House-hunters and Property Investors go Underground with Off Plan Cave Houses in Spain

Ever thought of living in a Spanish cave house? Probably not! And yet there are many reasons to get deeper underground. In fact, more and more people are starting to think that the best way to experience Spain is not in some cramped apartment perched up high above a ‘Brits-abroad’ coastal town, but underground in a converted cave home.

Imagine a whitewashed English country village basking in the sun of rural southern Spain. Imagine each property having all the modern conveniences possible - broadband internet, telephone, satellite TV, electricity and sewerage - plus vast amounts of living space.

Now imagine that most of each property is underground.

A tough task? Maybe. You may be thinking that living in a cave means a damp, dirty, dark hole, but cave homes are probably the most efficient and environmentally-friendly way to buy and live in Spain.

What is a modern cave home like?

The south of Spain has a cave-dwelling history stretching back more than 500 years, many with huge rooms carved out of the side of the hills. Several of these homes were abandoned in the 1960s after the mass coastal tourism industry boomed.

But now cave homes are being restored and converted like never before and their popularity among those looking to live in ‘the real Spain’ is soaring.

Modernised cave houses typically consist of two parts - part cave built into the side of a hill and part conventional property, with rooms built onto the front. In this way you get the best of both worlds, with light, airy exterior-facing living rooms and cooler cave bedrooms further back.

Some cave houses can have eight or more bedrooms and gigantic living space, illuminated by natural light coursing through specially drilled light ducts.

Most of these properties are built into the side of hill, giving owners spectacular views across the valley below. And because they are hewn out of stone and well insulated from the elements, these homes are easier to heat in the winter and cool in the summer.

Keep cool underground

While the weather outside does its thing, cave homes stay stable around a comfortable 20 degrees Celsius.

Inside, you will find there is no sense of underground claustrophobia - instead, there is a cosy feel, with muted lighting and softened sounds.

Builders of cave houses work wonders with light, with most properties oriented to take advantage of existing natural light. Besides, light ducts and the typical white matte finish of cave homes also transmit light throughout the building.

The lower cost of cave homes makes them attractive to those people who might want to enter into the housing market but are not afforded many options.

Cave homes are up to 40 per cent cheaper than a bricks and mortar equivalent, and by buying off-plan, investors can save a packet - often three-bedroom modernised homes cost as little as €100,000.

Possible disadvantages and things to look out for when buying a cave house

One thing to bear in mind is that cave communities tend to be in small, rural villages where stimulating entertainment might be difficult to find, but that’s only a disadvantage if tranquillity is not what you’re after.

The number one enemy to cave dwellings, and something to watch out for before you buy, is an accumulation of water or excess moisture.

A cave that can breathe is a healthy one and ventilation is obviously important, especially with the use of gas appliances. These should actually be avoided - especially gas heaters - but constructors will usually take into account the use of gas in the layout of the home, with any such appliances being placed toward the front of the cave.

Another thing is that because of the way the original caves have been excavated you can often find that one bedroom leads into another and yet one other. In most cases bedrooms in traditional cave dwellings were typically separated only by thick curtains, but this layout simply does not fit with modern norms of privacy.

Still, It is often possible to get around this disadvantage by constructing alternative entrances to the bedrooms, but keep in mind that in other cases there could be no way around the situation.

John and Pauline Salinas and their off-plan cave investments

John and Pauline Salinas, who live in Cheshire, UK, first stumbled across cave houses through the Internet in 2004 while thinking of investing in property abroad.

They bought two off-plan ‘unreformed’ cave houses near Granada, southern Spain, last year and are waiting for them to be built before renting one and part-renting the other, using it as a holiday home.

Pauline (49) says: “Cave houses tend to just start as a hole in the rock, and local laws say they must have been lived in previously to be developed.

“Many of them were lived in hundreds of years ago, some going back to the Byzantine period.

“The local town council say they can only be restored to a certain size and should be reformed along the same style as they were originally built, but inside you can have them designed just how you want them right down to the type of wood used.

“Initially we were looking at cave homes in Croatia, Bulgaria, France,

all around, and got interested when we saw pictures of ones that had already been fully formed.”

Pauline and John (55) went with Spanish developers Casa Cueva, splashing €95,000 on a two-bed cave home and €64,000 on a one-bed cave, both off plan, due for completion at the end of this summer.

On current exchange rates this works out to £118,984 for two properties set in idyllic Spanish countryside. Hardly a bad deal at all!

Pauline adds: “The location for our two is absolutely beautiful, in a village called Galera, with fantastic scenery of hills, mountains - it’s what we call ‘real Spain’ as well, where local people have a simple way of life.

“You regularly see donkeys carrying produce around the village and there are the local shops and cafe-bars.

“Cave homes are definitely catching on. Television travel programmes have started taking an interest and it would be worthwhile for an investor to buy a collection of them in bulk - there’s a lot of EU money going into Galera and you can still buy unreformed cave houses at a good price.

“In years to come the supply of unreformed caves will run out and the cost of buying one will soar.”

So, grab them while they’re hot! Err…  cool, sorry!