"Our Lanzarote apartment has gone up by €10k already"
Our most recently filmed run of A Place in the Sun: Winter Sun came at an exciting time in the overseas property industry, with slashed prices across our favourite markets and dozens of opportunities.
It's not surprising that many of our TV property hunters snapped up a new home almost instantly and have never looked back. Liz Rowlinson catches up with the buyers, starting with the Pinks, who bought in Lanzarote.
Liz and Grahame Pink (pictured above) from Ware in Hertfordshire bought the final property they were filmed viewing in Lanzarote with Jasmine: a one-bed apartment on a complex in the popular resort of Puerto del Carmen for €55,500.
Liz, 57, who works for a housing association, takes up the tale.
"We used up out life savings to pay the apartment which is located above the estate agency we bought through - Atlantico Homes. It was them that suggested we take a long-term rent. Our tenant pays €500 a month but after management costs we net about €320, which covers our costs. Ironically we have been out three times since and we've had to stay somewhere else!
But we bought at the bottom of the market and we reckon we've made €10k already on the value, and we are learning about running costs prior to our retirement. The programme was brilliant - we were screen-tested at the Olympia show then we followed advice from this magazine about using a foreign currency exchange broker and our own lawyer."
This is part one of our catch-up with TV buyers, which first appeared in the Autumn 2014 edition of A Place in the Sun magazine.