The Costa Blanca in winter

01What the Costa Blanca is actually like in winter §

Let us start with the good news, because it is genuinely good. Winter here is mild. Afternoons in December and January are commonly in the high teens, the sun is out far more often than not, and you will eat lunch outside in January in a way that is simply not available in Manchester, Hamburg or Utrecht.

The less-advertised half: the temperature falls quickly after dark, the difference between the coast and five kilometres inland is larger than the map suggests, and there are two or three weeks a year of genuinely miserable wind and rain. It is not the tropics. It is a mild winter, which is a different and better thing.

The variable people underestimate is altitude and aspect. A villa on a north-facing slope above Jávea in January is a different building from the same villa in July, and a different building again from an apartment two hundred metres lower and facing south.

02Which Costa Blanca towns stay open in winter §

Some towns on this coast have a real year-round population and a life that carries on regardless. Others are built around a summer season, and in February a third of the restaurants have shutters down and the urbanisation is two-thirds empty.

Neither is wrong. Quiet is exactly what some people want. But you should choose it deliberately rather than discover it.

• Dénia and Jávea keep a substantial year-round community, with an old town that stays alive and international residents who do not leave.
• Altea and Calpe quieten noticeably but keep a working centre.
• Moraira is beautiful and markedly quieter out of season — which is the appeal for some and the problem for others.
• Benidorm and Torrevieja have large permanent populations and stay busy all winter. Not everyone’s aesthetic, and worth visiting before dismissing.
• Isolated urbanisations anywhere on the coast are the ones to view in February. Some are lovely. Some are a locked gate and a broken streetlight.

The test we suggest: go on a Wednesday in mid-January, at seven in the evening. Can you buy bread, get a coffee and see another person? That is the whole survey.

03Heating, damp and Spanish houses in winter §

This is the real story, and it is about buildings, not weather.

Traditional Spanish construction on this coast is designed to stay cool: thick walls, tiled floors, shaded terraces, minimal insulation and, in older properties, single glazing. It works beautifully in August. In January the same house holds the cold, and tiled floors are unforgiving at seven in the morning.

• Many properties have no central heating. Air conditioning units that also heat are common and expensive to run.
• Electricity is not cheap in Spain. A poorly insulated villa heated through January produces a bill that shocks people.
• Damp and mould are the most common complaint of the first winter, particularly in properties that stand empty in the off-season.
• Pools are a winter cost with no winter benefit.

None of this is a reason not to buy. It is a reason to check the energy certificate, ask what heating exists, and get an independent survey — unusual in Spain, and worth every euro on anything over twenty years old. See buying property in Spain.

04What winter tells you before you buy on the Costa Blanca §

Our standard advice, which costs us the property fee: rent for six to twelve months first, through one winter, then buy.

A winter answers questions no viewing can:

1. Is the town still a town in February, or a car park?
2. How does the house actually feel at eight in the morning in January?
3. How long does it really take to reach a hospital when it rains?
4. Is that hill a pleasant walk, or the reason you stop walking?
5. Do you like the people who are still here when the summer people have gone?

Those five answers are worth more than any brochure. And the cost of finding them out is a year of rent, against a property you might otherwise spend a decade regretting.

The people we meet who love their house nearly always bought their second choice, in the spring, after a winter of renting.

It is also, quietly, an argument for having someone on your side of the table. An estate agent is paid by the seller and shows you the terrace in the sun. A buyer’s adviser is paid by you, which is why we can suggest you come back in February.