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I've been investigating countries to retire in and the European Union would be one attractive area to consider. As I hate cold weather and prefer more temperate climates, Spain appears to be the only country in the Union that fills this requirement.
However:
An acquaintance went to Spain recently to study to be a chef and, upon graduation, could not find a job, much less find a way to live there so she had to return to the US. With 20% unemployment that looks to be extending far into the future, if not getting worse, how bad is the economy over there right now? Should a retiree with above-modest means forget about Spain due to the economic situation? Any input would be greatly appreciated.
I've been investigating countries to retire in and the European Union would be one attractive area to consider. As I hate cold weather and prefer more temperate climates, Spain appears to be the only country in the Union that fills this requirement.
However:
An acquaintance went to Spain recently to study to be a chef and, upon graduation, could not find a job, much less find a way to live there so she had to return to the US. With 20% unemployment that looks to be extending far into the future, if not getting worse, how bad is the economy over there right now? Should a retiree with above-modest means forget about Spain due to the economic situation? Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Firstly, Spain is not the only country with a warm temperate climate in the EU. How about Portugal, southern France, Italy, Greece, Malta, Cyprus?
Secondly, I spent a few months in Spain two years ago and the economy is very bad job-wise particularly for younger people and is not showing any signs of getting better, but if you're a retiree with a decent income anyway not going there to work what difference does the unemployment rate make to you?I'd have thought a low cost of living (though Spain is nowhere near as cheap as it was, not for us at least) would be a good thing. All along the south/east coast of Spain there are retirement communities (mostly of British and other northern Europeans - my grandparents used to live there) so find one of them and I'm sure you could live well.
Firstly, Spain is not the only country with a warm temperate climate in the EU. How about Portugal, southern France, Italy, Greece, Malta, Cyprus?
First of all, thank you for responding. From what I know from friends having cruised through the Mediterranean, Spain is the only one that comes closest to a truly "temperate" climate by virtue of its proximity to the Atlantic. So Portugal is another possibility. The others get progressively blazing hot during the summer as one goes further east. I forgot to mention I cannot tolerate extremes in temperatures due to health.
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Secondly, I spent a few months in Spain two years ago and the economy is very bad job-wise particularly for younger people and is not showing any signs of getting better, but if you're a retiree with a decent income anyway not going there to work what difference does the unemployment rate make to you?
No difference in terms of my immediate lifestyle, I'm guessing. However, if the economy were to start going supernova I would assume this would affects the crime rate, as hungry, desperate people would start preying on the elderly foreign retirees first. Just speculating on that.
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I'd have thought a low cost of living (though Spain is nowhere near as cheap as it was, not for us at least) would be a good thing. All along the south/east coast of Spain there are retirement communities (mostly of British and other northern Europeans - my grandparents used to live there) so find one of them and I'm sure you could live well.
I've done some further research and it appears that the real estate market is in shambles with 4.2 million unsold properties on the market [by one count]. Here's how one economist put it:
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Spain's problem, like Ireland's, is a banking and property sector burdened with hundreds of thousands of unsold properties, many of them still listed on balance sheets as high-grade assets when they are in fact worth a fraction of their former value - and in effect junk.
This is a mystery to me. If property is dirt cheap there, and if there are tens of thousands of Brits dying to escape Britain's cold weather and socio-economic problems, why aren't they moving to Spain and snapping up these incredible deals?
This is a mystery to me. If property is dirt cheap there, and if there are tens of thousands of Brits dying to escape Britain's cold weather and socio-economic problems, why aren't they moving to Spain and snapping up these incredible deals?
Probbaly for the same reasons why Americans are not snapping up dirt cheap properties in Arizona, Nevada, and Florida. Waiting until the market hits the floor, and it hasn't. And with ~27% unemployment in AndalucÃa, prices look like they're gonna be in correction mode for a long time.
Headline reads, The Andalusian tragedy: 1,104,100 unemployed, 27.7% of the population
I believe I read somewhere before that before 2008, Spain was either one of the world's, or the world's most overheated property market. Definitely it was Europe's most overheated.
By the way, aren't you American? Did you check into the legal requirements for health care, pensions, visa, etc.?
Thrillobyte, does Spain have a visa for retired people (or do you have EU citizenship and thus not need a visa)? I ask because I have looked into retiring abroad and have found that some countries simply don't have a visa for it which makes it impossible!
First of all, thank you for responding. From what I know from friends having cruised through the Mediterranean, Spain is the only one that comes closest to a truly "temperate" climate by virtue of its proximity to the Atlantic. So Portugal is another possibility. The others get progressively blazing hot during the summer as one goes further east. I forgot to mention I cannot tolerate extremes in temperatures due to health.
No difference in terms of my immediate lifestyle, I'm guessing. However, if the economy were to start going supernova I would assume this would affects the crime rate, as hungry, desperate people would start preying on the elderly foreign retirees first. Just speculating on that.
Actually most parts of Spain away from the north and west coasts/mountains get baking hot in summer for weeks on end (95-100F not unusual). Liguria, in the northwestern part of Italy has a good climate if you don't want extreme hot/cold weather, as are parts of Portugal.
About the poor economy again, until about 1990 it was normal for Spain to have economic problems, so people are more used to it than in some countries. The wealth in recent years has been largely based on tourism and people from richer countries retiring there, and people largely realise that. Spaniards are friendly people by and large and there's little hostility I know of towards foreign retirees.
I can't quite explain the housing situation, perhaps there were just too many properties built for the demand? Sounds very possible. Also, the pound is not as strong as it was against the euro so retiring to Spain for a British person is not the bargain it once was.
...I can't quite explain the housing situation, perhaps there were just too many properties built for the demand? Sounds very possible. Also, the pound is not as strong as it was against the euro so retiring to Spain for a British person is not the bargain it once was.
Ditto for the US dollar. Despite a couple of very brief spikes it has been going steadily down since the presidency of Geo. W. Bush. Costs about $1.40 to buy a euro now, a far cry from the time when sixty-some U.S. cents bought a euro.
By the way, aren't you American? Did you check into the legal requirements for health care, pensions, visa, etc.?
Yes, I'm American. I haven't gotten that far yet; this is just preliminary research as favorable climate is "numero uno" to me (a little BBS humor there). I would assume, given their precarious finances, that the Spanish govt. would welcome foreign retirees far as visas go (though they'll be stingy on the health care and strict on the person's proof of money, I'm sure)
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Thrillobyte, does Spain have a visa for retired people (or do you have EU citizenship and thus not need a visa)? I ask because I have looked into retiring abroad and have found that some countries simply don't have a visa for it which makes it impossible!
I think nearly all countries have some sort of visa for retired people, even if it's just a tourist visa that can be renewed over and over, though they have stringent income requirements if one goes the permanent resident route, and these requirements vary greatly (for example I checked Australia and found out one had to be ready to deposit half a million (equivalent) American dollars in an Australian bank as a "security deposit" before they'd even consider your application). I have Italian and British/Irish parentage but I'm too many generations removed from being able to get citizenship in the EU that way.
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Actually most parts of Spain away from the north and west coasts/mountains get baking hot in summer for weeks on end (95-100F not unusual). Liguria, in the northwestern part of Italy has a good climate if you don't want extreme hot/cold weather, as are parts of Portugal.
I intended to stay on the coast anyway, as the interior is as bad as southern France and Italy. plus I love the ocean.
You might want to spend some time looking into southern Portugal, the Algarve. Winters have moderate temperatures but are showery (rain comes mostly at night though), and they do not begin until the latter part of November and come to an end in Feb/March. Summers are usually quite pleasant, nice breezes and only a very short stretches of unpleasant heat, no rain. My feelings about cold and heat are the same as yours, and this is one reason I live there.
However, central heating is unusual and the architecture old or new makes the houses and apts feel very much colder than it is outside, unless you provide some form of heat. I use a/c inverters, which I never use for cooling, only to provide heat in the winter. Outside daytime temperatures through most of the winter are quite dealable, a sweater or very light jacket is enough.
You can get a retirement visa, and the amount of money you need to put in the bank is nowhere near those outrageous sums the Ozzies want.
Some items are more costly than the U.S., especially if you are used to patronizing bargain chain stores there. And the dollar vis a vis the euro is very weak and overall shows no promising signs of strengthening remarkably in the predictable future. In terms of life here, life for an emigrant from the U.S. will - in my opinion - become finally more advantageous when the euro becomes weaker rather than some pipe dream of when the U.S. dollar will become stronger.
Fresh food stuffs and bakery bread is inexpensive, and Portuguese and Spanish packaged foods cost much less than imported British brands. You will see some familiar brands, but few of these products are actually from the U.S.
I think that good casual clothing is very high priced here, and less expensive clothing - even supposedly familiar brands - do not maintain their good appearance for long. Thus, I buy clothes by mail from Germany and the U.K. from retailers who sizes and quality I know from long experience are dependable.
On the other hand, I really experience no problems as a result of this situation. If you live simply things even out.
Buying a new car is expensive, and gasoline and deisel are also expensive. Buying a good condition used car is probably a wise move if you do not intend to drive its little wheels off taking trips.
As for real estate. The market is a mixed bag here. We missed having the land-of-makebelieve bubble of real estate and mortgaging lunacy that hit the U.S., U.K., Ireland and southern Spain. This is a very depressed market in our part of the country due to the lack of foreign buyers....but developers and those foreigners who bought expensive properties show no signs (by and large) of reducing their very high asking prices. Thus, most property for sale hasn't moved in two years and many real estate agencies haved folded. However, there are houses and apts. to be had at reasonable prices, some of these are in buildings more than ten years old and often in almost exclusively Portuguese neighborhoods.
I have owned two apartments here and one house, and in a decade of experience I have avoided looking with realtors who cater to Brit expats or builders who do the same. Their prices have always been far higher than one needed to pay to get a decent, pleasant living space. I only deal with realtors who have many Portuguese-owned properties for sale, and I look only in neighborhoods and buildings that are either Portuguese or predominantly Portuguese.
You might want to spend some time looking into southern Portugal, the Algarve. Winters have moderate temperatures but are showery (rain comes mostly at night though), and they do not begin until the latter part of November and come to an end in Feb/March. Summers are usually quite pleasant, nice breezes and only a very short stretches of unpleasant heat, no rain. My feelings about cold and heat are the same as yours, and this is one reason I live there.
However, central heating is unusual and the architecture old or new makes the houses and apts feel very much colder than it is outside, unless you provide some form of heat. I use a/c inverters, which I never use for cooling, only to provide heat in the winter. Outside daytime temperatures through most of the winter are quite dealable, a sweater or very light jacket is enough.
You can get a retirement visa, and the amount of money you need to put in the bank is nowhere near those outrageous sums the Ozzies want.
Some items are more costly than the U.S., especially if you are used to patronizing bargain chain stores there. And the dollar vis a vis the euro is very weak and overall shows no promising signs of strengthening remarkably in the predictable future. In terms of life here, life for an emigrant from the U.S. will - in my opinion - become finally more advantageous when the euro becomes weaker rather than some pipe dream of when the U.S. dollar will become stronger.
Fresh food stuffs and bakery bread is inexpensive, and Portuguese and Spanish packaged foods cost much less than imported British brands. You will see some familiar brands, but few of these products are actually from the U.S.
I think that good casual clothing is very high priced here, and less expensive clothing - even supposedly familiar brands - do not maintain their good appearance for long. Thus, I buy clothes by mail from Germany and the U.K. from retailers who sizes and quality I know from long experience are dependable.
On the other hand, I really experience no problems as a result of this situation. If you live simply things even out.
Buying a new car is expensive, and gasoline and deisel are also expensive. Buying a good condition used car is probably a wise move if you do not intend to drive its little wheels off taking trips.
As for real estate. The market is a mixed bag here. We missed having the land-of-makebelieve bubble of real estate and mortgaging lunacy that hit the U.S., U.K., Ireland and southern Spain. This is a very depressed market in our part of the country due to the lack of foreign buyers....but developers and those foreigners who bought expensive properties show no signs (by and large) of reducing their very high asking prices. Thus, most property for sale hasn't moved in two years and many real estate agencies haved folded. However, there are houses and apts. to be had at reasonable prices, some of these are in buildings more than ten years old and often in almost exclusively Portuguese neighborhoods.
I have owned two apartments here and one house, and in a decade of experience I have avoided looking with realtors who cater to Brit expats or builders who do the same. Their prices have always been far higher than one needed to pay to get a decent, pleasant living space. I only deal with realtors who have many Portuguese-owned properties for sale, and I look only in neighborhoods and buildings that are either Portuguese or predominantly Portuguese.
thank you, kevxu, for that excellent detailed post on Portugal and sorry for the late reply. Yes, definitely Portugal would be one of the two countries I would most definitely consider retiring to far as the EU goes. The language would be a much tougher nut to crack than Spanish, though if English is widely spoken there that might not present a problem. I assume crime statistics are on a par with Spain's.
Real estate wise I'd probably rent as I have no heirs to pass any estate onto so what's the point in tying my money up in a property. My only concern is, as you mention, the architecture of these old buildings--more specifically the plumbing and heating/a-c apparatus, which can be difficult when one has gotten use to the superior units in America. But I am reading up on Portugal to get more info even as I type. Google map is excellent for getting birds-eye view of the topography and lay of the cities.
Thanks to all who contributed valuable info for me as the quest for the "perfect" retirement country goes on.
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