"I tried seven times to buy a home in Crete before going on the TV show"
After spending several years living in Cyprus in her twenties, Claire Martin had long dreamed of owning a home in Crete. But whenever she tried to arrange property viewings while on holiday there, she was given short thrift. “I’d ring estate agents and ask to see a house and when they found out my budget was only €150,000 they lost interest, or they just assumed I was not serious,” says Claire, 53, who runs a dental lab in Wickford, Essex.
Her fortunes changed when a friend bought her tickets to A Place in the Sun Live exhibition in London for her birthday in June 2023. After taking part in a screen test at the event, a week later she found herself flying to Chania with her daughter, Judy. Her husband, Phil, is more of a homebody than a beach enthusiast. Click here to read their fully story!
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"Buying in Spain was a pipe dream for years, but after a trip to A Place in the Sun Manchester, it happened so quickly"
John and Cath, from Newcastle, had been watching A Place in the Sun for years, often daydreaming about what it would be like to own a home in Spain. “It was a bit of a pipe dream for a long time,” says Cath, 59, a family support worker in a school. She shares three grown-up children with John. In March 2025, they visited the A Place in the Sun Live exhibition in Manchester and were “blown away by the whole experience”.
“We listened to Jasmine and Laura talking about how they were buying in Spain, and it really spurred us on. The fact that they are doing it gave us more confidence about doing it ourselves." The couple also attended seminars on the buying process and met Kerry Dixon on the MASA International stand, who introduced them to the idea of purchasing a new-build home. Click here to read their fully story!
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“We are finding our feet living on Portugal’s Silver Coast”
David and Suzanne have purchased what they describe as their “first and last home together” in Portugal. The Hertfordshire couple, who went to school together, reconnected four decades later, rekindled their relationship and decided their future lay on the Silver Coast, just north of Lisbon. Their journey began with a screen test at A Place in the Sun Live at London’s Olympia in 2022. “We did it as a joke, but four months later we were flying out to Lisbon with Ben Hillman,” says David, who is 57, like Suzanne.
In the end, they bought a three-bedroom home in Ataíja de Baixo, a village just 10 minutes from the inland city of Alcobaça, 20 minutes from the famous surf town of Nazaré and around an hour from Lisbon Airport. The property cost £234,000. Click here to read their fully story!
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