Research 3: Coastal, mountains or somewhere in between?

Most people would love to live near the coast, walking distance to the beach sounds idyllic – but – how busy would it be in the summer, would we have trouble getting anywhere for tourists? Maybe we should go into the Mountains, but would it be too remote, would we feel isolated, as new comers to an area, surely it would be better to have some neighbours and local shops in walking distance? Maybe halfway between the 2 would be the best place – we needed to get over to Spain and have a good look round. So, next stage – take the plunge and make contact with agents promoting properties for sale – but get ready, once contact is made your phone will never stop ringing.

Over the course of a few weeks during summer we made contact with several different agents, went to Overseas exhibitions and started to narrow down companies that we felt comfortable working with. There is no doubt that the overseas market is highly competitive and once you are their lists, you will get a lot of pressure to book an inspection trip and you really need to be clear on what your objectives are and be confident to stick to your plan. Fortunately, among the people we had been in contact with, we came across a company in Northampton that we had never heard of, but happened to have a decent website with properties in the area we were looking at and who seemed to take an interest in what we were looking for and who spent time discussing our reason for the move. After several conversations, many e-mails and property details we decided to take the plunge. We invited Tarleton Properties to come and meet us so that we could make a final decision whether we could work with them on this major life change.

Russell came through one evening and we had a good discussion about the area we were considering, our dilemma about how to choose where to live and what we wanted to buy, our budget and various other aspects of the move. After a couple of hours we were happy that we could work with Russell and Tarleton and started to plan our trip to Spain.

Check out the Tarleton website at www.tarletonproperty.com