Can we live in Granada? Yes but…

Can we live in Granada? Yes but…

A month ago we left Antequera after a year of living there. Although we liked Antequera, we just felt that it wasn’t for us. Life is short and we’re not getting any younger. So we decided that we’d move on.

We decided that our next (potential) base would be Granada.

Granada was one of the original cities that we had visited when scouting Spain in 2020. We had liked Granada but we weren’t sure at the time. We wondered if it would be too small for us and if we would get bored over time. We were a bit worried that we might be too far from a major airport (a 90-minute bus ride away at the time). We wondered if the weather extremes would be too much: very hot in the summer, very cold in the winter (by Spanish standards).

Part of all that was we just weren’t sure of exactly what we wanted. We didn’t even have our Spanish visa at the time and really it was all new to us.

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So we’re 4 years later. We’ve lived in Spain 3 ½ years now and have lived in both Nerja and Antequera. I mentioned previously that these 2 cities were almost exact opposite experiences. We liked Nerja when we first moved there in late 2020 but after the covid restrictions were lifted it became full of tourists and expats. It wasn’t our vision of Spain. So after 2 ½ years we moved to Antequera. Antequera was great, a beautiful city. It’s the real Spain. But it’s a small city and there’s not much going on. And as foreigners we felt a bit isolated there. Still, we mostly loved our time in Antequera and knew we were on the right track – we wanted something like Antequera but a place that was more cosmopolitan and bigger.

Based on that, and based on our first visit 4 years ago, Granada made sense. It’s a beautiful city full of history, it’s the real Spain, it’s surrounded by beauty. But it’s also more happening than Antequera, it just has more life. There’s a small expat community and before even moving here we had people reaching out and wanting to get together.

So we rented a temporary apartment for 2 months with the goal of figuring out “Can we live in Granada?”. Because a lot has changed since 2020, the biggest being that we now know what we’re looking for in terms of a Spanish base.

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It didn’t take us long to decide that the answer is “Yes: we could definitely live in Granada”.

We really like Granada. There’s lots of nature and we have an apartment in Genil along the river. Every day we go for walks. There are always people: joggers, people walking their dogs, kids on their bikes. There’s an energetic air to Granada. In the background you see snow in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada (even though there’s a lot less than when we arrived 4 weeks ago). We’ve walked around the Alhambra, there are lots of trails through the forest with gorgeous views everywhere. It’s a beautiful city with lots of nature.

Even more importantly the locals have been incredibly friendly. I’ve mentioned it before, we got lots of strange looks in Antequera. Here we’ve struck up conversations with random strangers. It’s been night and day. I don’t know why, but the people have been incredibly friendly in Granada.

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We do lots of walking and the lights along the river are lit up at night. It’s stupid but somehow it reminds me of Paris.

Something that’s changed also over the last few years is the accessibility of Granada to other places. There’s now a high-speed trail line connecting Granada to Malaga which means you can now get to Malaga in an hour and 20 minutes. It’s the same line that links Antequera to Malaga. So that’s made Granada much more accessible than when we were here in early 2020.

Granada is cosmopolitan. There are lots of Spanish restaurants and this might be the mecca of tapas. But there are lots of other options. I came across an Asian store a few days ago that sold nothing but Asian products. There are a few Indian restaurants and our first week here I’ll admit that we ordered in 3 times (no Indian restaurants in Antequera so we were in withdrawal).

It’s not a huge city but it’s big enough. There’s a tram running through the city, there are several major shopping centers (there’s even an Ikea).

It didn’t take us long to realize that yes, we could live in Granada for at least a couple of years. It’s the most comfortable place we’ve felt in Spain to be honest.

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Now the “But”.

We started looking for a long-term apartment within 2 weeks of our arrival in Granada. It’s been incredibly frustrating and I’m starting to lose hope.

First of all, there’s a lot of demand so you’re competing with a lot of people. Any decent looking apartment you’re applying for on Idealista or Fotocasa, there are hundreds of people applying for the same apartment (Idealista shows you how many people have emailed a listing showing up on their site. Literally hundreds respond in a day).

We know a real estate agent here and she told us that, besides all the students (and many apartments are rented out only to students), there are a lot of companies and professional people moving to Granada.

Besides the competition for apartments, there’s a 2^nd obstacle that we never knew would be an issue. The “nomina” or payroll. When applying for an apartment here, landlords want to have copies of your payroll. Of course, as retired expats, we don’t have payroll. We have savings and in the past we’d show the same proof of financial means that we used to obtain our Visa. It was never an issue.

It doesn’t matter if you have a million euros in the bank. Landlords here have wanted to see payroll slips. And we questioned one landlord why the nomina was so important. The reason, he told us, is insurance. Many landlords take out renters’ insurance and one of the stipulations is that anyone renting out meets certain criteria, including payroll.

We’ve started offering to pay up to 6 months rent in advance. That hasn’t worked.

We’ve worked with agents, including some recommended to us, and have also searched on our own. So far we haven’t even come close to renting an apartment.

Honestly, we’re getting really frustrated and discouraged.

What are our options? One agent told us we should buy. We don’t want to buy. The goal is to rent an apartment somewhere until we have permanent residency in 2 years. Then we’ll consider our options.

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So that’s where we stand right now. Could we live here? Yes. Will it happen? I’m starting to think that the answer to that is no…

Stay tuned…

Update: Finding an apartment in Granada. Things learned

Related: Living in Antequera (compared to Nerja)

Related: Why Spain? How we got here