Property Evaluation

Evaluating homes in Spain — construction quality, damp, roofs, orientation, utilities, solar, pools and the things specific to Spanish building standards that matter when buying.

August 6, 2026

Hard Water In The Costa Blanca: The Hidden Cost

If you've never given a second thought to the water coming out of your tap, the Costa Blanca will change that. Hard water in the Costa Blanca region is a given since a large part of it sits on limestone bedrock. As water travels through it, it picks up dissolved calcium and magnesium along the way. The result is what's called hard water. It's one of those small daily-life differences that catches a lot of newcomers off guard.

You'll find more about the basics of what hard water is and how it shows up on your utility bill on our Utilities page. Here we talk about what it means in day to day life and what to check before you buy a home.

July 23, 2026

Heating and Cooling Systems in Spain: What’s Different From the US

Heating, cooling and hot water all work differently in a Spanish home than they do in the US. It's worth understanding how, before you're standing in a property trying to figure out what you're actually looking at.

There's usually no central furnace and ductwork. Air conditioning often does double duty as the heating system. Hot water frequently comes from a small unit that heats on demand rather than a tank quietly keeping 50 gallons warm in the garage. None of it is worse, it's just different. Each one affects how you'll budget for and evaluate a property.

July 7, 2026

Solar Power For A Home In Spain

Solar power for a home in Spain is one of the first topics that comes up when you start seriously evaluating properties and for good reason. The sun hours here are among the highest in Europe, electricity prices have climbed steadily, and a well-sized system can cover the majority of a typical household's needs year-round.

What hasn't existed until now is one place that actually walks through the practical questions: how many panels you need, what it costs, what it costs to maintain, how long it lasts and what to look for whether you're buying a home that already has solar or adding it after the fact.

July 3, 2026

Spanish Property Checklists: Three Tools for Evaluating Homes

If you've been following along, you know that finding a home in Spain is not quite like buying a house back in the US. The agents are charming, the properties are beautiful and the questions you actually need to ask rarely come up on their own.

As we've been going through this process ourselves, one thing we kept running into was the gap between "interesting property" and "properties to make the list for final consideration." To help close that gap — for ourselves

June 15, 2026

What Pests Are Out There?

We now have two house hunting trips to Jávea under our belt— one last August and one in February. It was a great way to see everything in two different seasons.

One of the things we started thinking about when we got home was: what about pests? Is it like Florida where there are mosquitoes and snakes around all the time?

The reality, as it turns out, is there are some of the typical ones that one would expect, along with some that are specific to the Mediterranean climate. Yes, there are snakes. Yes, there are scorpions. And yes, a unique creature — the pine processionary caterpillar — that every pet owner in this part of Spain genuinely needs to know about before their first January here.