How the dream of buying an apartment in Madeira appeared

In fact, I never thought we could buy a flat abroad. I thought it would be something really expensive and unavailable. About half a year after our first visit in June (25.2.2019) in Facebook group called Česká Madeira there was a discussion about real estate and there was a mention of the real estate server idealista.pt . When I checked it out, I found that the prices of flats in Madeira are not at all too expensive. Well, only if you don’t need a super luxury apartment with a huge terrace with a sea view, such a flat can cost even 200,000 – 300,000 EUR… but I don’t need anything like this and ordinary 2 bedroom apartments (3+1 – flat with 2 bedrooms, living room + kitchin) in Funchal cost around 75,000 – 100 000 EUR. So actually a decent price, for this you can not even buy a studio in a block of flats in Brno … Well, prices go up quite fast and now some 75 – 80 000 EUR is not very realistic, but last year I saw a several flats for this price. Now only when it is 4th floor without elevator or flat which is the property of the bank and you will be „fighting“ with other people who are interested as well.

I immediately liked the idea of ​​having a flat in Madeira and this was a moment when a big dream appeared. But I didn’t expect it to be realistic because my husband doesn’t like traveling and I didn’t expect him to accept that. So I just mentioned as a joke that I would like to have an flat in Madeira once retired and when I told my husband that in the summer there is not so hot as in our country, he admitted that it is not a bad idea. So, as we say, strike while the iron is hot, I started checking if he was really speaking seriously. After some discussions, we agreed that we could get a flat in Madeira for retirement. So he promised to buy it when I will be 60 years old. Which is exactly 23 years from now. I started saying that it was too late and that I would like to enjoy the flat  sooner and that in 23 years the prices will surely go up considerably and we could regret it. So after about a week, he promised to buy it when I will be 50. So in 13 years. Well, still no great shakes. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So I continued trying persuade him to buy it sooner, and in another week or so I negotiated another 10 years. So I had the promise tu buy a flat in Madeira in 3 years, when I will be 40 years old. Excellent 🙂 I was really happy with that, I thought that we can at least prepare better for it and make some more savings so that we don´t have to take such a big  mortgage.

Well, and since then, we’ve been looking at offers on different real estate servers to better see how the Madeira real estate market looks like. I was totally enthusiastic about the idea, hoping that this dream would turn into reality one day. At home we didn’t talk about anything else, practically every day, it became a very popular topic for our conversations. And in a couple of months in the summer, my husband suggested that in February 2020 we could go there for spring holiday just to check it out and see that we really wanted to buy a flat and if the location we had chosen just by map, is the right one.

From the beginning I wanted a flat in Funchal – although it is the capital city, it doesn´t give that impression at all. And because I don´t have a driving license, I needed a place with excellent accessibility by bus, so that during the trips there was no problem to get to different places. After all, I probably won’t always go with my husband, so I didn´t want to be dependent on the car and I wanted a place to be able to travel with my friends by bus. As for the neighborhood, I just chose Sao Martinho from the map – it’s close to the center, close to Praia Formosa beach, Lido pools and Doca do Cavacas natural pools. There are also many shops, restaurants, etc. And at the same time, I thought that there would certainly be nice walks along the coast to Camara do Lobos and walks on Levada dos Piornais would be nice as well. Before leaving for Madeira, the concrete part of Sao Martinho was also clear. We chose Nazaré. Right next to the beach there are only hotels and overpriced luxury apartments and we just wanted something calmer without tourists, some apartment among the locals. And also there were affordable prices for us in Nazaré. And when we arrived in Madeira, we could see that we liked Nazaré the most of all Sao Martinho

We were wondering if we really wanted to go to the same place all the time… we will see but there is so much to see in Madeira that even 3 visits are definitely not enough. And I really feel that I can´t never get enough of Madeira – beautiful nature, mountains, levadas, coast, laurel forests, picturesque villages, wonderful people, great cuisine and lots of exotic fruits. And actually Madeira will be sort of a multipurpose. We will be going there on holiday for the time being, I hope that once retired even for several months of the year, and at the same time I thought I’d like to try the Home Exchange and exchange our apartment with other families across Europe (or elsewhere) and have free accommodation to be a popular vacation friend for all my good friends. And more friends for travelling will be more than welcome because my husband doesn´t want to go for vacation more than once a year. And because like almost everyone I have only 5 weeks of vacation a year, it would be a pity that the apartment would be empty the rest of the year, so we would like to offer it for the rest of the year for rent to tourists. But in a year or so because as I mentioned, it happened faster than we wanted, so we’ll have to give it some time to save money for the furniture to have a nice new modern furniture.