Advice needed!Buying in Spain & the bad euro!

tobysmummy_2

Hello, I'm a newbie to this forum, so hope I'm posting this in the right place;) This could be a long one, so please bear with me while I try to explain our situation....

We have purchased a house in Spain and are due to complete the transaction April/May this year - we have about 190,000 euros left to pay.

We have just sold our house here, and now that we have paid off our mortgage, solicitiors etc, we are left with £165,000 in the bank.

Now, our question is this - with the Euro being at an all time low at the moment, are we better off putting this money into a high interest account, and taking out a mortage for our property in Spain? My Husband seems to think that we can take an interest-only mortgage, and use the interest from our house sale money to pay this, leaving us with the £165k in the bank until the euro is better and we can pay the mortgage off. (we'd be getting a Spanish mortgage) Or is this a stupid move, and should we just pay the house in Spain off? We also have to pay for removals, furniture and general set-up costs when we get there so need to save any money we can.

Does all this make sense? Any advice on how we can make the most of our money with the exchange rate being so bad is much appreciated! Thanks in advance.

hearts

I am no expert by any means but it sounds ok if you expect the £ to rise against the Euro. What if it doesnt come back to previous levels and continues to fall?
Why not split the difference and pay off half the cost. Then whatever happens you're only half as exposed. ;-)

Good Luck and have a nice life in Spain.:beer:

Madmel

Some UK banks offer Spanish mortgages. My sis has one from Halifax for her home in Southern Spain. Is it worth a trawl down your local high street plus a call to a mortgage broker to go through your options, especially as you have a few weeks in hand?

Enjoy your new life - things are so much cheaper out there!

bryanb

Something wrong here, the Euro is not at an all time low. Against sterling it is at an all time high.. ie I get less Euros for my pounds.

subjecttocontract

The Spanish morgage market is much more simple than anything in the UK. They have a very limited choice of product. You need to be carefull that you do not assume that what you can do easily & cheaply in the UK will also apply in Spain.

Especially do not assume that if you take out e.g. a 15 year mortgage and want to pay it off in 3 years time that the exit fees will be small !

Generali

As Mr T would have said, "Don't be messin' around wid no FX markets, fool."

I've got a degree in economics, worked in banking for 12 years and FX for 5 of those and I definitely wouldn't do this. You can live in a lovely place with no mortgage. Why take the risk for what would be at most £20k?