Louis: I know nothing about taxes on dividends in Spain, sorry. I rented there, as I only lived there for a year. I just needed a note/declaration from my bank, it was relatively hassle free.
So you are supposed to use this thing to wash off your butt after taking a crap? I always thought it is for pee and had used it that way. how about this one? to toilet face-to-face with my wife? https://app.box.com/s/53khuv7olz09x2i8jry466ul5tkqqiwe
i stayed in a pareado airbnb and found it unacceptable. better than a condo but could hear the next door and his water flushing. maybe acceptable in europe, elsewhere the developers would be sued
I second this is generally the case for Spanish houses and apartments - particularly the further south you go. There are exceptions though so I guess the only way to know for sure is to spend some time in the actual development before committing...
Please comment if you disagree with what I think. Of course it is general. Below is what I have come to conclude for my months-long journey in Spain (bit in France) to check if this is where I would like to live and provide education for my next generation. I have instead decided to live in HK/SG/Tokyo. I would rather live in Malaysia or Thailand than Europe. A bit of myself, I am a 30-something Asian that grew up mostly in North America and went to a known school there then worked in finance for 10 years in Asia before turning independent. In search of a "better" 2nd life, I was considering to move to spain, buy a house in either Madrid or Marbella alrededores, send kids to a private school (Kings College Madrid, San Juan Estepona, Colegio Salliver etc), then build out the trading operations especially on the technology ends. After spending weeks in each region of Spain (madrid, basque, andalusia, barcy) and meeting with a few school officers, I have decided to pivot and stop fancying leading a successful life out of Europe. It is beautiful to visit and vacation but living and working here seem like a step back and will do the next-generation a disservice. Firstly, I can't see how Europe can be competitive and survive in the medium-future with all its outdated technology, inefficient systems, and backward mindset. The society seems to be content with the status quo and is ignorant about how fast the world is evolving. People seem to be short-sighted and lack the aggressiveness/ambition found in Asia/US. Secondly, education rigour generally is behind Asia as the schools tend to focus on "creative thinking" and liberal arts versus STEM and test-driven culture in Asia. By no way am I against "creative thinking" and problem-solving skills, but I disagree that should be the focus of a school; it is possible for me to motivate and provoke the creativity and applications of formal theory/knowledge gained in school but is impossible in reverse. In Raffles SG, La Salle HK etc, the education is very test-driven and academically rigourous which I see enforce strong discipline and a scientific mindset. Thirdly, European fiscal situation, demographics, and macro-picture only seem to be in decline and everything is over-regulated, so building a trading operation here is a no-no. Furthermore, used to living in Tokyo/Singapore/HK, life seems very inconvenient here even in the big cities, with people working slowly and scratching their butts then doing siesta. For example, merely buying a customised high-performance computer here seems like a headache, can't imagine having to fix one. Given the above views, I think raising a kid in Europe (at least South) seems more like a vanity project than anything else.
Interesting post, i’ll bite : To put it in perspective, I’m European and feel very much so, but have spent well over a decade in Asia, spending more or less time in all the countries you mentioned there. By European standards Spain sounds like a poor choice if you still have much ambition professionally, people, administration and businesses are more efficient if you travel further North. Top International schools in Madrid seem to have a decent reputation, besides even in Asia many of the famous international schools put much stress in creative thinking and high quality art and music classes. I wished they had better math program sometimes, but than I’m happy kids there do have a life, I wouldn’t call much of a life what many Chinese and Korean kids lead, dunno much about Japanese kids. But I’ve heard Chinese moms telling me they wanted their kid, who was in kindergarten, attend later not Harvard but Stanford as it is better or smarter, so if that you have a similar pov, I see the issue. Plenty of Asian parents in those schools complain there is not enough homework. I complain when my kids don’t have enough sports competitions… and Madrid is top notch in that regard. A few more things about competitivity, my experience in Southern Europe with people is they are indeed quite lazy, and feeling sleepy less than 20 hours a day coupled with some audacity is quite an edge there. Making a living well above the average doesn’t require much more ime, so you need to put things into perspective, doing business there is not like doing business in Hong Kong. If (dunno) you are still looking for the mother of your kids, and are East Asian the dating pool will be much wider in Asia, ime while there are plenty of East Asian female/Caucasian male couples in continental Europe it is exceedingly rare to see the Asian male/Caucasian female combination. A whole bunch of Asian girls to date in Europe for Asian guys, but outside that it seems rather limited. Cost is a factor, if you are struggling to buy a detached house in Spain, good luck with your neighbors in HK, Tokyo or Singapore, I pay double for the school as well in Asia as what we’ll pay in Madrid. Malaysia and Thailand will be cheaper, but Bangkok is not a cool place to live with kids, Kuala Lumpur probably slightly better but far from offering European quality of life. Besides I have strong family links in Spain hence am keen to move there, but again this is not the best instance in Europe of a thriving and hard working culture ( that doesn’t seem to be hurt the locals too much, they already enjoy one of the longest life expectancy in the World and are expected to reach the first spot within a couple of decades. For some reason Spanish also appeared the healthiest people on earth in a recent study). Right now I would rather live anywhere in Western Europe- I like most countries there - than anywhere in Asia, but definitely to each their own, and I’ve done the Europe to Asia move several times.
It depends on age, personal goal, social class etc. For something older looking to slow things down, lower-income class or upper-income class , views might have been very different. For a middle-upper class 30 something with a 30-something professionally working wife, Spain looks like a poor bet to raise the next elon musk. Will reconsider Spain when I turn 50 something and have nothing more to think than what wine to drink in the morning
The museo de ciencias there looks excellent and stylish as an architecture but the actual exhibition contents inside look like from a high school hall and I recall I visited something more advanced 20+ years back in HK. Same goes to a few houses I saw. The interior and designs are stylish and modern but toilets lack ventilation and other common sense flaws make me question the value of all the costs going into those cosmetics