So am thinking of getting somewhere me and the family can go to most holiday times, I’m fortunate with the job I don’t have to be tied to my desk to do it. I’m looking for some suggestion that tick the following moon on stick criteria:
Guaranteed sun (high 20s early 30s) for most of year
Not far from airport (max an hour) pref easyJet/Ryanair
Good riding local
Cheap housing
In Europe (pref 2 hour flight time)
Not the alps (never get that past the wife)

Originally thought Mallorca but house prices are quite high and mortgage is hard to get
Looking at north Portugal, Coimbra area (4 bed detached for £150k!)

Just wondering if any had any other suggestions?

Alora. In hills above Malaga. On the train line. Excellent riding, some nice bars/restaurants. There’s horse-riding and such like based there too.

http://www.andalucia.com/province/malaga/alora/home.htm

Warrington.

Coimbra is dead, really dead outside of uni term times, just saying.

Inland Portugal is a good call.
I often salivate over this website.
Balearics are always going to be expensive.

Mate of mine’s dad has a place near Nice. Just far enough outside of it for the property prices to not be extortionate, but close enough to get access to the beach and the coast, good bus links and at the foot of the pre-Alps, so some good riding to be had. It’s in a nice medieval hilltop village too. Seemed as nice a place as any in Europe.

watching with interest as we’re currently looking ahead to retiring in europe in a few years time, so also investigating places with similar criteria. funnily enough, portugals one of our favourites at the minute along with france.

some of these links may be interesting for you to read. ok theyre from a ‘retiring abroad’ perspective but include info on cheapest housing, nicest places to live, cost of living etc which would be relevant to you.

https://www.europeanbestdestinations.com/best-of-europe/best-destinations-to-get-retired-in-europe/

https://www.liveandinvestoverseas.com/best-places-to-retire/

http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20151230-the-top-seven-places-to-retire

https://www.aol.co.uk/money/2016/09/21/the-top-ten-best-places-to-retire-overseas/

https://internationalliving.com/europes-top-5-affordable-retirement-havens/

HTH

People that I know who have a holiday home always end up regretting it.

First few years it great, but then you get fed up of feeling like every holiday has to be in the same place, you get fed up of flying, you get expensive bills, you come out of the EU and have to pay for your own healthcare.

Personally sounds great, reality is it’s much cheaper and nicer to rent someone else’s villa

I think if i was borrowing i wouldnt bother as the running costs and finance would make it q costly. Say if it cost you 10k pa and you spend 10 weeks there, thats a grand a week, as above you could rent somewhere nice for that.

Most happy holiday home owners i know here in spain are pretty well off and usually have their own businesses so can spend as much time in them as they want. You cannot beat just buying a single airline ticket and going back home when you need to.

The Algarve (Portugal) is cheapish, you can get a nice 2 bed house with own pool for 180K Euro.

Eg this is the inlaw’s place and house next door just sold for that. 5 min walk to sea, 10min walk to centre of town.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/6os1BR]The Villa[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

Personally sounds great, reality is it’s much cheaper and nicer to rent someone else’s villa

This. As much as I get occasional urges to look at property in Southern France and Spain of the people I know who have done it few have not regretted it after a few years.
If money is not an issue then skipping years may be possible and holidaying elsewhere but if it is a major financial commitment then being “forced” to go to the same place every year is an issue for those I know. Each to there own though and this may not be an issue for you. For me I would prefer to share with family and spread the burden.

Portugal is a good call. Very cheap cost of living
Galician coast of Spain (colder than your target in winter) not sure about flight access further West
Adriatic Coast of Italy (admittedly that’s bot narrowing it down much but many “unfashionable” towns where property is cheap)
An STWer posted that he bought a farm in Umbria/Tuscany for £80k I recall

Have a read of @Speccie’s Pyrenees thread – colder in the winter again though

There are many cheap places to buy property in Europe

OP on second homes there arw different ways if approaching it. Located easily enough you can visit for a few days / long weekends or places where you go for weks / months on end. We regularly see retired folks on Eurotunnel who spend months in properties in Southern France. With AriB&B etc and local rental agencies you can let the place when you are not there and get some income to set against property taxes / utilities / maint.

Yes the idea would be to use for the school holidays and rent out the rest of the time via something like airbnb. I hear the point of getting bored of the place, I guess it would be to view it like another home rather than just a holiday rent? For the size place we currently rent is around 2k per week (2 X family of 4) so 6-8 weeks a year is about 12k a year so I guess if it can rent too then it’s quite a cheap option? I’ll have a look at malaga area, what’s the riding like?

OP – my FIL has a property to sell in SE Spain (Alcalali) if it’s of any interest? 3 bed detached villa with own pool on large corner plot. Approx 1 hr from either Alicante or Valencia airport, 30 mins from several nice beaches, plenty of great road riding nearby and there must be some MTBing cos there’s loads of mountains! Climate isn’t quite guaranteed sunshine (it does rain), but it is very pleasant and never gets stupidly hot. We’ve had some great family holidays there, but unfortunately he has dementia and we need to sell it for him.

Long shot, but drop me an email if you want some more info 🙂

That was me Jamba
Not a farm but 5 acres of paddock/woodland.
Out here now.
Under an hr from Perugia airport BUT only Ryanair fly there from Stanstead which is 3hrs from me in the uk.
EasyJet into Rome is the cheapest and averages £30 each way from Gatwick an hr with 2hrs’ish this end.

I’d buy in France though next time.
The area south of Limoge.
Hundreds of lakes, rivers, MTB trails, adventure areas and more.
More over BMI fly into Limoge from Southampton for £30 and it’s an hr to St Matthieu.

we have a place in mallorca, its a good location for a holiday home, but it doesnt meet your requirement for year round sun and 20-30deg temps, and as you note it can be a bit pricey, although as ever it depends on exact location.

Over winter it can be quite wet, and whilst not as cold as the UK, it can be colder than you might imagine. The winter is short though , theres probably 3 months a year where the weather is more likely to be colder and wet than warm and sunny (december,jan.feb).

Canary islands would meet your year round sun requirement,but not the 2 hour travel time.

Yeah the year round sun isn’t essential, just somewhere with a definite summer and short winter that will be good for sun most of the time

Warrington.

Saltcoats? On the Ayrshire Riviera.

Nightlife, vibrant etc. And only a short hop on the train down to Troon beach for some summer beach action.

I’ve just bought a flat in Torrevieja – very family friendly, and dirt cheap (2 bedroom loft for 70,000€ including pool+garage…). Not sure how good it is for MTB locally (and it looks pretty crap) but I’m more of a roadie these days and it’s fine for that.

I’ve bought the flat as a way to invest an inheritance, and my (Spanish) mother-in-law loves the place – everything’s local, including the church, dirt cheap eating out, etc. But… Do you really want to be tied to one place? It’s a lot of money when you could just go to hotels, and while it’s a leisurely 5 hour drive (including a stop for coffee) from where I live, add in getting to the airport + security + waiting for bags etc it’ll probably be closer to 9-10 hours for you.

I’d also be wary about the Air BnB route in Spain, at least – the local hoteliers are against it (as they quite rightly point out they’re held to higher standards of security/insurance etc), the local authorities aren’t keen as they’re missing out on tax, and in places like Barcelona and Mallorca the locals themselves are starting to protest at the massive rise in rents it provokes and the number of pisshead tourists who aren’t actually contributing that much to the local economy… I don’t think it will be 100% prohibited, but I can see a crackdown ahead which will probably involve registering your property with the local council and quite possibly paying some kind of fee. Not the wage earner you might be expecting.

Guaranteed sun (high 20s early 30s) for most of year

You seem to be confusing sun with temperature but either way there isn’t anywhere in Europe that meets your weather requirements. Even the Canaries (politically if not geographically Europe) get cloudy and temps drop to low 20s.

Mogrims right about airbnb controls, its on its way as its taking money off tax paying hotels. Also, on the rental portals you now have to enter your tax ref no, any online bookings are available to the tax authorities.

Saltcoats? On the Ayrshire Riviera.

Oi! 😆 😆 😆

Mackem – Member
Alora. In hills above Malaga. On the train line. Excellent riding, some nice bars/restaurants. There’s horse-riding and such like based there too.

Lovely place,we used to spend a lot of holidays in El Chorro, just down the road from Alora.

If you are considering Coimbra, have a look at the Lousã area. There are lots of trails in the Serra da Lousã mountains a particularly in the Miranda de Corvo and Gondramaz area. Prices are pretty low as it is off the beaten track. The road riding is pretty good as well.

The only way I’d ever buy a second home is if it were in the mountains. This doesn’t help you but somewhere I could bike and walk in the summer and ski in the winter is the only way I could justify it. Find somewhere with a lake if you need to sit by a beach.

Just for balance I can 100% go to the same place year in year out. I think the logic for a second home is that its a home, you spend a significant amount of time there, ie a month or more. Of course you can have the odd year off and go elsewhere.

Lunge I am certainly with you on that, one of my biggest regrets / errors was allowing my ex-wife to prevent me buying a place in the mountains 15 years ago.

The area south of Limoge.

We’re off in a couple of weeks to stay with friends who have bought and are renovating a place there…

I think a holiday home should be the opposite of what and where your main home is. So if you live in a flat in a city get a house in the country. Then put all your homely luxuries in it and enjoy living there. When the tenants move out of my uk flat i will keep it as a holiday home and start doing home swaps.

Im also perfectly happy to go to the same place on’holiday’ every year.been going to our place in mallorca since i was 8 (now 43).

Its not really a holiday in the typical sense,it just becomes a second home.

It would have to be Sierra Nevada for me if I had your requirements, somewhere close to the coast and mountains between Orgiva & Malaga.

Having said that – I’d just buy a van and make the entire of Europe my holiday home.

We bought a house an hour inland from La Rochelle in Western France 12 years ago. Best thing we’ve ever done. We have a big family so everyone uses it during the summer, there’s lakes less than three miles away, forests and of course the best French coast is an hour away. puy de fou is 20 minutes away.

Cost was £36k probably isn’t worth that much more now, but bar a year left on the mortgage it’s ours.

Property here is so cheap!

I regularly see property for sale for around the 50k mark which look amazing!

Our house for 36k is in the middle of the village Square,has 5 bedrooms (with room for more) a barn for partying. The roof when we replaced it was 250m2 it’s huge.

Ooo tour Fe France has a tour depart in our village next year too!

Flights into la Rochelle and Nantes from Stansted, Birmingham east Midlands and Southampton.

Malaga is looking very tempting, seems to be a lot of riding there plus a lot of Property choice. Will look more. Will also check france esp considering price!

Downtown Grozny, a bit like Dundee.