Moving Abroad? How To Select The Country, Town & Make The Move

So you’ve decided you are moving abroad, or even better, you are moving to Spain?

Congratulations!

We are often contacted by Couples, Families and Travelers planning their move to Spain. For some it is open-ended and for others it is for a couple of months, so they follow that Schengen Visa rule.  Either way they ask the same questions:

“How did you choose Spain?”
“How did you choose Almuñécar?”
“How did you find your long-term rental?

We have answered these so many times via email, I thought I should just write-up a post and share or info with you.  There is no big secret, but sometimes these are the types of questions that hold you back.  They can stump you when you are in the planning stage and I get that.  It is difficult to just take that leap of faith and hope you find a place before you arrive.  If it makes you feel comfortable, you can select a place before you arrive, via the internet.  For us, that just wasn’t going to work.  We need to “feel” a location and see the accommodation before we commit.

So, let’s get into our details for you.  I can only share our experience and the process we followed when deciding to move abroad.  You will need to make your own plans and adjust to suit your needs, desires and comfort level.  This process could easily be adapted to any country and location, because moving abroad is moving abroad right?  Well, for some the location is selected for them, due to employment.  If you are like us and are location independent, then this is the process that worked for us when moving abroad.

“How did you choose Spain?”

Lucky for us, we have answered this one before.  We wrote all about how we selected Spain as our country of choice.  Of course spreadsheets were involved and a checklist of criteria.

Our Process To Select A Country (Moving Abroad)

1. Define your criteria
   (What do you need to survive? Any barriers (Language, Visas, Working, Driving, Living Conditions, etc)?
2. Define your budget
   (How much can you afford? Estimate the cost of living?  What are you willing to live without?)
3. Define your goals for moving abroad.
   What are you trying to get out of this?
4. Mash it all together and see what you come up with

We considered several countries and once we trimmed it down to wanting to have the kids fluent in Spanish, that narrowed the scope.  Our next step of the process was decided if Europe or South America better met our needs.  Of course, Europe won that battle for this international move.  With the thought in the back of our minds that we can always follow-up with South America later.

“How did you choose Almuñécar?”

Making the Move Abroad

The Big Day arrived and it was time to take that Plane Trip Across The Pond!

Once we arrived in Spain we decided to take 2 weeks to further explore the coastline and “double-check” our initial impressions.  This time we started up in Barcelona!  Once again, we were convinced that Almuñécar was right for us.  Here are a few posts on our experience finding a place to live.  The process we followed

“How did you find your long-term rental in Almuñécar?”

Our process to find a long-term rental:

1. Determine your location and criteria
2. Define your budget
3. Select a short-term rental for your arrival.  Just a place to crash and be able to cook and get a good nights sleep. (1 week is a good start)
4. Hit the internet and pound the pavement and work with a Realtor.  Get a feel for the neighborhoods, look for signs and really get to know the area.  Go on-line and look for rentals.  I recommend looking at long-term as well as short-term.
   1. No matter what you are looking for, if you find the right place propose something that works for you.  I had standard scripts I had handy in a word document explaining our situation, our plan and a little about us.  I had one handy for items listed as a short-term rental, requesting they consider renting out long-term with a promise of a 12 month commitment.  I had a similar script handy for those already listed as long-term.  I scoured the internet and reached out to several on the first night.
   2. We only had email as means of communication, so that made things a little more difficult.  I would recommend purchasing a cheap pay as you go phone, so you can be contacted easily.  We found that working with a Realtor limited us a little, they of course only showed us the properties they had listed.  While it was helpful having them show us around and give us bits of info, we found it easiest to look online.

5. Make appointment, View properties and Make a choice.

We found our property via owners direct and it was a holiday rental.  I sent an email asking if he would be interested in a long-term let for 1 year.  Of course I did the same with about 40 other properties and we visited maybe 9 and fell in love with what we have.  It is cheaper to rent an apartment short-term and look for a long-term property, than it would be to stay in a hotel.

We had to pay our first months rent plus a 2 months rent as a deposit. It is specified in our contract, these funds are not the first and last months rent.  They are instead the equivalent amount to two months rent as the deposit only.  Each owner can do what they like, so I would have at least 3 months rent available to cover move in.