Buying in Spain

That is what we do, and it is the only promise we need to make.

Who we are

DEEP is a team of specialized agents with experience in real estate, law, and luxury hospitality. We work as a boutique firm: we choose the projects we take on and we keep a limited portfolio, so that we can put one hundred percent of our structure and our attention at the service of each client.

We do not work like a traditional real estate agency. We are not a product showroom. We are a firm with international experience that wants to modernize the real estate sector through precision and effectiveness, with a very clear idea of how a client who entrusts their wealth to another country should be treated.

The structure behind us

• •Specialized agents by type of transaction and by area.
• •Architects and construction professionals for renovation, building work, and project management.
• •Attorneys for the legal, land registry, and residency side.
• •Administrative, financial, and tax advisory.
• •Our mortgage broker, specialized in international clients, with experience abroad and a track record of success and a strong reputation.

And we work with the best agencies on the market. Our client has access to every property available, not only to ours.

We are not going to show you what suits us to sell. We are going to show you what there is.

How we work

• •A single point of contact: DEEP. You talk to us, and we talk to everyone else. There is no call center, no shifts, and no change of person halfway through the transaction.
• •Method before price. Actual floor area, land registry status, encumbrances, and coordination between the Land Registry and the Cadastre before negotiating. Discrepancies are flagged in advance, never discovered at the notary.
• •Total transparency. Our fees are explained in writing, with the amount, before you commit to anything.
• •Discretion. Nothing is published without permission, and no one visits a property without prior screening.
• •Immediate response. The client does not wait in line.

The three people you will have in front of you, and who you will deal with from start to finish.

Spain is not just sun and beach. It is a way of life.

To those who come from abroad we always say the same thing: here you are not only buying a house, you are buying a way of being in the world. Good weather almost all year round, a social life that happens out in the street, real food, time to enjoy it, and the peace of mind of a safe and stable country in the heart of Europe.

Cost of living

The question every client asks is simple: with my capital, how well can I live here? The answer is that you live better for less: living in the United States costs on average around 40% more once housing is included.

Price difference of Spain compared with the United States. Source: Numbeo.

Spain compared with other destinations

Legal certainty

Buying in Spain means buying with guarantees: a European Union country, the euro as its currency, and a reliable land registry system in which every property has a public, verifiable history before you sign. For someone investing far from home, that predictability is worth as much as the price.

Spain answers the question of why Europe. The next question is a natural one: within Spain, why the Costa Blanca?

The Costa Blanca answers the question of where. And at the center of it all is Alicante.

We are not talking about a lost village or a huge, impersonal metropolis. Alicante is a city on a human scale, with the sea inside the city, the services of a provincial capital, and an international airport fifteen minutes away. The right balance between a calm life and staying connected to the world.

• •The sea inside the city. Postiguet beach is right by the center, with temperatures between 45°F in winter and 88°F in summer.
• •A center with soul. The Santa Cruz quarter, the Explanada de España by the port, the marina, and Santa Bárbara castle atop Mount Benacantil.
• •A city for walking. In ten minutes on foot you are at your destination. Here you recover something that in the United States has almost been lost.

The Costa Blanca, beyond the city

Less than an hour from the airport, each town has its own character: Altea, a white old town above the sea. Calpe, the Peñón de Ifach rock and a well-established international community. Jávea and Dénia, coves and pine woods by the sea. Benidorm, services all year round. Santa Pola and Torrevieja, a fishing-town feel and more accessible entry prices.

Valencia, the best city in the world to live in as a foreigner

A little over an hour away is Valencia, the third-largest city in Spain. The InterNations city ranking, which every year surveys tens of thousands of expats around the world, has repeatedly placed it in first place worldwide for living as a foreigner. It is not because of any single thing, but because of how they all add up: you get around on foot, it is affordable for a major capital, it is safe, it has a beach inside the city, and healthcare and services of the highest level.

It is also a city to look at. The Gothic Lonja de la Seda, a World Heritage Site, sits alongside the modernism of the Mercado Central, one of the largest fresh-produce markets in Europe, and the contemporary architecture of the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias by Santiago Calatrava, today an international icon of the city.

Where the Turia river once ran there are now five and a half miles of gardens crossing the city from end to end, the largest urban park in Spain. Together with the Malvarrosa beach, the farmland that surrounds it, and a mild climate all year round, it explains why those who visit do not forget it.

And it has an intense street life. The Fallas, recognized as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, fill March with ephemeral art, fireworks, and celebration. Paella was born here, and the culture of Sunday family rice dishes is still part of the calendar.

It is no coincidence that it has become popular among buyers from northern Europe, Dutch, German, Belgian, and British, and increasingly among Americans who discover that a great European city can still be lived calmly and by the sea. For many of our clients the ideal equation is clear: a home on the Costa Blanca and Valencia as the major reference city a step away.

Living here is easy, in large part, because getting here and getting around is easy.

Living well far from home comes down to one very practical thing: how easy it is to come and go.

Alicante has its own international airport and is connected by high-speed rail to the main transatlantic airport in Spain.

From plane to train, without leaving the terminal

Madrid-Barajas is one of the great transatlantic hubs in Europe, with direct flights to New York (about 9 hours), Boston, Miami, and Chicago. From the airport itself you connect to the high-speed train, which reaches Alicante in 2 hours and 20 minutes, with around fourteen trains a day each way.

A night flight and a morning train. You leave home in the afternoon and you are having lunch in Alicante the next day.

The high-speed rail network

Spain has the largest high-speed rail network in Europe and the second-largest in the world, behind only China, with close to 2,500 miles in service.

Punctual, comfortable trains, with wifi and no airport-style security checks. For an American used to the train not being a real option, it tends to be one of the most pleasant surprises of the country.

Getting around without a car

The center, the old town, the Explanada, the port, and Postiguet beach are all connected on foot. The TRAM light rail runs along the coast above ground toward San Juan beach, El Campello, Villajoyosa, Benidorm, and Dénia.

And there is a question that, sooner or later, we all ask when we think about living somewhere else: healthcare.

It is the first question almost every American client asks, and the one with the most reassuring answer in the whole dossier.

Spain has one of the most efficient healthcare systems in the world and one of the highest life expectancies on the planet, around 84 years, the second among the major economies behind only Japan.

There is private health insurance from €60 to €90 a month. The most complete policies go up from there depending on age and coverage. Even in the most expensive scenario, we are talking about figures that in the United States would correspond to a few weeks of equivalent coverage.

But the price is not what matters. What matters is the other thing.

What really changes

In Spain, if you need medical care, they treat you. That is all.

There is no need to check first whether the hospital is in your insurance network, or to negotiate coverage, or to wait weeks afterward for a bill with staggering figures for something that has already happened. There is no possibility of being ruined by an emergency, or ending up in debt over a treatment, or having to take out a loan to have surgery.

It is the same with education: affordable prices and no debt behind them. For many of our American clients, this is the part of the change of life that weighs most over time. It is not a saving, it is no longer having a worry.

On the Costa Blanca

The province of Alicante has spent decades caring for a very large international community. Care in English is common in the private sector along the coast, and there are pharmacies in every neighborhood with price-regulated medicines, far below US prices.

In Spain, getting sick does not ruin anyone.

Let us talk about this with the numbers on the table.

Homicide rate per 100,000 people. Spain has roughly one-seventh of the US rate, and is below the European average.

Put in everyday terms: here people walk at night, children go to school on their own, you leave the terrace door open, and the conversation about safety is not part of family routine.

A peaceful country, and it always has been

Spain is a safe country and has been so consistently. It is not a streak or a recent improvement: it is a structural feature of how life works here. It ranks 25th in the world in the 2025 Global Peace Index.

• •Firearm ownership is exceptional and heavily regulated. There is nothing resembling the everyday gun violence of the United States.
• •It is a country deeply opposed to war and armed conflict. It is a very settled social stance, cutting across society and visible in the street. Spain has not seen a conflict on its territory in generations.
• •Institutional stability. A member of the European Union, with the euro as its currency and a predictable legal system.

What crime there actually is

What exists is essentially against property and without violence: petty theft, pickpockets in tourist areas, and break-ins at empty homes out of season. It is prevented with normal measures, and with someone you trust keeping an eye on the house while you are away.

It is not that nothing ever happens here. It is that safety stops being something you have to think about every day.

This is the part that usually stops people. It should not, and least of all in your case.

To buy a property in Spain you do not need a visa, or residency, or to live here.

You can buy today, use the house a few weeks a year, and decide much later, or never, whether at some point you want to spend more time here.

The only thing you need: the NIE

Buying a home: what you pay beyond the price

When you buy a home in Spain, on top of the price agreed with the seller you have to add the taxes and the costs of the transfer. This is what they amount to.

And here there is some recent good news: since June 1, 2026, the Transfer Tax dropped from 10% to 9% in the Valencian Community for most resale homes.

Once you are the owner, the IBI property tax and community fees, both far below the equivalent US property taxes.

The Spanish mortgage

This section always comes as a surprise. With US rates at much higher levels, a Spanish mortgage is often the best financial piece of the whole operation.

And this is where our mortgage broker comes in. She has worked with DEEP for years and specializes in international clients, knows from the inside the criteria Spanish banks use to assess a foreign buyer, and knows how to present each file so that it goes through.

She is the one who personally negotiates the terms, bank by bank, and the one who allows us to offer, confidentially, rates in the range of 3 to 3.5%. As the table shows, that is at the good end of the market and not the average. For someone who in the United States would be financing at over 6%, that difference shows every month in the payment and completely changes the numbers of the operation.

And if one day you want to stay

None of this is needed in order to buy. It is information for the day you feel like spending six months here instead of three weeks. The route is the Non-Lucrative Visa, designed for those who retire in Spain: it allows you to reside and receive passive income, a pension, rents, or dividends.

It is shown through savings or passive income. It is not discretionary: it is set in the regulations and tied to the IPREM index.

Taxation, in three lines

• •There is a double taxation treaty between Spain and the United States. No one pays twice on the same income.
• •The United States taxes its citizens wherever they live. It is perfectly manageable and is coordinated between your advisor and ours.
• •Tax residency in Spain begins at 183 days of presence in the calendar year.

We do not replace your American tax advisor. We work with them.

Seen all at once it can look like a lot. And here is the important part: you are not going to have to do any of that.

Everything above, absolutely all of it, is included and handled by the full DEEP team.

In Spain it is normal for a foreign buyer to have to coordinate five or six different players on their own: the agency, an attorney, an administrative agent, the bank, the notary, and someone to do the renovation. Each with their own calendar, their own language, and their own version of events. The client ends up acting as project manager for something they do not understand, from another time zone.

With DEEP there is a single conversation.

How it begins

Before showing a single home we sit down to talk. No commitment and no rush. We listen to what you are really looking for, we understand your situation, we put the areas on the table with judgment, and we show you the key points of each place: where the hospital is, the international school, the market, how long it takes to the airport, and what that street is like on a Tuesday in February and not only on a Saturday in August.

After that meeting, the team knows very clearly what is possible in your specific case and can advise you precisely from day one.

The four phases

1. 01 Understand

   What we doAn in-depth interview, defining the engagement and the areas, and a realistic reading of what your budget can achieve in each of them.

   YouTell us what you are looking for.

2. 02 Search and verify

   What we doSearch and shortlist, including properties from other agencies we work with. In-person or guided video viewings. Legal, land registry, and encumbrance checks. Verification of the actual floor area and of the coordination between the Land Registry and the Cadastre.

   YouChoose what you want to see, and come if you feel like it.

3. 03 Buy

   What we doPrice negotiation. NIE and powers of attorney. Financing. Deposit and contract. Bank account opening. Notary and deed. Setting up utilities and community.

   YouDecide your limit, provide your documents, and sign once. If you give us power of attorney, not even that.

4. 04 Enjoy your property

   What we doRenovation, furnishing, and project management. Preparing the house before each arrival. And, on a permanent basis, the Deep Dive service.

   YouChoose and enjoy.

Deep Dive: the relationship does not end at the deed

Most agencies disappear the day of signing. We stay. A set of keys and surveillance of the home while it is empty, maintenance and repairs, parcels, taxes and utilities, preparing the house before each arrival, and liaising with the community.

For someone who is going to use the home two or three times a year across an ocean, this is not an extra. It is the difference between having a house in Spain and having a problem in Spain.

What it costs

Alicante today is where Valencia was ten years ago.

Valencia is, according to InterNations, the best city in the world to live in as a foreigner. That recognition came after years of urban transformation, and it came with prices already made. Alicante was third in the world in that same ranking, is on the same path, and is in the middle of its transformation. The difference is that here you can still get in.

Spain, euros per square meter

Alicante is the only one on the list below the national average. 26% less than Valencia, 36% less than Málaga, half of Barcelona. Source: idealista, August 2026.

International coastal cities

Same sea, same lifestyle, same international buyer profile. Against Nice, half the price.

And the city is about to change shape

Alicante has spent a century split in two by the railway tracks. The track-burial project and the new Central Station were presented in April 2026 with €420 million committed among the national Government, the Generalitat, and the City Council, and works have been underway since the start of the year. Where there are tracks today there will be a large urban park and a greenway, and the new intermodal station will connect the Renfe train with the TRAM at a single point for the first time.

In Alicante you can still buy the square meter below the average of Spain, with the quality of life of the third-best city in the world to live in as a foreigner. That is not going to last.

And now, the important part: what an ordinary Tuesday is like.

Spain received 96.8 million international tourists in 2025, an all-time record and the second-most-visited country in the world, behind only France. If the whole world chooses to come, there must be a reason. And for those who buy here there is a second reading: housing on the Spanish coast is backed by constant international demand that sustains the value of the asset.

Figures for the province of Alicante. The Blue Flags are more than half of all those in the Valencian Community. The Michelin stars are spread across 13 restaurants.

Golf

Fifteen courses affiliated with the Costa Blanca Golf Courses Association, open twelve months a year thanks to the climate. Las Colinas Golf has been named the best course in Spain five times at the World Golf Awards. Alicante Golf, on San Juan beach, was designed by Severiano Ballesteros and preserves the remains of a Roman villa from the first century BC.

Playing here in January, in shirtsleeves, is an experience an East Coast client understands immediately.

Gastronomy

The province brings together 17 Michelin stars in 13 restaurants, among them Quique Dacosta, three stars in Dénia, and BonAmb, two in Jávea. But what really changes daily life is not that: Alicante is a land of rice dishes, of seafood with the fish markets of Santa Pola and Dénia half an hour away, of Jijona nougat, and of a culture of tapas and markets that happens every day.

Festivals all year round

There is no dead season here, and much of the year has its festival. In June, Alicante throws itself into the Hogueras de San Juan, declared a Festival of International Tourist Interest: monuments that burn in the street, fireworks, and open-air nights to welcome the summer. The Moros y Cristianos festivals move through the towns of the province in spring and summer, and an hour away, in March, the Fallas of Valencia go up in flames.

The rest of the year keeps pace. In winter, between 59 and 68°F many days, you play golf, walk on the beach, and eat on the terrace. And autumn is the best-kept secret of the coast: warm sea, good light, and no crowds.

A good climate, you get used to. A good life, you do not.

In 2022, Daniel met Randy Talamayan at a wine tasting. Randy wanted to reconnect with his Spanish roots and buy in Spain. In 2023 they came to Alicante with his wife, María Lourdes, met David, and we closed the operation, taking care of everything: paperwork, bureaucracy, financing, and opening a bank account.

Since then we have never stopped being their people here. Randy began recommending us to his friends, and with the same method we have accompanied two more couples. His home has appreciated 25%, and we have a renovation project with him in an emblematic building in Alicante that closes in early 2027.

This dossier exists, in fact, because Randy invited us to come and tell the story.