Buying property overseas

[Brian S.]

Does anyone have any experience buying rentals in Spain as an American? I am looking for a few recommendations for lawyers and realtors in good affordable cities close to or along the Mediterranean. Any references or suggestions are appreciated. 

[Mike Lambert]

Hi Brian,

You need to first do your homework to decide where you want to invest (also be clear about does affordable city means to you). There's no agent covering the whole US Atlantic or Pacific coast. Same thing in Spain. Even if you focus on just one of the Spanish "costas" for example, a realtor will generally only cover one city, even though it's part of a larger market. Also, Spanish realtors don't work the same way as Americans do so don't count too much on them. It's best to be clear about what you're looking for and you'll need to do a lot of the work/research by yourself. They're not going to waste their time helping foreigners knowing that many will end up not buying.

I'm happy to refer you to my lawyer once you have found a property but it's better that you choose one in the region and province you're going to invest in as there could be "legal" differences pertaining to you.

On another note, it's important that you realize that strategies that work in the US might not work in Spain and financing is different so you might want to figure out first if that works for you first to make sure you don't waste time and money unnecessarily.

Hope this helps.

[Brian S.]

Quote from @Mike Lambert:

Hi Brian,

You need to first do your homework to decide where you want to invest (also be clear about does affordable city means to you). There's no agent covering the whole US Atlantic or Pacific coast. Same thing in Spain. Even if you focus on just one of the Spanish "costas" for example, a realtor will generally only cover one city, even though it's part of a larger market. Also, Spanish realtors don't work the same way as Americans do so don't count too much on them. It's best to be clear about what you're looking for and you'll need to do a lot of the work/research by yourself. They're not going to waste their time helping foreigners knowing that many will end up not buying.

I'm happy to refer you to my lawyer once you have found a property but it's better that you choose one in the region and province you're going to invest in as there could be "legal" differences pertaining to you.

On another note, it's important that you realize that strategies that work in the US might not work in Spain and financing is different so you might want to figure out first if that works for you first to make sure you don't waste time and money unnecessarily.

Hope this helps.

That makes sense. Valencia is where I will buy. I will cash buy as I don’t really like their financing and don’t want to deal with currency fluctuations causing my payment to change month to month. I only do long term rentals so I shouldn’t have an issue with that. I will find a few properties and return to the forum. Thank you.

[Mike Lambert]

You're welcome. Doing that will eliminate part of the hassle but I assume you're aware that you will likely make much less money than with US LTRs and that the laws are much more tenant friendly than anywhere in the US.

I know Valencia quite well with the perspective of a North American (and European) as I was going to invest in STRs there after the Costa del Sol but, sadly, they've banned STRs there so I had to reconsider. So, if you still want to invest in LTRs there, you could reach out to @Erwin Groenendijk. He's active in the forum so he might be commenting as well.

Finally, I'm not sure that you should worry about dealing with currency fluctuations because you won't have to assuming you're cash flow positive. You'll rent in € and your mortgage payments would be in €. Besides, the € has been fairly stable against the $ over the last few years and that could continue if the FED and the ECB follow similar monetary policies, as the market likely believes.