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This week the MiMove-blog spoke with Dag who moved to Palma de Mallorca with his girlfriend seven years ago. They run several businesses and have seen Palma change over the years. 
My girlfriend, Kita had a dream of moving to Palma de Mallorca for many years. She had spent some time on the island and loved it. She had fond memories and dreamt of a life away from the grey and cold weather in Sweden. Kita is a textile designer and with the digital landscape, she can work pretty much anywhere. So, she was the really the driving force behind the move, but I have come to love the Island and especially Palma also. 
Since we moved here soon after the property crash, the situation has changed dramatically. It is quite interesting that the different nationalities stick together in a way that is almost difficult to comprehend. The Germans tend to stay in the eastern part of the Island, the Swedes adore Palma and the Brits go to the western parts.
There are some different categories of people buying here, I think. One is the people like us who move to create a new life. We live and work here, learn Spanish and integrate with the locals. Then you have the retirees, either older people or just affluent people who has sold a company and are looking for the good life. They may move or at least think of their home in Mallorca as their main residence. And then we have the second homers. They buy something to use during their holiday or if they can perhaps work from a distance sometimes. Some have also bought as an investment of course. Perhaps, they have bought a fixer upper and have refurbished it, either to rent it out or to make a quick sale. 
I think many people dream of the good life and many have the perception of Spain as a low-cost country. That is still true but not in popular areas. In areas where many international visitors wish to be, the prices both on properties and everyday goods rise dramatically. However, the level of income does not follow so if you need to sell your services or goods it may be a difficult equation.
You may have read in the news that there has been some irritation amongst the locals as the rents and property prices increase. Normal people with normal jobs can’t afford to live in central Palma anymore. And that is a real shame, it changes the whole atmosphere. It is truly a fantastic lifestyle but there is a big difference between visiting while on a cruise, and living here permanently. 
I think the frantic hype we have seen the last few years are dying down a bit now. I believe that to be a good thing. We will see what will happen. For a while, Kita ran a boutique selling interior design but it turned out that the typical visitor is a tourist from the big cruise ships and they do not really buy interior design so that was quite hard to make it work. We thought that it would do better due to the influx of new people moving to Palma but we were wrong and with the taxes and local bureaucracy, we just couldn’t get it to work. 
My background is from the food and restaurant business. Five years ago we started Gallery Calatrava 1 together with photographer Andrew Maclear. He has taken some spectacular black and white photographs of some icons during his career; John Lennon, Mick Jagger and Elizabeth Taylor to mention just a few. Originally from the UK, he now lives here on the island and we show some of his treasures in the gallery. Sometimes we exhibit art from other artists, too. 
We also use the place, which we have completely refurbished and remodeled to suit our needs, for private dinner parties and our catering business. We try and be creative and try new things like soup dinners, pop up restaurants etc. It is run as a member’s club and not as a regular restaurant. Our typical clients are locals, and we do not do a lot of marketing. So far, word of mouth has been working well. The dinners are created around a table for 12. 
Normally, it starts with a contact and then we discuss what the clients are looking for; is it a celebratory dinner or another type of meeting? What we offer is, of course, the personal touch, locally sourced ingredients, and a genuine love for what we do. Sometimes, the catering business takes us to different venues all over the island; weddings, birthdays etc.
There are always a lot to do around the big holidays but when it dies down a bit we sometimes go and work in other countries. The salaries in Sweden for example is so much better but the quality of life is better here, so we go and work hard for a bit to be able to come back and enjoy our life here. 
What the future holds, we don’t really know yet. Nothing is set in stone yet. The competition is fierce, and the salaries are low in our line of work, but we love Spain and are thinking about what our next step would be.
We always thought that Palma was an all-year-round kind of place but since moving here we realize how much it follows the tourists. When the cruise ships stop in the winter, many of the locals and the seasonal staff go on holiday and then it is quite empty here. The change over the year is quite noticable.  When you live in Mallorca, you tend to get a little wary with connecting with people. It is a somewhat emotionally draining to make friends with people only to learn they move shortly after. We have friends of all nationalities. It is such a lot of different people here and most people speak English. My Spanish is Ok, and Kita’s is really becoming good. But of course, it is not just about Spanish, the official language is Catalan, spoken as the local dialect MallorquÃn. It is really good if you can pick up some of the local language. 
I would definitely recommend anyone who dreams about the sun and an easier life to go for it but to have a realistic plan. It is harder to make a living than you may think and it might take some time to get the hang of it depending on your situation and trade. And maybe also, to be prepared to re-evaluate and change your ideas over time. We had no idea Palma would develop like it has when we first moved here and now we have to think about what we would like to do next, stay or perhaps do something else? Â Â Â