
Buying My First Apartment in Barcelona – Part 1: Where to Start (2024)
Most people have a dream of some sort. Travel to the Seychelles, win the lottery, get a promotion, find the love of your life, learn to surf…
My dream for the longest time has been to buy a place to call home.
I have lived in 8 countries, across 10 cities and moved more than 23 times in my life. As you can imagine, being on the go that much it really didn’t make much sense to buy a place only to leave again 1-3 years later.
Now, however, I’ve been settled in Barcelona for almost 6 years with no plans on leaving anytime soon. I like it here.
Adding to that a combination of local factors (skyrocketing rental prices, decreasing interest rates, attractive fixed mortgage rates, a stroke of luck on my financial investments…) means that the time has finally come:
It’s time to buy a home in Barcelona!
As I’ve started going though the process, one thing I have come to realise is that English articles in Spain on buying homes are often written by companies trying to sell their services.
There is nothing inherently wrong with that, but it does mean that finding information that is practical, unbiased and tailored to the foreigner’s experience can take quite some time. Especially since most really useful articles are in Spanish.
Oftentimes I have found it more useful to just talk to a friend who has been through the experience here than find what I need on the web.
However, given that not everyone may be fortunate enough to have a friend like this, I have decided to share my home buying experiences with you here.
That way, my articles can be there in lieu of that friend and your home buying adventure may be made slightly smoother and simpler when your time comes too.
So, let’s get started!
Starting My Online Search – Idealista
Since I’ve never bought a place before and most of the people I know in Barcelona rent, my first priority starting on this journey has been to see what the market and its conditions look like.
Specifically, I have been looking to figure out three things:
- What is the process and cost to buy?
- How much can I afford to spend?
- Where are the best places to live? (Based on what I can afford to buy)
My first stop in doing this has been to visit a site called Idealista – one of the best known real estate search engines in Spain.
I have been scrolling Idealista for literally years now as I was looking for places to rent previously. I would also use it every now and then to take a look at the million dollar mcmansions I currently cannot afford to buy (hey, a girl can dream!)
Personally, I have found Idealista to be a really great place to start. Mainly because it has a number of different tools to help me find some basic answers to the above questions.
For example:
- There are a number of useful articles on their blog related to the process and cost of buying
- They have a mortgage calculator at the bottom of each property listing to help calculate affordability
- The site provides a valuations and property information area where you can look up the details of specific properties
- There is a news site with district and property information to assist your research
Other Real Estate Sites I Came Across
Despite being a huge fan of Idealista due to the helpful resources available in English, there are in fact a lot more places to go to search for properties and information.
The ones that I came across and personally quite liked were:
- Fotocasa (mostly popular with native Spanish speakers)
- Habitaclia
- Pisos.com
- Yaencontre (I really like the interface)
There are also a number of banks that sell their stock of properties through public real estate sites.
- Haya (Caixa, BBVA, Grupo Cooperativa Cajamar)
- Altamira (Santander, Spanish only)
- Aliseda (Banco Popular, Santander)
- Bankinter (Bankinter)
- Solvia (Banco Sabadell)
- Servihabitat (Kutxabank, Abanca)
Personally, I wouldn’t actually advise you to buy a bank property if it is your first purchase in Spain.
This is mainly due to potential complications with property state, potential squatters and not so great real estate services that I hear can be common with these types of properties and sites.
However, bank properties do tend to come linked with special conditions (e.g. up to 100% mortgages), which is why I do think they are worth a mention.
That – and the fact that most of these sites do not advertise themselves as being bank owned sites, so it’s good to know about them for transparencies sake.
So… that’s where I started. Stay tuned for the next article where I’ll take you through what I learned about the property buying process so far!
