I also know very well Romania - is of course a lot cheaper than Spain on average, but if you want to live with the same "standards" you would have in Spain the pricing is not so different. Yes, taxis are way cheaper, so is "local food", but good restaurants, cars, music clubs, or nice flats are not so differently priced in Bucharest than in the rest of Europe. Bulgaria is even cheaper than Romania - Slovakia and Estonia are more expensive than Bulgaria and Romania but still cheaper than Spain.

Regarding your original question - yes, Greece is somewhat cheaper than Spain too. Generally speaking about EURO countries, southern europe is cheaper than central and northern europe, just because the average wage is lower in the South, but there are notable exceptions in some aspects: for example, you will find a good flat much cheaper in Berlin than in Madrid, and this is because the fucked up mentality of spaniards regarding real estate that I tried to explain earlier.

Summing up, if you want a "headquarter" in a nice place, to then travel Europe, northeast of Spain (Catalonia) is a very nice and balanced choice. I would explore that.

Beware: aprox. BTC15K just appeared on the order book. That could be a nice round of bullets for the bears, prepare your bids and fasten your seat belts.

If you want it as a base to visit the rest of europe, you need a good connected airport near by. I would recommend Catalonia then, near Barcelona. You are also near to the border to France if you wish to rent a car and just travel around Europe. That's a great plan.

About 25% youth unemployment... You heard bad. It's 27.2% as per Q1 2013 (http://www.tradingeconomics.com/spain/unemployment-rate) and that's the TOTAL figure. Youth unemployment is much worse. Under 25 yo, unemployment rate is 55.9% (http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Unemployment_statistics)

Still, a lot of "black economy" in this country. A huge part of the tourism income (which is the first industry of the country, BTW), is "black economy". Youngsters work as waiters and they just don't declare shit. This is southern europe, man

Well, in the touristic places most of people speak english, which is not the case in the deep Spain - but you are not considering deep Spain, so the answer is yes, most people will speak enough english, even if it's going to be very bad and macarronic.

About girls... Don't know what to say, man. It's not like Asia, where you really see how girls are really into westerns... Well, here girls like americans, spaniards, italians, frenchmen... Whatever fits them

Here info about Majorca: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallorca

And here is info about Formentera, the paradise (is where I usually go for vacation): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formentera

Still, Formentera is very expensive, very very very expensive, it's like a paradise, so I wouldn't even look at it to buy a flat. If you come to Spain, you can always go and visit it, renting a flat four a couple of weeks (which is more affordable) - I would myself invite you with pleasure.

In my opinion is bad. It's just old retired people who lives a hell of a life with their British Pounds retirement money. This is why I said living in a city like Torrevieja could be somewhat depressing.

If you buy something beautiful outside the city, that's cool. Near by you have places with a lot of social life, like Alicante for example. But if you really want a beautiful place with "real life" near by, and closer to the rest of Europe, I would personally recommend Catalonia. Living near by Barcelona is GREAT, and much more fun than living in Torrevieja or other small sea side city.

Another option is to go for Mallorca - that's an amazing island, it's really paradisiac. Formentera or Ibiza are even better, but they are MUCH expensier, so if you're target price is 25K I would forget about them.

But, in Mallorca you have the same problem as per Torrevieja - there is a huge population of old retired folks, in the case of Mallorca not from Britain but from Germany.

Really Goat, if you want help I would be glad to help you - it would be great to see you in Spain soon.

Yeah, you are right. Something can go really bad with BTC and a panic sell can be triggered. Just remember what happened with the fork, imagine that it took longer to fix...

But the truth is that after the April, 10th crash we had days with HUGE volume. Damn, we had two days where we had ATH volume. I really believe the bigger sell off has already happened - and that was April, 16th, where we had +BTC550k sold. I could bet we won't have a single day with that volume in the next month, unless something really disruptive happens (I mean a really big technical problem, etc.)

Believing that what we say in this thread can talk the price up or down is delusional.

We may have a couple of delusional guys in here who think they can manipulate the price with their talk, but we all know that's not happening

Spain can be a place in deep deep crisis, but if there's something you should not worry about is criminality rate. Remember this is the "old europe", no one has guns, robberies are very rare and almost always non violent. Just to give you an exact figure: in 2012 we only had 390 murders in Spain, and 61 of this murders were commited by husbands who killed their wives. And this is a country of 50M inhabitants.

Seriously, criminality is the last thing you need to worry about if you want to move to Spain.

I'm a bull long term, but short term I expected this bubble to capitulate further down as per Slippery Slope. Anyhow, after the last sell off to $80 (I expected going down to at least $60ish), I'm starting to think that visiting again $80 or below is unlikely, which of course contraddicts the strategy I decided to follow after April, 10th. The fact is that it looks like all the sellers already made their big sell offs. I'm still not going all in, I still keep my bids all the way down, I still think that the $90 to $120 rally we had during the weekend was a joke... But somehow I'm starting to realize that bears are running low of ammo, I kinda feel it.

If I'd had BTC25K I would be a mega supernode and I would just hold on them like a mofo.

You mean $25k? Just buy BTC, man. Then you can invest those BTC in ASICs, or whatever... But the first step is to buy BTC, and the wiser choice may be to just hold on them.

Man, where are all the bears? This is all the bullets they have? None of my bids got filled, and I had one at $116... How is that possible? I got goxxed?

The Torrevieja deal is really nice, but I can guarantee you is not standard. Maybe the house really needed a lot of work and money in restructuring it, etc. The area is nice too, Apraksin friend made a good deal for spanish standards.

About your question: I can help you if you want. Here you have a very small studio in Torreviaje, old an stuff, for only 23K€. Not bad: http://www.idealista.com/en/inmueble/26012601/?xtmc=1_1_torrevieja&xtcr=10

Here you have a lot of flats on sale in Torrevieja, they are at least 50% cheaper than before the bubble burst: http://www.idealista.com/en/buscar/venta-viviendas/torrevieja/

Still, I wouldn't live in the centre of a small city like Torrevieja, IMO is quite depressing.

That's why I explained that houses are still VERY expensive in absolute terms. Here pople is used to take mortgages of AT LEAST 20 years to pay for them, and they are very used to mortgages of 40 years - that become the standards in the 2000s. And people devote 70% of their monthly net income to pay for the mortgage (and banks allow them to do so), so you can see how crazy is the situation in this shitty country.

As wikipedia says:


The bold part is so sad an stupid, but still true. Spaniards don't blink if they have to spend 70% of their income in a house for 40 years, and this is just so painfully stupid and sad... Because they always thought that "bricks will always hold value, in 2 years I can sell the house and make a 40% profit... I multiply the money I never had and that was loaned to me by a bank!"

And now they all got it in their asses. They still owe a HUGE debt to the bank, for all their lifetime, and their property is worth 50%.

About your specific question: no way you can buy a condo/flat for $20k in Spain. Forget about it. Check this page (http://www.idealista.com/en/) and you will see the different rates.

As an example: a flat in Nerja a very normal "Costa del Sol" city, still costs 350K€ for 120m2 (http://www.idealista.com/en/inmueble/1205503/). Of course you can get something for half of that in a "not so nice" place (Costa del Sol is one of the preferred vacation places for spaniards), but still don't even dream about a 2/3 rooms flat for less than 150K€ (if you want it new and in mint condition - of course you can get something MUCH cheaper if you're ok with an old construction in the centre of a smallish city near the sea).

Yeah, of course. Anyhow you can check the biggest real state portal in spain, "idealista": http://www.idealista.com/en/

There you will have an idea of the pricing in different areas.

It really depends, Goat - in absolute terms real estate is still VERY EXPENSIVE in Spain, in relative terms is very cheap as in some areas the price went down 70% when compared to 2006 (mostly on the sea side, where HUGE constructions where built because of the housing bubble, and now they are empty).

I say expensive in absolute terms, because a shitty flat in Madrid STILL costs +250K€. For many parts in the world, that's still a crazy price. A flat in a sea city, very very normal (average qualities, maximum 2 rooms, etc.), can still cost +150K€, which IMO is not "cheap" in absolute terms. It's still 10 years of full salary for the average Joe. Of course you can buy a flat in an abandoned "resort" for less, but I can guarantee you that pretty much sucks.

If you are really interested in it, drop me a PM and I will give you directions, I would gladly help.

Wikipedia info about the spanish housing bubble: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_property_bubble

An example of lots of abandoned sea-side construction: http://www.burbuja.info/inmobiliaria/burbuja-inmobiliaria/202508-heridas-inmobiliarias-costa-mediterranea-fotografias.html

Man, they took it down to 115, but it doesn't seem they have enough bullet to even test $100 ATM.

Team red is running low on ammo, folks...

This is a good sell off, now!

It looks like bears are running out of bullets. These are mini sell offs