Spain’s ‘Coast of Light’, the Costa de la Luz, has loads of authentic charm, sympathetic new developments, and bargain prices. Article by Anthony Jeffries.

Not everyone is unhappy with the current state of the Spanish property market. On the far reaches of the Costa de la Luz, in Spain’s most south-westerly province of Huelva, British buyers are reaping the rewards of holding on to their cash a little longer. For the first time anyone can remember, Spanish vendors are having to drop their prices to meet market demands and developers are having to be more than a little creative to sell off-plan properties.

Until recently, this stretch of Atlantic coastline running from the Guadalquivir river west to the Portuguese border has been little known to outsiders. There’s a healthy sprinkling of British expats in attractive, very Spanish towns like Ayamonte, right on the border, but by and large we’ve continued to focus on the area to the east: Cádiz province and especially the Mediterranean coast of the Costa del Sol.

But Huelva is opening up. The local councils have wisely eschewed high-rise developments but well thought out urbanisations and, especially, a clutch of new golf courses, have drawn the foreign buyers. The small fishing town of El Rompido and the golf and beach resort of Nuevo Portil are perfect – excellent year-round weather, cooled by Atlantic breezes, good infrastructure and good communications, with Seville airport 90 minutes away and Faro in Portugal less than an hour to the west.

The transport links are about to get better, too – approval has been given for a new international airport in Huelva, which will be open by 2012 and will revolutionise this coast.

Read the full article in our August 2008 edition.