The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Post-FIRE => Topic started by: rob in cal on August 23, 2016, 02:17:41 PM
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I get a periodic email from international living magazine in which writers talk about their overseas lives. Today someone from Oliva Spain chimed in. What I was most intrigued by was the low cost of housing in a Mediterranean coastal area, like 500 euros a month for a nice apartment. Oliva is a little south of Valencia. Seems like a nice affordable area for those who want to be near the water in Europe but not spend an arm and a leg to be there. And Spain is relatively easy to get a "non-lucrative" residence visa I believe.
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I've read up on that website and it really opened my eyes to some really affordable areas in Europe. Spain and Italy of note. I think one of the greatest aspects of FIRE is living wherever you want. Thank you for the reminder about that site.
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I saw that post on International Living. It sounds wonderful there. She said she lives in a five bed, two bath place for $450/month! (I think they usually put prices in US dollars because they largely have an American audience but I'm not positive about it...either way euros or dollars that's a hell of a deal!)
Are there any expats living in Europe on here anywhere?
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http://www.retirementinvestingtoday.com/ (http://www.retirementinvestingtoday.com/) has a number of articles looking at European places to retire to (but from an EU citizen's point of view).
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I don't know a lot about this but there is a "wealth tax" that prsumably would be payable if you are above the threashold.
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One thing I'd caution is that a lot of these magazines are sponsored
by real estate ads, and the articles seem to convey all of the pleasures
and none of the downsides. At least one expat refers to a specific
magazine as "International Lying".
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Yeah, everything looks wonderful from International Living perspectives so you have to be a little skeptical. However, in this case I did check overall rental prices on idealista, and rents in the area are pretty low. I believe idealista is a good source. A huge amount of rental info for Spain and Italy.
Spartana, the Costa Brava looks to be my favorite part of the Spanish Med coast from photos I've seen at any rate.
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From financial news over the last few years, Spain in general and Spanish coastal real estate in particular are still recovering from the financial crisis. Therefore real estate costs there are still cheap. Worth investigating. Maybe you can visit, then rent, then buy if it looks right.
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For the EU folk, there is currently a Non-Habitual Resident programme in Portugal which allows you to take money out of your pension tax free (I checked that this worked out for a UK person but would expect it to be similar for other EU citizens).
It involves living in Portugal for a minimum of six months and a maximum of 10 (you can stay longer, but are no longer a non-habitual resident). No idea if this will still be possible when I get to 55/57/58? but it's forming one of my plans.
Anyone else up for an extended Portugal holiday in 2040ish?
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What are the insurance costs? I'm assuming the need for private insurance as a non-citizen? Would this offset the cheaper real estate costs?
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Oliva is a little south of Valencia. Seems like a nice affordable area for those who want to be near the water in Europe but not spend an arm and a leg to be there.
Be sure to visit before deciding because for every Altea there's a Benidorm (or, as many call it, "Benidoom").
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Spain is definitely one of our eventual settling possibilities!
I don't know a lot about this but there is a "wealth tax" that prsumably would be payable if you are above the threashold.
Can you explain more? Because on its face, this sounds like FUD. Wealth tax from who? US? Spain? How would they know how much you have? What are you talking about? :)
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A number of European countries have a wealth tax. Offhand France (Solidarity tax), Norway, Switzerland and Italy have a form of wealth tax.
Spain's has been introduced as a temporary measure a couple of times (once for 30 years). There is a 700k Euro threshold, and 300k Euro exemption for a primary residence. If you are not a residence then you need to appoint a registered person to do the calculation (so I assume he or she would ask about assets and then you would sign to say it is the right information and if you lied then they'd fine you).
It starts at 0.2% and goes up to 2.5% above ~11M Euro. Different regions apply the tax in different ways (some have a lower threashold and some offer rebates for tax paid so there is no net tax).
This is totally a real thing.
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A number of European countries have a wealth tax. Offhand France (Solidarity tax), Norway, Switzerland and Italy have a form of wealth tax.
Spain's has been introduced as a temporary measure a couple of times (once for 30 years). There is a 700k Euro threshold, and 300k Euro exemption for a primary residence. If you are not a residence then you need to appoint a registered person to do the calculation (so I assume he or she would ask about assets and then you would sign to say it is the right information and if you lied then they'd fine you).
It starts at 0.2% and goes up to 2.5% above ~11M Euro. Different regions apply the tax in different ways (some have a lower threashold and some offer rebates for tax paid so there is no net tax).
This is totally a real thing.
Agree, it's definitely a real thing. I imagine the very rich find a way of off-shoring much wealth so as to avoid paying tho. Or spending less than X days in the country so as to be a tax resident of Monaco, that sort of thing. Worth getting advice on it if you are over the threshold!
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Some members of this board are living in Spain and have blogs. Here's a link to one. I'm pretty sure there are more:
http://bucking-the-trend.com/
Here are a couple of other family travel blogs I follow that are currently based in Spain:
http://wagonersabroad.com/
http://www.anepiceducation.com/
Especially the Wagonersabroad website has tons of practical info on getting a non-lucrative visa, i.e., retirement visa.