House hunting

Jardines de Altea Hills

When looking for a property in Spain, it is natural to want to see as many properties as possible before making the "right" choice and common sense dictates that a handful of alternatives should be viewed before buying. Our job as professional estate agents is to help buyers make decisions that are genuinely in their best interests, which, without our assistance, they might have had difficulty making. So here are some pointers for those buyers who might be struggling to balance the merits of Casa A with its new kitchen against Casa B, with the better garden.

First, there is a place for instinct and sometimes the heart should be allowed to influence, if not rule, the head. This is a home after all and not a stock-market share. Ask yourself the obvious question, "Could we be happy here?" However, sometimes you need your head to agree with your heart. Is your favoured property a significant improvement on where you already live, or are you just being bowled over by a smart exterior or fashionable lighting?

Weigh up the important aspects of life – commuting time, school run, parking, entertaining space (although do you really entertain that much?) Satisfy these first before allowing the view or the extra storage space to sway you away from your reason for moving.

Finally, you can be absoluely assured that if you instinctively like a particular house, other buyers will as well. We usually find that a property that fills most  people's basic needs, as opposed to their wants, will sell very quickly. The more you see, the more difficult it becomes to make a decision at all.

So our advice is this: decide your minimum criteria with your head and once these are satisfied in a property,
let your heart take it from there. Happy hunting!