A property viewing trip to Spain: what one to three days with RB Place look like, and how to prepare

By RB Place, estate agency for the Costa Blanca, Costa Cálida and Costa de Almería, a trading name of Fiduciaire Bleich Sàrl, Geneva

Most of our clients buy a new home in Spain that they have walked through, or a plot they have stood on, during a property viewing trip of one to three days that we organise around a shortlist. The trip is the moment buying a home in Spain becomes real: the distance to the beach stops being a number, the show home either convinces or it does not, and the questions you had been saving for the developer get answered on the spot, in your language. This guide describes how such a trip works, from the brief you send us to the reservation you may or may not sign at the end, what we do and what you do, and how to make the days count. Our viewing trips page gives the short version; this is the long one. The detail sits inside the FAQ sections.

⚠️ Driving times, flight durations and seasonal remarks are indicative. The practical steps described are how RB Place works in October 2026; each developer has its own visiting rules and documents.

In a nutshell

• The trip is built from a shortlist, not from a catalogue: you send your criteria, we send a first selection within 24 hours, and the visits are grouped by area so that a day covers one coast rather than three.

• You book and pay your flights and hotel; the visits themselves cost you nothing, because the developer pays our commission if you buy. A French-speaking adviser collects you on site and drives you between the properties.

• On a new development you will see a show home, a building site or a plot, rarely the exact home you are buying. The visit is for judging the location, the developer and the quality of what is already built.

• You do not have to decide on site. A reservation can be signed remotely once your lawyer has checked the documents, so a trip that ends with "let us think about it" is a successful trip.

• Live video viewings and commented videos exist for narrowing the list before you fly, or for deciding without flying at all.

Before you leave: the shortlist

The trip starts in Geneva, or wherever you are, with a conversation about what you want: budget including costs, type of home, distance to the beach, use of the home (holidays, winter base, year-round, rental), timing, and anything that disqualifies a property for you, such as a plot on a main road or a third-floor flat without a lift. From that brief we send a first selection within 24 hours, you react, and the list narrows to the properties worth a visit, usually between four and eight. This is the property search stage, and it does the real filtering: a trip that visits twelve properties on three coasts teaches you less than one that visits five on one.

Two things are worth settling before the flight rather than after. The budget, with the purchase costs on top of the price (taxes, notary, registry, lawyer, as set out in our tax guide for Swiss buyers), and the way you intend to pay: own funds, a mortgage on your Swiss home, or a Spanish mortgage on the finished property. Developers ask, and an answer ready in advance makes the conversation on site shorter and more useful.

Frequently asked questions

How far in advance should we plan? Two to four weeks is comfortable: enough to refine the shortlist, book flights at a reasonable price and fix appointments with the developers' sales teams, who are not always available at short notice. In July and August, allow longer; some sales offices close for part of the summer.

Do we need a lawyer before the trip? Not for the visit itself. You will need one before signing anything, and it helps to have chosen one before you travel so that a reservation contract can be sent for checking the same day. We work with Spanish lawyers who handle Swiss clients; the choice remains yours.

Can we combine the trip with a holiday? Yes, and many clients do. The visits take one to three days; the rest of the stay is yours. Tell us the dates and we fit the visits where they disturb the holiday least, typically in the morning.

Getting there

Three airports serve the coasts we cover. Alicante-Elche is the main one, with direct flights from Switzerland in a little over two hours, and it sits between the Costa Blanca North and South: Torrevieja and Orihuela Costa are about 40 minutes by car, Finestrat and the Benidorm hills about 35, Jávea and the north a little over an hour. Murcia airport, at Corvera, is the better choice for the Costa Cálida and the southern end of the Costa Blanca: Torre Pacheco and the Mar Menor in about 20 minutes, Pilar de la Horadada in about 30, Torrevieja in about 40. Almería airport serves the Costa de Almería, with Vera and Mojácar about an hour away; Águilas, at the northern end, is reachable from Murcia as well.

You do not need to hire a car for the visit days: the adviser drives, which also means you look at the landscape instead of the road. A hire car is useful for the days before or after, or if you want to go back to a place on your own. We advise on where to stay; a hotel in or near the area of the visits saves an hour a day, and we tell you which towns are lively in the season you are coming and which are quiet.

Frequently asked questions

Which airport if the shortlist spans two coasts? Alicante for the Costa Blanca North and South together; Murcia for the Costa Blanca South and the Costa Cálida together. A shortlist that spans the Costa de Almería and the Costa Blanca is a sign that the brief needs one more conversation before the flight.

What do we need to enter Spain? For a visit of a few days, your passport or identity card; Switzerland is part of the Schengen area. No NIE or Spanish paperwork is needed to visit, only to buy, and that part is handled afterwards as described on our administrative support page.

When is the best time of year? Spring and autumn for the light, the temperatures and the availability of sales teams. Winter shows you what the coast is like off season, which matters if you intend to live there year-round. July and August show you the opposite, and the heat makes site visits short.

What a visit day looks like

The adviser collects you at the hotel in the morning. A typical day is four to six visits grouped in one area, with the developer's sales representative meeting you at each one, and a break for lunch in the town you are considering, because the restaurant, the market and the people on the terrace tell you as much about a place as the show home. On a new development, what you see depends on the stage of the works: a finished show home on an earlier phase, a building site with the structure up, or a fenced plot with a plan on a board. The adviser has visited the site before and knows which of these you will find, so there are no surprises on the day.

What to look at is not what the brochure highlights. The orientation of the plot or the terrace, and where the sun is at the time of day you will use it. The position in the development: first line, inner street, next to the pool, next to the entrance, next to the road. What surrounds the site today and what is planned around it, which the adviser checks before the visit. The state of the earlier phases, because the finishes and the gardens of a phase delivered two years ago are the best preview of yours. And the drive: how long it really takes from the home to the beach, the supermarket and the motorway, measured in the car rather than on a map. Our guide to the property types explains what a bungalow, a chalet or a penthouse mean here, so that the words on the board match what you are standing in front of.

Frequently asked questions

How many properties can we see in a day? Four to six when they are grouped in one area, fewer if they are spread out or if one of them is a resort you want to walk around. A second or third day is planned when the shortlist spans several areas.

Will we meet the developer? You meet the developer's sales team at each site, and the adviser stays with you throughout. He asks, in Spanish and in your language, the questions that matter for a purchase: building licence, bank guarantee on the instalments, delivery date and what happens if it slips, community fees, what is included in the price. Our guides on buying off plan and on resort homes list those questions in full.

Can we visit a resale home as well? Our catalogue is new-build from developers, and the trip is organised around it. If a resale home comes up in the same town, we can usually arrange to see it through a local partner, but the documents and the process differ, and we say so before the visit.

Deciding, on site or later

Some clients decide on the second day. Others go home and decide two weeks later. Both are fine, and the process is built so that neither is penalised. If you want to secure a home while you are there, the developer will propose a reservation contract with a deposit of a few thousand euros, which takes the home off the market for a few weeks while your lawyer checks the project and the private purchase contract is prepared. Sign it only once your lawyer has read it: a reservation can be sent to Geneva, checked and signed by email in a day, so there is no reason to sign in the sales office under the pressure of "another couple is interested". The deposit itself, and what happens to it if you withdraw, is a clause to read before paying; our off-plan guide explains it.

If you leave without reserving, nothing is lost. The adviser sends you a recap of the visits with the documents collected at each site, the open questions go to the developers in writing, and the shortlist is updated with what you saw. A home that was still available when you left can be reserved from Switzerland. The one exception is a plot you fell for on a development that is selling fast; in that case the adviser tells you so on the day, and the decision is yours.

Frequently asked questions

What do we take home from the trip? For each property visited: plans, the specification (memoria de calidades), the price list and payment schedule, the provisional community budget where it exists, and photos of the site and the show home. We add our own notes on each visit and on the developer.

Can we pay the reservation from Switzerland? Yes, by bank transfer to the account named in the reservation contract, after your lawyer has confirmed the contract and the account. Do not pay in the sales office, in cash or by card, before that check.

What if we want to see a property again? A second visit on another day of the trip is easy to arrange. After the trip, a live video visit by the adviser answers most second-visit questions without another flight.

Without travelling

Not everyone can fly, and not every decision needs a flight. Live video viewings, with the adviser on site and you on the phone, let you walk through a show home, look at the view from the terrace and ask to see the road behind the plot, in real time. Commented videos, filmed by the adviser with your questions in mind, are useful for comparing several properties at your own pace. Many clients use both to cut a shortlist of eight down to three before they travel, and some buy that way, with the lawyer's checks and the notary's signature handled as described on our administrative support page.

Frequently asked questions

Is a video visit enough to buy? For a home on a development you already know, or a second property from a developer you have bought from, yes. For a first purchase on a coast you have never seen, we recommend one trip, however short, because the surroundings are the thing a camera shows least well.

Can the adviser check a specific point for us? Yes: the noise from a road at a given hour, the view from a given floor, the state of a neighbouring site. Ask, and the answer comes back as a video or photos within a few days.

The practical sequence we recommend

Send us your brief and react to the first selection until the shortlist is five to eight properties on one or two areas. Fix the dates, book flights to the airport that fits the shortlist and a hotel in the area; we tell you where. Choose your lawyer before you fly. On site, follow the programme, take the documents, measure the drives and ask every question you have, however small. Decide when you are ready: on site with a reservation your lawyer has read, or from home a week later. Then the Spanish side of the purchase follows the sequence described on our new-build homes and administrative support pages, and the Swiss side, financing and tax, is what a Geneva fiduciary does.

Frequently asked questions

What does RB Place charge for the trip? Nothing. The developer pays our commission if you buy, and the visits are part of the service whether you buy or not. You pay your flights, hotel and meals.

Do you cover the whole coast? The Costa Blanca North and South, the Costa Cálida and the Costa de Almería: the areas listed on our properties page. For a town outside them, ask; we say quickly whether we can help or not.

Final thoughts before you book the flight

A viewing trip is not a holiday with a few visits added, nor a sales tour; it is two or three days that replace months of looking at listings, provided the shortlist was done before the flight and the decision is not forced at the end. Prepare the brief, let the adviser group the visits, look at the surroundings as much as the show home, take the documents home, and sign only what your lawyer has read. Done that way, the trip answers the one question no website can: whether you can see yourself there.

At RB Place, we support our clients at every stage, from finding the property through to signing, including the administrative and tax formalities.

Sources and official references

• Aena, Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernández Airport (access, transport, car hire): aena.es

• Aena, Región de Murcia International Airport at Corvera: aena.es

• Aena, Almería Airport: aena.es

This article is for information only and is not legal, tax or investment advice. Visiting arrangements, documents and conditions vary by developer and by date; have your case analysed before taking any decision. Information current as of October 2026.