Moving to Limassol

[danhughes99]

Hi

Im new on here and joined as I've been offered a job in Limassol. What I really want to know is whats the area like, and how hard is it to move country. It would just be me and my partner, but would renting or buying a property be best? What about cost and standard of living?

I am also a keen amatuer footballer and golfer and was wandering if facillities where in place for this?

Any help you could give, I would be really grateful!

Thanks.

[Higgi]

Limassol in my opinion is a nice big sprawling town which covers quite a large area. We moved here in June for my husbands job. Initially we weren't sure about living in Limassol, as we had holidayed in Paphos previously, but since we have been here we love it. It has everything that you need. We live about 12 kms out of town, and its about 15 minutes drive in. We live in one of the smaller villages where we rent our bungalow and it is very nice. Renting is your best option I think as there is still a lot of problems with obtaining the title deeds on houses altho I dont know much about it. We decided to rent for a year or so and see if we liked the area we had chosen and also wait for the housing market to level out. The rents vary depending on the size of house you want and a good place to look is on the cyprus rental websites which will give you an idea of prices and areas. Lots of houses to rent so you wont have a problem finding one, and they are generally of a high standard, some with pools. Our council tax bill has just come in and that is 65 euros for the year!!!. Electric appears to be about the same as the UK and there is no mains gas unless you have bottled. Foodcan be expensive depending on your eating habits but if you shop locally and eat a lot of fresh veg and salads its not too bad. Imported goods e.g. heinz baked beans are about 2 euros per tin!!.
Jobs are very hard to come by unless you can speak Greek so I dont know if your partner would need to work or not as that should be a consideration.
Moving for us was very easy. In the UK we also rented and so we didnt have a house to sell. We came over for a week in April and found our house here and moved lock stock and barrel in June. Shipped everything from our 4 bed house, including my car, in a 40' container which took 3 weeks door to door and cost £5600 for the complete pack and wrap service, which also took the stress out of the move for us.
Cant say about golf or football as we dont do either but i do know there are a lot of golf courses, the most famous ones being aphrodite hills and secret valley (both nearer Paphos) and I believe they are very expensive.
The weather is lovely, the Troudos mountains are beautiful and so far we dont regret our move here at all.

Good luck with your move.