Tenerife forum

[Moho]

Hello and thanks to the producers of this useful forum.

I have a question - I have read that Puerto de la Cruz is to have several million euros worth of improvements "to be completed by 2009". I am planning to visit for a couple of months or so starting 20 Oct.

Does anyone know if the work has started / has finished / is in progress, and whether there is a lot of disruption in the town?

Thanks in anticipation of your help.

[rob]

Moho: - The only visible signs of the work being carried out is concentrated in one small area. The road is up on the fringes of Plaza de Charco and The Harbour, but causing a minimum amount of disruption to vehicles and pedestrians alike.


In your favour, there does seem to be a glut of apartments for rent at the moment. You say that you will be visiting local estate agents. If you haven't already got them on your list, do look at Optima. We have used them for three of the five apartments we have rented in the past three years. We have found that one particular agent of theirs Jeroen (van der Sloot) is very helpful and trustworthy. His English is excellent and he is a very pleasant Dutch guy. I would advise telephoning Optima to find out what days he is in. Tell him that Danny recommended him. Their website is: wwwoptima-tenerife.com

Rents do not seem to be effected by the time of the year that you take up tenure, however they will be effected by how long you intend to rent the apartment. You say that you will be looking to rent for an initial three months. This would not be looked on as long term, and this will bring you in to the category of a holiday rent. Retired people use Puerto as an escape from Europe's cold weather, and it is usual for many to rent for three to six months each year. The best value rents are those taken out for a year. Under contract this will give you certainty of tenure for a (usual) further four years. If the tenant wants to continue to live in the property after the initial year they are entitled to by contract. The landlord is entitled to increase the rent each year, but by no more than the Spanish cost of living index.

If renting through an estate agent it is usual here in Tenerife to pay one month's rent as an introductory commission. This means that you will need three months rent to start. (One month to the agent; one month deposit -returned to you at the end of your tenure and one month for the first month's rent.)

If your Spanish is up to it you can rent privately and quite safely. Our last two apartments have been rented directly through the owners. If you walk around Puerto (both down town and in residential areas) you will see signs ' se alquila.' There will always be at least one telephone number to call. In the apartment we are moving in to we have a (three year) contract. The one we are moving out of we had a gentleman's agreement. In both we paid a deposit as well as the first month's rent.

My wife and I were already retired when we moved to Tenerife, so we have no experience of working and living in Puerto. We had visited the town twenty times before we lived here, but we were aware that there could be a difference from being on holiday to actually living here. For that reason we rented on a year's contract at first, so that if it didn't work out we wouldn't have the problem of trying to sell a property. With the proceeds of our property sale in the UK invested, we thought that we could buy a property here after a year if it all worked out well. That was on 2nd August 2005 - and we are still renting. We love the lack of responsibility and the portability of renting. We now have no intention of buying here.

There can't be many towns in the world better to live in than Puerto de la Cruz. It is relatively safe, and it is a joy to walk around in the much pedestrianised town. We don't experience the almost guaranteed three hundred plus days a year sunshine that they have in the south of the island, and we do have more rain than they do. (Having said that the average rainfall each year for June, July & August is zero) Puerto does have more than double the sunshine hours of any town in the UK however, and we have all year round warm temperatures.

For the first time in over forty years I do not own a car. It is such a relief. If we go in to town we walk, and as I said earlier it is a lovely town to walk about in. As we shop every day and we don't usually have much shopping to carry, we walk back too. On the rare occasion that we have many shopping bags, the most that we pay as a taxi fare including a tip is three.fifty euros. If we want to go outside of Puerto we catch a bus. The TITSA network is cheap, frequent and reliable.

Believe me, you are making the right move. Good luck when you come over. Enjoy!

Take care.

Danny.

PS. Up until now Telefonica (Spain's equivalent of BT) have enjoyed a monopoly for providing telephone services. I think that I am right in saying that their monopoly is now ended. In the past I have had the basic service from them, but my calls and ADSL have been routed via Dial Direct Telecom. Also in the past we have had to go through Telefonica with their arrogant unhelpful staff to arrange telephone connection. In one apartment it took almost two months before we were connected. I believe it is now possible for Dial Direct to make all of the arrangements, so that the only contact from Telefonica will be a phone call from them to advise when their guy will be on site to make the connection. (For some reason they are unable to do that from their exchange, and each time they call to the property and physically make the telephone connection.) Direct Dial's charges are very competitive, and their staff are efficient as well as being so helpful. They are mainly English too, so there is no language problem. I would advise contacting them with telephone and ADSL enquiries. Their website is: wwwdirect-telecom.es/ and their telephone number is +34 902 107111. Their business hours are from 8am until 5pm (UK and Tenerife times) Monday to Friday.

Speaking of times, UK and Tenerife will be the same time all year round. They use GMT and their summer daylight saving hours begin and end on the same days as BST. Mainland Spain however, are an hour ahead of us. That is why Direct Dial have seemingly strange business hours.
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[jean-logan]

Aren't they an hour ahead on mainland spain? not an hour behind.
thanks for all the info. we are hoping to have a short break in puerto de la cruz during the winter months and you have been very informative and reassuring.

[rob]

Yes you're quite right. I'll edit danny's info.
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[Moho]

Well thanks to Danny for his excellent advice and I am delighted to now be here in Puerto de la Cruz on my three-month exploratory visit.

There is some improvement work going on, but it is limited to laying cobbles in one street as far as I can see, so nothing major.

Re: the information on accommodation, I tried about six agents for accommodation for the three months, and got serious with four of them. Of these, the English and German agents I was dealing with wanted one month's rent as commission. One local agent I dealt with wanted 15% of the three months as commission - about two weeks' rent. And the agent who I finally dealt with (also a local, long-established business) and found me a lovely little terraced casita charged just 7.5% or about a week's rent as commission. The rental amount was, as Danny said, higher than the long-term rates quoted because we only wanted three months - on average this raised the rental rate by 20 - 30% from the long-term rate advertised - and some owners declined to let just for three months.

Danny - I know what you mean about being without a car. It's great. We are actually equidistant between the massive Al Campo shopping centre and the town centre (in a lovely quiet area) and we can walk to either in about 25 minutes.

Thanks again Danny and we must meet up for a drink some time.

Michael

[rob]

I'm so glad that with Danny's services we were able to help. I would love to know the names and emails of those agents that you found to be good. Perhaps you would e-mail the details to me please.
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