Do your research and network, do not leave yourself relying on one source.
I am smiling as I see these concrete steps take place. We have the first viewing this coming Saturday for the sale of our main house near Zürich. That is one on the way to semi retirement and spending eight months of the year in South Africa from next year.
LEVEL always has the least expensive fares. And they're not bad for a low-cost airline. Iberia operates the flight. You can get deals directly through Iberia, but they're generally not as good. And Iberia doesn't even do a nonstop between LAX and BCN anymore as far as I know. Only through LEVEL.
Congrats on your decision to move to Spain. It was a life goal for me since studying a semester in Toledo at 19 and a summer in Madrid at 20.
I moved to Valencia 2 years ago and then to Barcelona in November as I changed jobs and my visa is tied to job (visado para profesionales altamente cualificados).
If I can be helpful in any way, please let me know. Neighborhoods, advice, whatever.
Graham Hunt is a specialist in renting and selling to foreigners in Valencia, his site has lots of useful info (I have no affiliation): https://www.valencia-property.com/
What a great feeling booking that flight must have brought you. You are proving all those naysayers wrong. I am finding more often than not these days, the average expat groups on social media have been more of a deterrent than helpful.. even if the page says "Helpful Expat Group."
I have found a local group of (in my case Bohemian) people that run a page. You can go out any day of the week and speak to them face to face. There are no trolls or keyboard warriors, only true and real people that have experience and knowledge they want to share. They even have meet ups, cooking/baking classes for learning traditional Czech food, language lessons, historians, and immigration attorneys.. anything you could imagine.
Delete, delete, delete. Leave the groups that don't have your best interest in mind. There are far better out there.
Congrats on booking the flight, it’s officially official! :D I echo your reflections on finding an apartment here. House hunting may have challenging moments but there’s a real bias online that’s different from reality.
It’s true that the first thing landlords will typically ask for is a work contract, but when I was teaching English (making very little money at the time) my workaround was to show my bank statement from the US proving I had sufficient funds. There’s also something called an “aval bancario”. It’d mean transferring a lot of funds to a Spanish account but then you could request the aval and it’s like an official bank document saying you have funds. Sometimes landlords prefer it to be a Spanish bank because they can be skeptical of foreign banks/documents/etc.
I’ve also never heard of offering to pay an entire year up front being denied. If you want to go that route that will also help, you could even try offering 3 or 6 months as a first step and then if they say no offer 12 months.
Key thing is to be pushy! Don’t be discouraged if someone says an immediate no, still respond and try to get their attention. Follow up with offering to show bank statement or paying in advance.
For context, landlords are most concerned about “okupas” lately, which means someone moves into the apartment and stops paying rent. The law here favors renters so it can take years for a landlord to be able to evict a ~non-paying~ renter!
Thanks for the insight from Spain. I appreciate it.
Sounds similar to many California cities. Renters have quite a few rights here. While landlords can't accept for rent in advance (outside of a one or two months security deposit) there can be a mutual agreement to pay more in advance. I've never done that, but would consider doing a few months in Spain.
This is so awesome! Seeing your dream of Spain unfold is a wonderful privilege and I am glad to be part of the ride. . . .where each big step is bigger than the one before. You've got a date for Spain!
And all of this goes to show…
Start with a plan.
Do your research and network, do not leave yourself relying on one source.
I am smiling as I see these concrete steps take place. We have the first viewing this coming Saturday for the sale of our main house near Zürich. That is one on the way to semi retirement and spending eight months of the year in South Africa from next year.
Oh man, things are heating up! I can feel the excitement in every sentence here.
Not for nothing, I looked up the price for the same flight on DL, and the cheapest was just over $1k— and it includes a long layover in JFK.
LEVEL always has the least expensive fares. And they're not bad for a low-cost airline. Iberia operates the flight. You can get deals directly through Iberia, but they're generally not as good. And Iberia doesn't even do a nonstop between LAX and BCN anymore as far as I know. Only through LEVEL.
We're very excited. And a little nervous!
Congrats on your decision to move to Spain. It was a life goal for me since studying a semester in Toledo at 19 and a summer in Madrid at 20.
I moved to Valencia 2 years ago and then to Barcelona in November as I changed jobs and my visa is tied to job (visado para profesionales altamente cualificados).
If I can be helpful in any way, please let me know. Neighborhoods, advice, whatever.
Graham Hunt is a specialist in renting and selling to foreigners in Valencia, his site has lots of useful info (I have no affiliation): https://www.valencia-property.com/
What a great feeling booking that flight must have brought you. You are proving all those naysayers wrong. I am finding more often than not these days, the average expat groups on social media have been more of a deterrent than helpful.. even if the page says "Helpful Expat Group."
I have found a local group of (in my case Bohemian) people that run a page. You can go out any day of the week and speak to them face to face. There are no trolls or keyboard warriors, only true and real people that have experience and knowledge they want to share. They even have meet ups, cooking/baking classes for learning traditional Czech food, language lessons, historians, and immigration attorneys.. anything you could imagine.
Delete, delete, delete. Leave the groups that don't have your best interest in mind. There are far better out there.
Congrats on booking the flight, it’s officially official! :D I echo your reflections on finding an apartment here. House hunting may have challenging moments but there’s a real bias online that’s different from reality.
It’s true that the first thing landlords will typically ask for is a work contract, but when I was teaching English (making very little money at the time) my workaround was to show my bank statement from the US proving I had sufficient funds. There’s also something called an “aval bancario”. It’d mean transferring a lot of funds to a Spanish account but then you could request the aval and it’s like an official bank document saying you have funds. Sometimes landlords prefer it to be a Spanish bank because they can be skeptical of foreign banks/documents/etc.
I’ve also never heard of offering to pay an entire year up front being denied. If you want to go that route that will also help, you could even try offering 3 or 6 months as a first step and then if they say no offer 12 months.
Key thing is to be pushy! Don’t be discouraged if someone says an immediate no, still respond and try to get their attention. Follow up with offering to show bank statement or paying in advance.
For context, landlords are most concerned about “okupas” lately, which means someone moves into the apartment and stops paying rent. The law here favors renters so it can take years for a landlord to be able to evict a ~non-paying~ renter!
Thanks for the insight from Spain. I appreciate it.
Sounds similar to many California cities. Renters have quite a few rights here. While landlords can't accept for rent in advance (outside of a one or two months security deposit) there can be a mutual agreement to pay more in advance. I've never done that, but would consider doing a few months in Spain.
This is so awesome! Seeing your dream of Spain unfold is a wonderful privilege and I am glad to be part of the ride. . . .where each big step is bigger than the one before. You've got a date for Spain!