Could anyone please advise if Mar Menor is ideal for full time retirement living or is it more suitable for purchasing a holiday home? - Page 2

The Mar Menor area would be an ideal place to buy a property to retire in. The main tourist periods are between the months of June to September and then a large percentage of the properties are shut up until the following summer, with a possible re-opening of some for Christmas and Easter. Winters can be pretty quiet as some of the restaurants and bars only open during the summer season. That said, there are places where there is a good all-year-round life with everything that you could need to live comfortably. The Mar Menor area is not as well known to the British as other areas of Spain, and property prices do reflect this. Towns such as Los Alcázares and San Javier have everything that you would need on a day to day basis - good supermarkets, health-centres, markets, and general shops and also have quite a reasonable number of British/Irish permanent residents, with their clubs and a few pubs, etc. but still feels quite Spanish. As others have suggested above, come over and stay in one place for a couple of months or book a few separate visits to try out a few different places. Obviously, if you are British citizens and are planning to relocate permanently to Spain, you will need to see whether you fulfill the new requirements for becoming residents here, as since the UK left the EU, the rules have now changed.

Peter,

You seem a little confused because I di not say -

"Eduardo has said, you need to spend time seriously looking before you decide to live in Spain".

I am not going to go into long debate but we do Beach and sun like most of the Mar Menor but do not have  lots of places with tourist food and ex-pat bars. As I had said we actually have a theatre in Santiago La Ribera look at the July program.

I must agree with what Crissy has said

One big advantage with the Mar Menor area is that it is relatively flat. Many area's of Spain are quite hilly, often a short walk to the shops involves a steep climb. The cost of living is much cheaper then many area's of Spain, you can still get a cup of coffee in a number of cafe's for less then a euro!

I think we were spoilt by living in Málaga province, and not realising (as a Spanish neighbour said yesterday) that Los Alcázares is a village, with village attitudes and facilities. Our error.

Before taking steps to live here I recommend spending time out of the season. It is very different living in a place rather than being on holiday!

Would it not be better for you to move back to where you like than complain and try to pass your feelings onto people asking true advise about the area,

As for village facilities, the village where I lived in the UK had no buses, no shops, post office, medical centre or pub to name but a few, I believe Los Alcazares has all of these and even restaurants.

Hi, I’m a new member. I have lived for 15 years in Granada Province and love it. I am now in a position to buy a holiday home on the coast. I have been to Santiago de Ribera a couple of times and love it. Each time I have been it feels very Spanish. I have not seen too many Brits and absolutely not seen any Kiss me quick hats! 😜 The property prices in the town seem very reasonable. Is this normal or is it because the Mar Menor is still a green mess? I would like to rent the property for holiday let’s when my family and I are not using it. So I guess my question is are people still vacationing in Mar Menor and are the local council/govecleaning up the water? Thanks in advance for your help. 😊

Don't believe everything that you read in the papers! The Mar Menor is certainly not a green mess and the problems of the run-offs from the agricultural land are being resolved. The Spanish government has just allocated a sum for the improvement of the area. This recent summer brought thousands of happy tourists to the area, many of whom own second properties here, and now that we're in the quiet season, the place is still busy but not as busy as the summer. In fact, it's better here out of season! The Mar Menor area is still a best-kept secret and we hope never to see any kiss-me-quick hats here in the near or the distant future!

Hi, I have uploaded two pictures from today 14/11/21 & you can see the quality of the Mar Menor water on the Santiago de la Ribera side. The water is lovely & there were people swimming there today.

Thank you. It looks like I remember it. I will be looking around for apartments there soon 😊

Wishing you all the very best for the future.