Looking for land in Spain
Finca update #1
It all started a while ago, in August 2019 I wrote that I was thinking about having a homebase and perhaps even settling down. After several years of hiking the Balkans and living in a tent, I knew I didn't want to go back to city life, but I didn't know where I would live then. Bosnia and Herzegovina? In 2020 I chose Zagreb as a temporary place to live. It was convenient, but never planned on staying there. I stayed in Zagreb for almost three years while I worked for an online travel agency to save up money. In the meantime, I explored the options to buy land in Croatia. That turned out to be too complicated and too expensive and also, I wasn't all that sure if I really wanted to be alone in the countryside of Croatia. It just didn't feel right.
I still had the dream to create a homestead. A homebase somewhere in a rural area, where I could live and grow food and build a tiny house. A place where I could welcome people, host friends and family and who knows what else. Preferably somewhere close to the mountains, but with mild winters, something Mediterranean. The misty months in Zagreb really did do me no good. I need daylight. Naturally Spain came on my radar.
Before I started the actual property hunt, I spent almost two year in Spain. I needed time to figure out what exactly I wanted, what I needed and of course where I wanted all of that. I cycled around Spain, hiked across mountains, did volunteer work on farms and started to learn Spanish. Kind of similar to my time in the Balkans, except that now my goal was not hiking or cycling a certain trail, but finding a place to live.
What I want
Interestingly I ended up buying land in the area I had in mind before I even arrived in Spain. Somewhere between Barcelona and Valencia, but not on the coast, no of course I wanted to be near the mountains. Els Ports Natural Park was one of the places where I passed by on my bike and thought, I really have to come back here. I know I've said that a lot, but when I actually came back after seeing many many other areas, I was very sure this would be my place. It felt good and it checked all the boxes.
Because I've been roaming around for a long time, the idea of what I wanted became very clear. For example, I realized that living in the mountains maybe sounds like a dream, but would make other things I wanted to do on the land very difficult. I had to choose. I had to figure out what was most important for me now and what exactly did I want from the land?
That was (and still is) a proces.
A place to call home. A place to be and feel free. A homebase. Quietness. Create a homestead. Work on the land. Host people. A place to grow and learn new skills. To challenge myself. Grow food, learn about organic gardening, regenerative farming, permaculture. Soil recovery. Etc. Build things, a greenhouse, outdoor kitchen, toolshed, a tiny house. Renovate a stone house. Restore an abandoned olive grove. Become an olive farmer. What?!
Checklists
And then there was the checklist in my head. Knowing that you can't have it all, I tried to list down the things I should pay attention to. This way I wasn't really checking things on or off, but it was more of a process of thinking about the pro's and con's. Of course there was more, but this is what I could think of now. Besides the list with important topics, I also had some clear YES's and NO's. Ideally I would find a place with more yesses than no's, but also here I tried to stay realistic.
Climate
Weather
Water
Terrain
Altitude
Accessibility
Soil quality
Sun exposure / shade
Wind exposure
Fire risk
Flood risk
Surroundings
Community
House / ruin / building permits
Planned projects on the land or nearby
Property hunt
Once I started the actual property hunt, it all went very fast. Within one week, I viewed about 10 properties. Some were interesting, others were a joke. And then there was a finca which had been abandoned for a while, had lots of garbage lying around and generally needed a lot of love. An interesting project though. But before I get into that, let me quickly talk about how to search for land in Spain.
There's different platforms that offer rural properties, but the one I used is Idealista. While cycling across Spain, I often checked the Idealista app to see what's for sale in that area. I marked lots of properties as my favorite and got notifications if for example the price had changed. I also got notifications for new properties in area's I liked. This way I could get a bit of a feel for what was available and what prices were asked.
When I decided to visit properties, I first tried to get in touch with the owners or real estate agent through Idealista. There's is a chat / message section which could be convenient, but in reality you often don't get any response. In Spain it's better to call or use WhatsApp. WhatsApp worked perfect for me. Usually I would get the coordinates of the property and I could visit it by myself, but there were also agencies that took a few hours to drive me around and showed a bunch of properties that matched my wishes. The fact that I don't have a car, wasn't a problem at all.
Too good to be true?
With most of the properties it was immediately clear if it was a yes or no. Only the #7 and #8 had potential. Still, it was not exactly what I was looking for. A bit further in the valley there would be another property, a finca that seemed really interesting. The only thing that didn't attract me was the fact that that part of the valley only had olive groves. A lot of olive groves, monoculture all around. But well, you can't have it all and it wouldn't hurt to have a look.
To my surprise I really really loved it. The ride up was gentle, no steep hills, the views were amazing and the area was very quiet. There was a calmness that overwhelmed me. In a good way. The olive groves were small, a lot of them, but it all felt so peaceful. And then the land itself, property #9 was just perfect.
Wow, would this be it? Or is it too good to be true?
