Nice to see people choosing Malaga as the best place to live - I've been here 12 years now and I still love it. I need more information before I can give any advice, though. When you say "not too touristy" and "English friendly" do you mean the areas which are full of British ex-pat residents, or do you want to be away from the "fish and chip brigade"? A lot will depend on what you intend to do for a living, and whether you're looking for the glitzy high life or relaxing in the sun.

The renting before buying is a good way to choose an area, but one trouble is most rental contracts are by the week (very expensive) or for 11 months which is a long time just to see if you like the area. You need to find a landlord who's prepared to be flexible, which can be tricky but not impossible. Getting your daughter into school here is no problem, but you will need to show you either own a property or hold a long term rental contract in order to register yourself to a school catchment area. Your daughter is approaching the age where resettling and adolescence will make life difficult, but you still have a year or so yet.

For the language thing, whether you learn Spanish or not will depend on where you live, where you work and who you mix with. I got a crappy grade 5 CSE in French at school, so I'm no master of tongues but I learned enough to get by in my first 3 months and was fairly fluent after a just over a year.

thank you for the quick reply.....what we are after is well away from the fish and chip brigade and football louts....enough of that in the uk and are looking fo a nice relaxed pace of life.the most important thing is getting my daughter into school as me and my wife will worry about us after grace is in a school.
i am a chef by trade and may consider some chef work while i get to grips with the language as we both want to learn as early as possible.
i want to get into property development in time but will look into that later.
what area do you live in and what area would you sudgest to start looking in?
thanx kelvin

If you're a chef then finding work will be no problem for you - in the touristy areas, that is. The work will be hard and the pay low unless you find a plum post but you can't count on that for your first year. The cost of living here is much cheaper than the UK, though, as long as you're not trying to be posh.

I live in Benalmadena, which is quite a mixture. Parts are very Spanish, and parts are fish and chippers. The two communities live quite happily side by side, and as I'm English and my wife is Spanish it's perfect for us. Areas of the town are quiet and peaceful, and others are very urban and noisy so it has a bit of everything. Which area you live in depends, as with most places, on how much money you have. You'd find it easy to get work here, and the schools are good and each class has both English and Spanish pupils so kids your daughter's age find it easy to settle in.

The other coastal towns are pretty similar, and then you have places like Alhaurin which are 20 minutes drive from the coast but have large ex-pat populations. These areas have grown over the last 10 years from small farming villages to Malaga commuter towns and aren't to everyone's taste. Well, not to my taste anyway.

Then you go further inland to the proper Andalucian villages. I'd move up there like a shot as they're beautiful, but it's very difficult to make a living there unless you fancy farming olives or almonds. If you're looking to do property development it might be worth a look - if you have the capital, the know-how and the patience then there's gold in them thar hills. There are opportunities for property development on the coast as well, but you have to be quick to get the right place at the right price - you also have to factor in the 10% taxes and charges here when you buy property which can cut into profits. CGT is weighty as well, but if you're resident and register the property as your principal residence this can be got around.

thank you for that it all sounds just what we are looking for.
i think we may start looking in the area then.
would you recomend this as a good base to live then seeing that you already live there?
i will start looking into it and if you dont mind if i need anymore info could i contact you again for advice?

regards kelvin and fiona

thank you for that it all sounds just what we are looking for.
i think we may start looking in the area then.
would you recomend this as a good base to live then seeing that you already live there?
i will start looking into it and if you dont mind if i need anymore info could i contact you again for advice?

regards kelvin and fiona

Advice so damn good it needs two lots of thankyous.

Feel free to contact me if you need more!