Maybe Mojacer?

Well Steve, I hope you enjoy your one week holiday in Mojacar. That's all it is a week's holiday. If you are serious about retiring to Mojacar Playa I recommend you spend a few weeks renting in the area in the off season and no less than five weeks where you will find (i) If Mojacar is suitable for you and (ii) If Spain is for you. 

We don't know when you're retiring or what age you are and whether you wish to buy or rent. 

A good starting point for you would be to be familiar with rental and for sale properties in the area and you don't have to leave your mother country for this as the internet can be helpful. Likely, you need to speak with your immediate family too regarding your move. In the short term I recommend you don't put your mother country house for sale. If Spain is not for you a hastened retreat could be pretty painful if your house is sold. 

Apologies, for being so negative, but I've seen many people eating a lot of humble pie after burning their boats with the UK. Tred carefully and believe half of what you see and nothing of what you hear. 

If I were to offer you one piece of advice on retirement and a potential move to Spain it would be to rent out your mother country property and rent in Spain. You should end up well ahead financially on that alone and perhaps you will enjoy Spain better?

Thanks for replying. Yeah pretty much a slow process of spending time across the regions over next few years and then settling on a particular region. After that try and fine tune down to a smaller area like a town. Then smaller again etc etc. Only then I can do the rental thing for a few months and then decide if buying is the way forward. I have until October 2024 to spend on the research so quite awhile. Planning on starting in Almeria. Then various other regions as the years go by.....just so happens that Mojacer is the first place I have chosen. I guess it doesn’t have to be......

I would fully echo Matthews advice,

A week here a week there will no way give you a 'taste' of any area(apart from the real carp ones)

I would also add to spend time both 'in' season and out of season.

It would help you to write a list of what you want and would like from an area ie

climate,the North can be very much like the UK,the South very hot(unlike the UK)or Ireland for that matter

expat community

mainly Spanish

shops

medical facilities(as we get older our bodies tend to fail in many ways)

coast

inland

type of property/price although prices will fluctuate over 4 years

transport links

you can then give each 'priority' a score of 1-5, 5 being most important

that will help you do a lot of research from home on the tinternet

I will know very quickly if any of the areas are going to make the short list. A week is all I will need. I plan on 3 holidays a year to selected areas throughout Southern Spain. I hope to get a list of about 3 at the end of the 3 years or so of travelling around. . Then those 3 will be where I will spend on/off season time and this will be in rented accommodation. After this period of time, I should be able to make a decision. There isn't any major rush TBH. Steve

Is brexit going to change your plans?

Negative

Ok.. .?

As in I am still planning on moving to Spain. Brexit is a complex issue. I think the whole IPREM increase thing might catch some people out so that's a worry for them.

I am fortunate that it doesn't affect me, so plans are the same. I should have started the visits last year, but clearly C19 prevented that. Here is hoping I can make my first visit summer 2021.......

Steve

Good luck.  Matt and Hart are right - spend some time out of season to see whether you like the place when it is quiet.

On the positive side, lots of people on here have done what you are doing (hell, you’ll be able to justify a lot of holidays as “research” -shame there is no tax benefit) and are happily settled.  But I am sure Matt is right that lots of people have their holiday-induced rosy-tinteds on and make poor decisions for them.

You can get some feeling of the cost of properties online - i.e. what you can get for whatever your budget is.  But no idea of context.

Difficult time to begin to look though - with C19 etc.

As I began, good luck but I did it and am delighted with my Mojacar property.