+1 on the difficulty of getting in to Spain.

Prior to a year of living and working abroad, my wife and I hired a Spanish immigration lawyer to provide us with visa options (as Americans we can typically only remain in the European Schengen Zone for 90 out of every 180 days). I've got a web development company and all U.S.-based clients, so in theory would have been bringing money into the Spanish economy. The lawyer came back with 3 options for me:

  1. Be a student
  2. Retire (with proof of savings/income)
  3. Be independently wealthy (again with bank account proof)

So we lived in Madrid for our allotted 3 months and then moved on to Buenos Aires, where the visa restrictions are a lot more lax and they have a year-long visa option for foreign business owners had we decided we wanted to stay there.

Anecdotally, the number of American expats in Madrid was minuscule to the number we met in Buenos Aires, and the ones in Spain were there almost always after having been sponsored by large companies.