

We will pick it up finally next Friday all ready for the road but we couldn't resist taking photos and sitting in it to enjoy it's newness!

Again the Mañana Gods have been smiling!

Back when we first decided to make the move to Spain Stuart had to begin jumping through lots of hoops to actually get to the point where he could apply for his Spanish retirement visa. This included having fingerprints taken and over two months later the FBI confirmed he was of good character and wasn't a felon/criminal. He then had to have these stamped by the State Depertment, had loads of documents translated into Spanish and alsorts of other things before he could even make the appointment at the consulate in Los Angeles - the closest place he could apply. Once he made the application in early February they told him it could take 3 - 6 months for the visa to be approved.


To that end we decided to pitch our arrival in Spain as the 1st of April as that would be about 1.5 months into the waiting period and as a Schengen tourist visa traveller from the 1st of April he could stay in Spain until the end of June before potentially we'd have to leave and go back to stay at my good friend's place (Hi John!) near Gatwick pending his visa being ready. We had to plan for all eventualities as you can imagine! 


Now as you've already read elsewhere on the blog we have been very fortunate and things have moved along at a pace we are still trying to take in. This coming Sunday will be FOUR weeks since we landed in Spain! More progress will be detailed in the next blog posting BUT the amazing thing is that on the 24th of April an email came through from the Spanish Consulate in Los Angeles and his visa had been approved and he had to pick it up within the next 30 days! That is approx 2 months and 1 week since he made his application - another major time boost that we were not even expecting!


So on May 6th Stuart flies from Almeria Airport via Madrid & London Heathrow to Los Angeles. They have said that he has to leave his passport with them for anything from 24 - 72 hours for them to put in the visa stamp! So he is returning on the 11th to arrive back in Almeria on the 12th. Sods law they will do it in 24 hours and he'll have to cool his heels in Los Angeles for 4 days waiting for his return flights home to Spain!


BUT as you can imagine we are overjoyed with this as it makes our settling here all the more easy and smooth :)

Furniture shopping and other adventures

April 24th was another adventure packed day.  We had our first workout at our new gym in Vera, the Veraqua.  They have lots of workout classes and a couple of swimming pools in the building.  Today we opted instead for the use of the treadmill and various strength machines in the actual gym.  From there we went to our favorite furniture store to purchase the new dining table and 8 chairs that we had seen earlier.  After some indecision, we decided on the final colors for the table and chairs and the rectangular glass insert in the table.  The table is expandable so we ordered 4 extra chairs to have service for 8.


While at the furniture store we also saw an unusual and elegant glass and chrome tv table.  We then tried to find a coffee table that would come close to matching it.  I asked the saleslady, who was helping us, if we could get a discount on the tables.  She said would have to ask her boss who happened to be from Mexico.  I went over to the boss, put my hands together as in prayer and sang the Mexican national anthem and a few popular Mexican folk songs.  We got 100 euro discount (about $135).  Doing Jewish Mexican groveling is not pretty, but it was effective.


A few doors down from the furniture store was an elegant shop that sold overpriced towels and linens.  So we bought two complete towel sets that will grace our new home.


We were chastized at the gym for not having our own workout towels.  So we went to a Chinese/Spanish equivalent of a dollar store and bought less expensive towels for the gym.  We also bought plastic cases to carry our soap and shampoo for our gym bags.  Cliff bought a much needed sports bag as we had been sharing the one I bought a few weeks ago.


We we got home, I contacted a discount insurance company to buy insurance for our new car and home.  We are busy beavers!


A postscript edit/addition from the Brit! 

The head down the toilet one is a classic!!

We went for lunch to a Chinese restaurant round the corner from our solicitor/lawyer and had their lunch menu today. We'd left for the gym without having had breakfast and by the time we got down there it was about 1pm. While we were there I went to the toilet and came out still chuckling! They had the funniest sign in the Gents toilet, probably in the Ladies too but I didn't investigate!

A weekend off from the necessities of life Spanish style

Well after the frenetic past weeks today (22/04/12) we reached a minor milestone, it is 3 weeks to the day since we landed on Spanish soil and this weekend allowed us time to breathe and take stock. 


Looking back it really is amazing what we have achieved in so short a space of time. For people reading this blog you will all have an idea of Spain's reputation for mañana and this fact can obviously impact on how quickly you can cut through official red tape. When you consider that we arrived on April 1st and Easter followed within days you can effectively carve out another 4 days from the three weeks for holiday downtime for the Spanish people. We managed to get our NIE applications in before Easter, then we had our week of villa viewings, then picked up our NIE's the following Friday. This week we went from that to second viewings, applying for our Padrone so we could then go to buy a car, we put an offer in on a home, bought the car and then it was this weekend - doesn't sound much looking in from the UK or the USA but honestly we didn't expect to be at this stage until possibly late May not late April! We had spent a lot of time between Stuart arriving back in the USA in January until we both departed our respective countries planning, researching and gathering information that would assist us in our settling in as smoothly as possible. That we managed to do be at this stage in 3 weeks has made us think wow too! ;)


So this weekend we have to a great extent compared to recent days putzed around and been a little more relaxed than of late! On Saturday we went for a usual walk on Mojácar Playa, had a Tapas lunch at a favourite cafe and did a little shopping at Mercadona supermarket. The rest of the day was spent watching a little TV and snoozing! I was tired and went to bed at about 10.30 (!) and left Stuart watching a Benidorm re-run (!) and then he watched a film classic "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest". 


Sunday was a day for chores early am, Two loads of washing, sweeping floors - it gets very dusty here - then mopping them while Stuart took a walk to the local supermarket "Super Turre" to get some ice cubes and fly spray! I then took a leisurely shower and waited for Stuart to return with the spoils! We decided to take a trip to Villaricos after an early lunch for it's street market. 


Sundays in Spain generally are reserved for relaxing and leisure and I guess religion too! Unlike in the UK or USA the shops generally are closed and only cafes and restaurants are open. One thing that doesn't observe this practice are the street markets and these run in different towns on different days Monday - Sunday. Some markets run in multiple places on different days and as we saw on Friday in Turre some have smaller ones than in the bigger towns like the one in Vera we visited the previous Saturday. 

Indalo Man

They all generally have similar stalls though, ranging from all the knock off stuff you can imagine, fake designer names on bags, watches, clothing etc to some very reasonably priced locally grown produce. The fresh produce is worth making the trip for alone as it is priced very cheaply and is really fresh and when you consider you are paying prices like 1 Euro for 3 kilograms of fresh oranges or 1 Euro for a kilogram of Tangerines for example you can see why it is worth a visit! you also see the odd stall at different markets that seem to be unique but I am sure move around and do different markets but since we've only seen 3 so far they are unique to us!

My chain

Today we saw a stall that was selling hand made jewellery that was in reclaimed Sterling silver. I saw some lovely hand made Indalo man pendants in varying sizes and I thought I'd treat myself to one. If you don't know what this is then I'll give you some background. The Indalo man is a prehistoric magical symbol found in the cave of "Los Letreros" ("The Signboards") in Sierra de María-Los Vélez Natural Park in Vélez Blanco, Almería, Spain. It has been customary to paint the Indalo symbol on the front of houses and businesses to protect them from evil (similar to Kokopelli of the south-western USA) and is considered to be a god totem. The Indalo man has a Levantine origin and dates back to 2500 BC. The pictograph was named in memory of Saint Indaletius, and means Indal eccius (Messenger of the Gods) in the Iberian language.

A bit of the marina in Villaricos showing
the market stalls as far as you can see!

Villaricos itself is a typical little Spanish fishing village with a pretty little marina and winding marrow streets that today were bustling with market stalls and bargain hunters. Of course the local Tapas bars and Cafe's benefited also with scores of people sat enjoying the beautiful weather outside them all! The smell of food was everywhere of course and it makes for a very heady place to walk around! We bought some fruits, Stuart's beloved black olives, Stuart also got a hat with Almería and the Indalo man on it, a t shirt for the gym and a nice leather wallet. All in all it made for a very pleasant early afternoon out! We drove back via Vera Playa, Garrucha, Mojácar Playa and then back to Turre! The Med was looking lovely this afternoon reflecting the lovely blue sky and as you'd expect was a lovely shade of blue itself.


After a bit of a rest tonight we will go for our evening meal back to Tio Tomas but to it's proper restaurant to sample it's night time menu. Then tomorrow it will be back to normal and obviously I will post more blogs about that in due course! 

A catch up post after a bit of radio silence :)

Well today is Friday and after an eventful few days I am returning to bring you up to date on a few events that have happened here this week!


On Tuesday we revisted two homes we liked from the previous week's viewings. We decided on one house in particular and made an offer on Wedsnesday. We got to Thursday before we knew if the offer process had gone in our favour. Now we have to wait for legal checks and surveys to be done by our solicitor here in Spain to make sure there are no issues. Once we have got these out of the way we will update officially with the news!


Other than that this week has been another landmark week. Last week we learned that buying a car needed another piece of bureauracy to be completed called a Padron. A Padron basically registers you at your local town hall and logs you as living in Spain. We were under the impression that we would not be able to do this until we bought a home. So it was a catch 22 we were only renting an apartment so would we still have to keep renting a car until we completed our house purchase? Thankfully a meeting with our solicitor gave us the clarification we needed. We could go into our local (Turre) town hall and register there. All we needed was our passports, our NIE number and the rental agreement for our apartment. Once we buy our home and re-register in our new town or village the registration will automatically move to our new location. 


To that end on Thursday we visited Turre Town Hall and registered for our individual Padron(s). On Friday we picked them up at a cost of 1.50 Euro each! You may have read elsewhere that on Monday we opened a bank account with La Caixa. Well on Thursday evening we each got a text message telling us that our new debit cards were available for us to pick up at our branch in Mojácar Playa. Now I know we did a lot of pre-planning before we got here to try and help smooth our passage into life here in Spain *BUT* some factors were always going to be affected by the so called mañana factor but in our experience that has not been an issue. We also learned on Thursday that the funds we needed to make our house purchase had landed with the company we were using for transfers and by Friday morning we also had them transfered from London into our account here in Spain. All of these events were very heartening and finding that the Spanish mañana reputation were largely proving, so far, to be unfounded and unfair as everything we have needed to happen have been very smooth and efficient.


Once we had been to the bank on Friday we went on a little bit of a spending spree. First we bought a stapler! Then we went to Ferreteria Lopez (our fave hardware store!) to buy a 10 socket surge protector and a 101 piece toolset in a toolbox as we'll need allsorts of stuff like that as we are setting up here from scratch in the main. We had been passing a local furniture place on the way to our apartment and decided today that we would drop in there to look at their range. We didn't expect to buy anything as until we actually have a home and a completetion date we would only be looking at what we might purchase on the furniture front! Well we saw a gorgeous 110 piece cutlery set in a lovely wooden display case in a design we both loved. Well what the hell, we made our biggest purchase so far in Spain! It was gorgeous and we thought if we waited they might have sold that set as they only had one of that particular design and maybe they might not have got that one back in for a while. 


The other major purchase aside from a house was always going to be a car. Now in the UK & USA we have a wonderful system where you can go in and test drive a car. Not so here in Spain due to the fact that they don't want to put mileage on the clock and the dealers don't always have demonstration models either! As both the cars we are interested in are relatively new models we felt that would have been important for us. The cars we wanted to test drive were a Kia Optima and a Hyundai i40. The closest major dealers with lots of models on their forecourts/lots were in Almeria or Lorca. Whether we would be able to test drive a car was debatable! So as making the trek into either city could have been a wasted journey we decided to offer our business to smaller local dealers as we thought that given the depressed state of the Spanish car market we might get more attentive service. Again we'd been led to believe that we'd get better service from Kia in Mojácar Playa as there was an Englishman working there and that the Spanish dealers might not be as helpful. We wanted to buy a diesel automatic and in Spain there is this wierd machismo thing attached to driving a stick shift vehicle! So it is viewed that you have no balls if you have an automatic car! LOL so we are both singing soprano! We both prefer driving automatics and Stuart hasn't driven a shift/stick car in 20 years. I have been driving since we got here for that reason as we have a shift/stick VW Polo to make things smoother for us! 

A scan of the Hyundai i40 Sedan off the brochure we were given - nice!

Well obtaining a suitable vehicle would always require us ordering a vehicle and waiting it for it to be brought to where we bought it from. Initially we found out there was a Kia Optima in Grenada, it was in a colour we liked and if we went for that we were told we could have it within about 5 days. But this was without seeing it, or test driving it as they didn't have one in their showroom. We'd have to go to Almeria for that and even then it wasn't likely we'd get to test drive it. Plus we'd have to put a deposit on it and pay the balance when it arrived. The English salesman was on holiday until today so we went back in to see him to find out more information on it today. We again told him we were also interested in checking out the Hyundai dealer in Cuevas De Almanzora (who at least had an i40 in for us to see) with a view to possibly buying either. He said he'd make enquiries to see if the car was still available in Grenada. If not we might have to wait up to THREE months to get another car from Madrid or outside the country. Ironically he called us back just while we were walking around Cuevas De Almanzora waiting for the Hyundai dealer to reopen this afternoon after their siesta break. He told us that the car in Grenada had now been sold but there were two automatic models available in Madrid and that they could be obtained for us in about two weeks. *BUT* unless we paid 2,000 Euros deposit and agreed to buy the car he would not find out the colours of the cars available, this was on top of the fact we hadn't seen the car or even got to sit in it! As you can imagine this pissed us off greatly. We then went into the Hyundai dealer not expecting much in the way of service. Our experience of car buying in Spain so far having been rather shoddy. Well we waited about 10 minutes longer than their reopening time for the showroom people to arrive back, hey after all this is Spain! But we had a completely different experience than with Kia! OK we could not test drive the car (we knew this in advance) but we had a vehicle there for us to check out, albeit a stick shift model. We had two Spanish people to assist us, one a girl called Victoria the scretary who spoke some English and José the salesman who only really spoke Spanish. This wasn't a problem as Stuart understands and speaks spanish enough to get by and what we couldn't manage Victoria helped with. Now they were a revelation, remember we'd been led to believe we'd get indifferent service and it couldn't have been further from the truth! We were treated to a full and detailed explanation of the differences between two different models of the i40, they answered lots of questions besides, configured both models on their website and gave us a price breakdown on both options. We were also offered a bigger discount than their website would have led us to believe as well.  We ended up being with them for two hours! Well I think you can guess the outcome! We paid a deposit on our new car in Spain and basically Kia can go and you know what themselves!! They will aslo let us know early on next week if they can hurry the delivery for us as they are aware of our rental car situation. We were extremely happy with their service! So from a stapler we ended the day with a new car! ;)


So all in all another amazing week. We are three weeks in to our new life this coming Sunday in Spain. We are in a postion now we thought it would take until possibly late May to be at! I am sure we will bring you more good news in the coming week too!

Monday, 2 weeks in and more mountains were climbed!

Mojácar Playa and it's lovely beach.

Today was another landmark day here in Spain! After getting our NIE numbers last Friday the door to being really getting to feeling like we were living in Spain and not just on an extended holiday opened! This morning we again hit Mojácar Playa to sort out some needed things to allow us to become more settled here. We visited a company that offer economical currency transfers to Spain to facilitate our home buying. Then we opened up a bank account that allows us to begin living and paying bills etc here! We went and bought a 5 metre tape measure for our second visits to view our favourite houses tomorrow so we can measure up some important features! Then later on after we had lunch by the beach and did a little shopping we came back in time for our wireless internet connection to be installed! Oh joy, a real internet connection!!


We are both VERY excited about tomorrow, after the second viewings we could very likely be putting in an offer on one of these two homes and it could be our new home in Spain together. All this in just over two weeks! It really does take our breath away to think we are at this stage now rather than a month or so down the line!

Sunday 15/04/12 two weeks in and time to take stock!

Cabrera Mountains, the view from our apartment balcony.

It is so easy when you are wrapped up in all of this to forget what we have managed to achieve in so short a time here in Spain. We did a lot of preparation in advance of our arrival but all the internet research and planning can go wrong sometimes when you actually try and put it all into practice when you arrive in a foreign country.


The fact that we arrived and 5 days later the country shut down for the Easter holidays made it all the more imperative we got to where we need to be in as short a time as possible! The fact that I had left the UK with a severe stomach bug and was severely hobbled feeling so ill when I arrived but I refused to allow it to derail our already well laid plans. it was imperative we got our NIE numbers (needed for EVERYTHING important in Spain!) applied for as we were already butting up upon Easter and we had no idea how long that would put back our applications.


Following the Easter weekend we had scheduled house viewings for most of the week leading up to getting our NIE's on the Friday and then the last day of viewings on the Saturday. We had put in weeks of preparation in advance, going through hundreds of homes online on multiple websites applying our viewing criteria to them to whittle them down to a manageable list of approx 25 homes we wanted to view. As it was one or two were double listed with more than one agent and a couple had been sold or had offers on them so we ended up with a core listing of about 21 to see with multiple Estate Agents.


On the very first day we had a front runner in El Pinar De Bedar, a house with amazing views and facilities but with compromises on size and pool area. Day two threw up another surprising front runner with a house in Los Gallardos that lacked immediate kerb appeal (like El Pinar too!) but a huge -  in comparison - floor area with it's ace, a massive outside pool area with an extra bedroom and bathroom! It isn't as jaw dropping in the view stakes but offers a lot more overall. Then we hit the buffers and struck out for the next two viewing days with disappointing properties that couldn't come near those two houses. Could anything else hope to topple the front runners?


Saturday gave us a house that had everything that El Pinar gave us and more! This was a surprising turn up for the books! Views all round, a bigger house, better overall, but with a VERY windy drive to get to it! Stuart doesn't take to extreme curves well so that and the master bedroom size could make it a problem!

*UPDATED* Day 5 of house viewings, the final day of initial viewings

Well what a day today has been! We came into the home straight of our house viewings with just two houses to see. We already had two houses that were front runners. To say todays houses were like chalk and cheese is an understatement! One house was again in Vera and it was standing vacant with little or no furniture in it. It allowed us to see the room sizes properly and they left a little to be desired! The kitchen was ok, though it had only half the room utilised properly.The lounge was small and would have been cramped with decent furniture in it! The master bedroom was small while one of the other bedrooms was quite big in comparision, ironically this bigger bedroom had no bathroom attached as an en suite which was puzzling. That last comment pretty much sums up the internals of the house! Outside there was a good sized plot (5000 sq meters) and the pool area was nice too. It had a double garage and a decent sized parking area. All in all the place just did not add up!


The second house we saw was back up in the hills above El Pinar where we saw the house we liked a lot on the first day. It was above in Bedar so potentially it was going to offer some lovely views at least! When we saw it on the web the house looked like it offered great kerb appeal, a lovely pool area and views of the mountains around Bedar. Size wise it was on paper a little bigger than the El Pinar house but it's other charms were an unknown factor until we viewed it! From the drive and parking area there are stunning views to the coast taking in Los Gallardos, Turre, Mojácar Pueblo and onto Mojácar Playa beyond. The difference to the El Pinar house is that instead of a wow and a small pool area this house has views all around the house up into the mountains too. It had a decent sized vestibule entry hall which leads onto the living areas to the left and the three bedrooms and two bathrooms to the right. The master bedroom is a good size, though the jury is out on whether it would take a super kingsize bed yet! The bathroom is compact but boasts a lovely walk in shower. It also had some lovely built in storage for towels etc. The family bathroom is well specified with bath and seperate shower, plus sink and bidet. The outside areas lead off the good sized L shaped lounge & dining room area. These are well specified too with fly screens, covered areas and some with fly screens but open to the sun offering a great choice of alfresco dining possibilities. These also have spectacular views to the coast and the mountains! The pool is average sized but it has roman steps into it and a generous surrounding patio area with a walk in shower. The kitchen is in two parts offering extensive storage and some great features. There is also a good sized garage/store room which could also be adapted to work as a studio/computer room area also. Lovely landscaped garden areas on three sides of the property made this another home we now are having a second viewing of on Tuesday. The down side is the winding access road leading up to Bedar and also then onto the property. Stuart suffers from nausea and motion sickness due to an inner ear condition so this could be the deciding factor as both houses we are re-viewing offer excellent facilities and both have some great points that the other does not. 


Ultimately we will decide on overall merit which we go forward and put an offer in for after a lot of discussion! Currently we both feel either could work for us and we really need to think carefully about which we decide to go for! An interesting position to be in after only a week of viewing houses. But we devoted a lot of time looking in advance on the web and appyling a set of criteria to narrow down a potentially huge list down to a smaller subset that we knew we were intrigued by. All that we viewed we actually wanted to see so it was a nice position to be in! The good news is that we narrowed potentially three houses down to two as it kicked the El Pinar house to the kerb as it has everything the El Pinar house had and more for the same price! 


After viewing the Vera house we went into Vera town itself to check out the street market that takes place on a Saturday there. It was predicatbly knock off city with blatant copies of designer goods all over the place! But we didn't go to look for those! We found the section with fresh produce and got some amazing bargains! 1 kilogram (2.2lbs) of radishes locally grown for 1 Euro! 1 kilo of Tangerines for 1 Euro, a kilo of big oranges for the same price! We got some lovely large red apples for 0.80C a kilo! Amazing prices were on offer for all manner of locally grown produce! This place really is very cheap to live! When we have been looking at the price of meats I have to remind myself that the prices are for a kilo not a pound! 


Living costs here are very low too. The equivalent of council tax or property tax is ridiculously low compared to the UK & USA. The highest we have been quoted on a house is 500 Euros a year ($800 a year!) Admitedlly you have to pay water rates just like in the UK or USA or in some that don't have direct supplied water you might have to pay for a tanker to fill your water deposit (tank) but this lasts months and isn't expensive either! Then there are the other usual utilities too but this doesn't add up to a massive amount. The only difference to buying costs relating to our readers from the USA is that here in Spain you pay an initial tax on the purchase price called IVA which is 8% of the purchase price on top and you have to work with a solicitor (lawyer) to make sure the house is properly registered and fully legal etc. This also adds to the cost up to about 10 - 12% extra in total. Overall the upront taxes paid are far less in the long run when you consider just how much you pay for the taxes in the UK & USA every year!!

Bedar house.....kerb appeal!

Master bedroom with built in wardrobes - jury out on if it will take a US King size bed yet!

Guest bathroom, it also has a shower to the left as you walk in.

Amazing view to the coast from fly screened patio

Dog does not come with house! Views to mountains do!

Looking the other way towards coast, pool views

One of the garden plots complete with young fruit trees.

Vera House, partially fitted kitchen, behind me another part same size with nothing in!

"Amazing" views from main gates!

Rest of the plot, the "lovely" garden!

Redeeming feature was the pool and double garage.

*UPDATED with pix* House Viewings north and west of Almería

Well today we ventured to some of the furthest away houses from where our apartment is. We drove to town of Alhama De Almería to meet an estate agent from Roquetas De Mar and saw three houses with them.

Once again we saw things in each place we liked but a lot we didn't too. The nicest house and most spacious was just north of Adra but we thought the plot was too overlooked especially by the pool. There was no views to speak of either which was also disappointing. Of the other two one had a lovely plot with lots of fruit trees but a confusing layout and a very poor kitchen.
So our front runners still have no challengers but tomorrow we see another couple of houses with a local estate agent so we will see!
On another wonderful note today we got our NIE numbers which gives us the "keys" to getting bank accounts, buying a car, a home etc too! So a big deal indeed, now we can register ourselves with a town hall so we can get on record as being in the country so we can do something wonderful in 2 years ;-)

Alhama De Almeria house - front entrance

OK sized lounge, not a bad feature.

"American styled" kitchen - not in American houses we've seen!

Pool area, not a bad feature.

Adra house, nice sized kitchen, a little tired and dark though.

Clever lounge shots made this room appear larger on the web!

Master bedroom is a good size.....

Another redeeming feature large but sadly overlooked pool!

Vicar house, no kerb appeal!

What was once a patio makes up the lounge.

Redeeming feature, two person bath with jacuzzi!

AWFUL pool area with no way to relax round it, they listed this at 415,000 Euros originally!!