Buying Costa de la Luz Property

Everything changes when you leave the Costa del Sol at the Straits of Gibraltar and travel round the coast to Costa de la Luz. Development stops, the beaches empty and the countryside takes on a Peak District-like ruggedness.

It is made even more beautiful by the bright light that characterises this coast - indeed, its name means the Coast of Light. The white villages glow against the golden sands and green plains.

Just 15 minutes from the upmarket sports resorts of Sotogrande and San Roque, and an hour from Marbella, the first town you reach is Tarifa. It's the most southerly town on mainland Europe, with a relaxed, bohemian charm that owes more to Morocco six miles across the Straits than it does to the Spanish costas.

Tarifa's outskirts provide an uninspiring first impression, with new beachside blocks of pricey apartments (a two-bedroom flat costs upwards of £200,000) appealing mainly to Spanish investors. The wall-to-wall surf shops on the main street hint at the type of visitors the town attracts.

But enter the ancient Puerta de Jerez gate into the old quarter - this was the first Spanish town to be seized in the Moorish invasion in 711 - and the backstreets with beautiful doorways and arches, with courtyards set around fountains, are a reminder that Morocco is only 35 minutes away by ferry.

In these old backstreets, Tarifa Real Estate is selling a small one-bedroom flat needing total refurbishment from £80,000 and a renovated three-bedroom flat with views across the rooftops to Tangier for £262,000.

'Tarifa is the most cosmopolitan town in southern Spain, yet it retains its traditional Andaluz charm,' says Robert Barclay from Andalucia Exclusive, a British-run renovation company in the region.

'There is still a relatively small British population in Tarifa - most visitors are French because it is the gateway to Morocco, where French is spoken - but there are plenty of beautiful surfer types frequenting the trendy bars and clubs.'

Two-bedroom farmhouse, Las Cabrerizas £511,000: Restored 200-year-old stone farmhouse in Los Alcornocales natural park, ten minutes from Tarifa, with high-vaulted ceilings and plunge poolWhile Tarifa cannot escape the slowdown that has hit the southern Spanish property market, the town's laidback, alternative attitude may start to work to its advantage, says Mark Stucklin from Spanish Property Insight.

'After five years in which property prices have at least doubled, the heat has gone out of the market. But, by virtue of never having seen the new-build explosion that happened around the corner, property is in limited supply,' he says. 'There is no glut of apartments.'

Tarifa also has a cachet that keeps its limited housing stock desirable, not just among surfers making the most of the wild Atlantic waves and summer social scene, but among the well-off international crowd.

'It's not a place that appeals to the snowbird crowd who flock to the Costa del Sol,' says Stucklin. 'The old properties haven't been refurbished, but the town has a real reputation that is difficult to replicate elsewhere.'

Three-storey townhouse, Florinda, £464,000: Rare townhouse in good condition in Tarifa's Old Town, with four studio apartments and two rooftop terracesDue to strict planning laws on the coast, development is rare. One of the few to emerge is Taylor Woodrow's Melaria Playa, with homes ranging from two-bedroom apartments to four-bedroom townhouses (prices yet to be released) set in seven acres of parkland, and connected to the beach by an underground passage.

The hills behind Tarifa are equally beautiful, awash with wild flowers in spring. La Pena, a short drive to Los Lances beach, and El Cuarton, a low-density development which grew in the Seventies, are among the most popular rural areas among overseas buyers looking for large old farmhouses to convert.

Property Showrooms is selling a large villa - typical of the new-build properties in the area - a seven-bedroom house with 40,000sq m of land for £1.18m.

But beware of illegal properties, warns Robert Barclay. 'There are hundreds of houses hidden in the hills behind Tarifa and Algeciras, but more than 50% of them are illegal,' he says.

Beachfront two-bedroom apartment, Tarifa, £204,000: Furnished and with a communal pool'It's a particular problem in La Pena, where decades of no regulation saw people put up what they wanted without any licences.'

The difficulty comes when you want to install mains water or electricity, or when you come to sell because, officially, the property does not exist.

'There are ways to legalise a property if it has existed for more than eight years, but in some cases you may be threatened with demolition. It's happened before in the area and is likely to happen again.'

But most of the houses in El Cuarton are legal and come with full paperwork. 'For a three or four-bedroom villa with a pool and views of Africa, you'll pay from £600,000 to £800,000. But seek advice and use professionals. If you want to go rustic, be prepared for a long wait for permissions.'

Zahara de los Atunes, a sleepy fishing village on vast sands half an hour west of Tarifa, has yet to make a mark among British buyers, though Germans and wealthy Spanish families have built some designer villas, costing up to £4m, on the hillside overlooking the spectacular beach.

'There's not much new building going on here - there never has been, because planning is so strict, which is a good thing,' says James Stewart of Savills.

'Developers are reluctant to start on new projects while they have so much supply to work through on the Costa del Sol.'

Local estate agents such as Melanie Coe from Olvera Properties, who has lived in Tarifa for 11 years, are realistic about the sluggish market that has hit the entire coast and seen property prices fall.

'Wait until this winter to buy, because prices will be on a par with what they were four years ago and you will get some good deals,' she says.

But the slowdown does at least bode well for this corner of the Costa de la Luz retaining its unspoilt beauty.

'The Spanish property boom has ended before the big developers could start pouring concrete on this coast, so the market has turned in time for Tarifa,' says Mark Stucklin.

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