If you are looking to buy a holiday home in Spain, you could do a lot worse than consider the Costa Calida. So you have never heard of it before, you soon will, as more and more British and other northern Europeans are investing there. With land costing more in the old favourites of the Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol, many of the major developers and builders have moved here and are planning large developments and custom built resorts, usually round a golf course or two.



The Costa Calida is in southern Spain, north of Costa Almeria and south of the Costa Blanca. With a fantastic climate, hot in the summer, warm in the winter and very dry, you would wonder why it has not been developed in the past. The answer is communications and infrastructure, until very recently the road system on the Costa Calida was very poor and there was no airport serving the area. With EU money the roads have been upgraded and the old military airport at San Javier (now called Murcia Airport) has been rebuilt as an international terminal. Already the budget airlines are flying there from more and more places with very cheap fares, in fact I have flown from London, Stansted for ?20 on a number of occasions in just over 2 hours. You haven't got far to go once you have landed either, the runway virtually goes to the beaches of the Mar Menor ("The Inland Sea") making for spectacular landings.

Real local Spanish towns such as Los Alcazares and San Pedro are already seeing the benefits with rises in Costa Calida property prices and the old favourite of La Manga, with it's "Strip" and golf complex are booming. Currently new 2 bedroom apartments can be bought off plan for about ?80,000 or less and villas start at an unbelievable ?100,000 a few miles inland, probably less than a third of the price you would pay on the Costa del Sol. If you intend to rent out your property, I would always advise buying on a Costa Calida golf complex, and then you will get bookings all the year round with families in the summer and golfers in the spring and autumn.

The local Costa Calida beaches are fantastic and the shallow waters of the Mar Menor are warm and safe. There are plenty of good restaurants to be found, with cheaper prices than you would pay elsewhere. With bargain short flights, great prices and plenty of sunshine, I expect Costa Calida property to be a good long term investment.