Seeking a Not-So-British Existence In and Around Alicante

Avoid anywhere with a population of under 30,000 or on the coast. In Elda or Elche or Alicante you will be one of the crowd. In Sax, Guardamar, Pinoso or Aspe you will be able to eat Roast Beef on Sunday.

We're heading to Alicante to look for a long term rental end of May so we can look around and decide where we're comfortable too. I'd like a smaller town and more inland. No enclaves. We're US'ers though, so the Brits will think we're strange too. We've been using enalquiler.com to look around. Best of luck and stay in touch!

Just so you know inland Alicante, all of Alicante, is rolling in Brits. Have a look at this article

Thanks for the feedback...food for thought before I plan a bit of a recon trip.

so would you recommend alicante province for buying a property ? to rent out and vacations? or is southern spain a more all round rental possiblity? ju

Culebronchris wrote:

Just so you know inland Alicante, all of Alicante, is rolling in Brits. Have a look at this article

Culebronchris, thanks so much for this info. We definitely had an inkling this would be the case. These numbers/stats make it much more tangible. So farther inland or northward we go.

hello i was told that property going further north is far more expensive compared to going to costa blanca south or costa calida, or costa almeria, etc..

I'm not really the person to ask about house prices. I haven't had to buy a house for years. I can give a comparison though. We currently live in Cartagena, in Murcia, and we pay around 550€ per month rent. When we lived in Ciudad Rodrigo in Salamanca we paid 300€.

A pal who lived in Burgos was confident he could buy a country house in need of serious work for 20,000€. I think he was kidding himself but, nonetheless, the prices for "projects" are still pretty low in rural areas away from the expat and commuter areas.

Provinces like Teruel are losing population hand over fist and websites like abraza la tierra are full of people selling businesses and houses in depopulating areas.

Although we have the flat in Cartagena we also own a house in Pinoso in Alicante. We have some friends with a house in a small town a few kilometres away. They paid 230,000 for the house (4 bed) and are currently trying to sell it for 180,000 though they considered a cash offer of 120,000. Prices have tumbled over the past few years and lots of expat sellers are desperate. Sellers are willing to consider almost anything. Many of them bought houses at the top of the boom. Their mortgage with the bank has to be paid and handing the keys back does not clear the debt. They will consider anything that clears their loan. One acquaintance told me how he bought a three bed terrace for 36,000 because the owner was heading for court.

The banks have thousand and thousands of bad debt houses on their books that are classed as "toxic debt" and they are trying to divest themselves of the houses. Their websites are full of relatively cheap houses though my wife, who follows such things, says they're not that cheap. Now and again though they have some sort of sale. There is talk of cleansing this debt somehow to make the banks stronger.

With poor Spain's economy in the toilet, I think we can expect big drops in the next year. I have seen Alicante city flats (studios/1bdr) going for around 29,000 euros (bank seized).

I live in Agost just inland of Alicante.

Not many ex pats here !!

Regards Tony

Indeed: apparently there are only 517 "foreigners" of the 4,831 population of Agost and only 35 of them are Britons.

Yes it is strange, because Agost is not too far inland compared with towns like Sax, Castalla, Pinoso, La Romana, Hondon etc
Which all seem to have a lot of brits.

I guess it could be that Agost dose not have any urbs and also on first impression can look a Dusty industrial place ! but I must say it has quite a good location, 25 min from the airport and Campello beach and 15 min from Alicante and golf course.

But dont expect English shops and bars!!

Tony cssolar

Good advice! I don't need the English shops, so that's not an issue. Will add it to the list of places to visit come October.