Hi All,

Well we’ve only been here a few months but we love it and are seriously considering investing in a home here, not least as there seem to be some great bargains around, and rent is of course money in someone else’s pocket every month.

My problem is, I have no idea what it’s going to cost!  I don’t mean the reduced prices in the estate agents window, I mean in terms of what the mortgage repayments would be on a property costing XX and how much would it actually cost us in terms of the deposit, stamp and legal etc, and what would our repayments be (I have no idea how mortgages even work in Spain) - which would all have to be raised by remortgaging our UK property.  And of course it all depends on someone being willing to actually lend to us both ends in the first place!

What would people advise - who should I talk to/are there any good online resources that anyone could point me at?  I don’t want to talk to potential lenders until our plans are more concrete, and I don’t want to walk into an estate agents without a clue what our budget is for purchase.  It’s only in here that I dare ask such utterly naive questions 😊

If anyone wants to approach me from their professional position please feel free to PM,

Maya

Maya good point , will hopeful in same boat in few months to buy , but looking price around here and there big difference from spanish window to uk wondows

i am looking for sep oct coming

Hi Maya, most Spanish mortgages are variable based on the Euribor, which is currently very low at just under 2%.  As an example my mortgage is Euribor+1%.  However they calculate it each year, so if the rate has risen and/or fallen in the previous year you pay an average rate; so now I’m paying well more than 3%, but it will come down a lot when they figure it out for the next year.  You might be able to get a fixed rate or something, but it’s not so common in Spain as in the UK.  We had no problem raising a mortgage but it was pre credit crunch, and only for about one third of the value of the property, so that’s hardly surprising.  I do remember though there was no hidden set-up fee, no requirement to take life assurance, none of the crap you have to deal with in Britain, in short. We just had to pay for a detailed valuation of the property - una tasacion - that cost about ?180, but it was good to have that anyway, and the taxes, which vary depending on whether it’s new build or old etc (you’ll find all that online easy enough). Taxes and legal costs were actually much lower than we’d expected, which was nice. As for where to go for a mortgage, you obviously have to shop around, but I like dealing with the local small bank - in our case it’s Caja de Granada - because the bank manager knows the mayor, who knows the builder who restored my house, who is related to the guy from the planning department, who drinks with the guy who fitted my kitchen etc. etc. etc.  It was hugely helpful to have an “in” to the local network.  Maybe we were just lucky, but I’m not sure you’d get that from the big banks.

Taxes and legal costs were actually much lower than we?d expected,  that would be on 200,000 euro mortgage ?
jurdy

jurdyr - 18 March 2009 09:37 PM

Taxes and legal costs were actually much lower than we?d expected,  that would be on 200,000 euro mortgage ?
jurdy

Two hundred grand?  I’m in the Alpujarra - you could buy a village for that! 
No it was only like 70k but we’d budgeted for about 12% of value and it was more like 8% when the bills came through.