I have been thinking of this for a while and intend to try to see some available properties during my next visit in October. I have found a number of web sites that I thought others, with a similar interest, might find useful. I would appreciate information on other web sites that others have used. The following are sites which I have used: casa4you.net, greenumbria.com, palladioweb.com, umbriahouse.com, casait.it, umbriarealestate.com, and umbriapropertysales.com Ciao!
Everything I read says that what you do is pick the area you want and then talk to the local agents - just go to the town and find the real estate office. Many of our regulars on this message board have purchased property in Italy, so will probably have some good advice for you.
The book The Hills of Tuscany by Ferenc Mate has a good description of a house purchase. There are also a few books around about buying a house in Italy. Be aware that you frequently pay one "legal" price with the rest handed over in cash (to avoid taxes).
I don't have the Buying a House in Italy books listed on the site (but should have) - let me know if you want the names and authors.
Posts: 26620 | Location: Santa Fe, NM | Registered: 15 June 2001
Pauline, thank you for your unbelievably fast response and for converting the web sites to hyperlinks. I am not so proficient! While I have read about the general procedures I would appreciate any book titles or names of authors that you may have. Will Ferenc Mate's book dissuade me from my quixotic pursuit? I had indeed hoped that I might hear from your members/owners. From that which I have read here, I was specially interested in Margie's and Decobabe's experiences (hint, hint). Also, Pauline, I have had difficulty in reaching Bill Thayer's site and continue to receive a warning that an illegal operation has occurred. Would you have any advice on the matter? Thanks, again.
Living, Studying, and Working in Italy: Everything you need to know to fulfill your dreams of living abroad, Travis Neighbor and Monica Larner, Henry Holt 1998. Details on working or going to school in Italy. A short chapter on buying or renting a home.
Buying a Home in Italy, David Hampshire and Mary Jane Cryan, Survival Books, 1999. All about buying a home in Italy.
Reading these books a few years ago convinced me that we are better off renting in Italy instead of buying, but I know many people who have bought second homes and are happy that they did. I felt the financial burden and the time committment was too much for us - you may be in a very different situation!! I think we will start by doing a longer term rental in Italy (3-6 months) sometime soon and see how that goes.
Posts: 26620 | Location: Santa Fe, NM | Registered: 15 June 2001
I have read the Living, working and Studying in Italy book you mentioned, as a matter of fact I pulled it out again today (as if I don't already have enought to read!) I would like to get some insight from those Americans who now live in Italy regarding whether it's better to rent or buy...now that you've made your choice and live with it for a while, would you do things the same way again? Art seems to be getting more and more serious about buying and living in Italy, but he would like to rent out a room or something, to earn a little extra income, and to have contact with fellow travelers, but if I were to move to Italy, I think I would just like to enjoy being there, and not have to worry about taking care of anyone but the 2 of us! We found a place in Umbertide, furnished, selling for $50,000, and are ready to go right now! Someone please tell me the donwside so I'm not too shocked when I finally come to my senses!
Posts: 4922 | Location: Umbria | Registered: 29 June 2001
You know the old saying "measure twice and cut once?" That goes for this experience, too. It took me 5 years to be sure of where I wanted to be and which house. I had a great real estate agent, lucky for me, because I didn't even know how important that would be.
1) I have NEVER seen the better/cheaper properties online.
2) You will have to redo the kitchen/bath(s) of almost any property you buy because it is not usual to leave more than the plumbing stubs behind. That should go into your budgeting. Even if you get an expat's house and they leave the kitchen, it may be done to a standard you cannot bear. Electrical service may also not be anywhere near a good standard. Check on the existence of a fossa biologica -- if it isn't there and legal you will have to install one. Italians take all this for granted, but foreigners get cocky because they have bought and sold before without these complications. Terra a cielo means you will own from the ground to the sky and means at least 1 meter around your house is yours. Other property must be part of a surveyor's map in the property file.
3) There is a law that I didn't know about that anyone who has a claim to a property can take it even if you have bought and paid for it. It is impossible to not honor claims to an estate, you must give at least the legal minimum % to relatives, even some in-laws in some cases. I read an article about it in a household type magazine and it is so complicated that I am not sure I dare make a new will here. That meant that when I settled the agents made every possible heir attend and be paid separately with cashier's checks. One child had to be taken out of school for it. I would not have known about this. An Italian I am acquainted with has paid twice for his house and it still isn't his. This is such a chilling prospect that I still cringe when I think of what could have happened to me. For that reason, please be careful to choose and stick with a good agency. If they don't have the property you want, ask them to coop with the agent who does.
4) Rent or buy? Depends how sure you are. Rentals are seldom the best properties for comfort and do NOT usually include a kitchen. It is common to buy the kitchen from the previous renter. Abitabile means it does have some kind of kitchen. You could rent a holiday property, but it will be way over the cost of the local rental market. A typical 3 bedroom apartment here rents for about $750 US a month, and rents for much more than that per week as a holiday property.
5) Mortgages similar to what you are used to now are available, but banking requirements are stiff and they are nearly all balloon types for short spans.
6) if you buy, improvements to the house are deductible when you sell, just like the US -- keep track and keep scontrini. First home purchase is at a lower tax level. If you move up or move on, the tax gets higher. Maybe they are trying to keep the population more stable?
I think the online sites are fun to get an idea from, but I wouldn't take them seriously. I would avoid the expat agencies because they seem to handle the properties that can be sold at higher prices to expats. Expats almost always spend more for the same property than a local would.
At http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/decobabeone/lst?.dir=/Trip+2000&.view=t there are some photos of various houses I looked at, mixed in with boring photos of the trip I was on when I bought this house. My budget was $100,000 US complete. These are the things I saw, and some of them would have been $200,000 when done. Or more.
BTW, anything that is in the house when you see it is yours, unless the person is still living there. That means junk, vermin and who knows what, as well as furniture. My sellers left the junk and took better things illegally, and also left their water bill for an entire year. A year later the local government pounded on the door and claimed it in cash. It was MY problem, not theirs.
7) Check the roof. It should by now have been insulated and relaid with cement. If it isn't done you will have to do it. Stones on top of the tiles are a sign it wasn't done. There is a visible layer of flat cement or ceramic material under the typical curved tiles if it is redone. Ask anyway. My general rule is it is OK to buy a property that hasn't been redone in any way, but pay accordingly. It will cost you a minimum of twice the sales price to do up a house that is in normal Italian shape but without kitchen/bath. It will coist you 3-5 times as much if you have to do the fossa and the roof too, and if there are earthquake damage signs, it could end up being a rebuild. YOU NEED A GOOD AGENT!
Posts: 2774 | Location: Umbria | Registered: 13 September 2001
The first thing one needs to understand is that actually living in Italy is not for everyone. For us, living here is like being an 8-year-old living in Disneyland. Every day is filled with new adventures and wonder. For others, it can be your worst nightmare.
Recently a USA couple living nearby moved back to California. For many years, they had both dreamed of selling their business and moving to Italy - which they did. Luckily for them, they decided to rent a home for 8 months to “try out” the Italian experience. After about 5 months the husband decided Italy was not for him. The wife was looking for small apartments to buy when she left – she’ll be back, he won’t. Again, it is not for everyone.
Best advice to someone considering living in Italy is “Make sure you are clear about why you are moving here”.
Can you speak Italian? It is imperative you get a very good working knowledge of the language.
Hire a really good real estate agent or make lots and lots of friends within the government offices and banks. Do you want to live in a town or in the country? Are there other expats and/or foreigners in the area you are considering? (this could be a plus or minus depending on your wishes)
The two books mentioned above are OK – some information is very good, while we can’t understand the meaning of other chapters. In the book Living….in Italy, the author spoke of 3 stages of culture shock – Excitement and Curiosity Disbelief and Frustration Satisfaction and Belonging. The man from the USA, who just moved back, never made it past the Disbelief and Frustration.
Amen to that, Bill! I sometimes think the next time I hear an expat going on and on about how terrible everything is, I am going to stuff my shoe down that throat. I think much of it may be a control issue. If you are used to having a lot of control, it is very difficult to change societies and cultures. You will not have control here over much other than your relationship to a culture that has been abuilding for millennia. You must be willing, even eager, to learn a whole new set of ideas, standards and a language. Without that you will become an angry and frustrated failure. I was a control freak in the US. I am becoming a lamb here, maybe..... The problem is yours, not Italy's. The adjustments will be yours to make. It suits me to make them, although I sometimes feel whacked up against the head and I have my moments of rage. My sticking point is behaviors that seem like betrayal to me and are seen as good business to many Italians.
Posts: 2774 | Location: Umbria | Registered: 13 September 2001
Dear Sir, have you consiedered to buy a property in the Marche. Much better than Umbria, it's quite unspoiled Region. If you are looking for the "Real italy" pls send me and e-mail and i give you further information. I also have rustic places to sell with vineyard and land. Yours Faithfully, Danny p.s. Reply to me here
Look forward to reviewing your recommended books, Pauline. I completely understand your conclusion to rent for a longer term and it was affirmed by Bill's and Patty's sad report on the Californians. Have wanted to connect with Bill Thayer as friends that will be visiting me in Italy would like to take some walks or hikes in the area (I have rented a farm house outside of Todi) and I also wanted to read about his experiences of living in Spello as that is a town around which I would like to search for property; however, while I am able to get to his site, thanks to you, when I try to open up his "Diary" I get blocked by the illegal operation message. I do thank you for your efforts. Recently I tried to use Internet Explorer(IE) rather than Netscape to see if that might work but it did not plus I found that I was not registered with you using IE and when trying to register using IE, I was blocked because my name and password were being used. Duh! Clueless in DC. Help. I will probably be using IE in the future.
Decobabe, I much appreciated your practical, insightful, and instructive response. How kind of you to share your photographs! To say I was stunned and in doubt after looking at those samples would be an understatement. I guess, faced with those challenges, I too would need Nora for creative ideas. Seriously, I am prepared to "measure twice." Have been using the web sites as a gauge of the range of available properties and to feed my fantasy. At some future time I wonder if you would share how you accomplished getting your home up to your standards?
Bill and Patty, your story, advice, and questions were helpful. My situation will not allow for me to stay full time in Italy. At the most I would be able to stay a month or two at a time and maybe six months in total during a year. What would you call this, Pauline, molto slow travel perhaps? Given this intermittant residency, I wonder if your questions or advice would change. I am developing a list of my criteria for a house/apartment and think that security will be important given the frequent and lengthy vacancies
Barb, at least one of the real estate web sites has a number of possibilities in or around Umbertide; hopefully, they will give Art more inspiration while you and I try to figure out what to do about fossa biologica .
Amen to all of that! I too was greatly interested in reading the detailed lists compiled for you(us?) by Decobabe, and also the helpful hints from Bill and Patty. I also wonder about how these moves/purchases were accomplished...did you travel to Italy intermittently, or did you just move over, set up a base and start driving around? We are limited in that respect right now, too. Art is able to retire, but I am forced to work for a while longer (which reminds me, I forgot to buy my lottery ticket!) We could go for, at most, a 3 week period, then for a 2 week period in the same year. I hate to ask people to share their secret finds, but it seems as if you ned to be there for an extended period of time, just getting to know different areas, not to mention getting to know a real estate agent, banker, geometra(sp?), etc etc etc!! I am also a very controlling person, and maybe this will present problems for me, but for the time being, I need to ask as many questions and be as well informed as I can! AS Decobabe watned, there will be enough surprises later on!! I do know that we want to live in a town, not out in the country, because we want to get to know the people and be a part of everything. I would hope that our lives in Italy would be like Bill described, full of adventure and discovery! I am not oppsed to a larger town, but do think I would prefer something about the size of Umbertide, as I think a smaller town would be more affordable as well as easier to learn our way around. Maybe I have it backwards, and a small town is actually harder to move to, esp as an American, because you would stick out like a sore thumb!? Still dreaming....I won't give it up yet!
Posts: 4922 | Location: Umbria | Registered: 29 June 2001
Barb, I bought a house in a borgo, or a collection of houses built together in the middle of a farm. The attachments are irregular, with piazzette inside and jogs, so there is light, variety, protection from the elements. It was once three family villas of distiction which have been divided into smaller homes over the centuries. I wanted neighbors, because I had none in West Virginia. I travel, would have to leave my animals, etc. and seem to be permanently single. I wanted a city with good services ... shops, hospital, things to do. When I started looking I had the casa colonica in mind. It's what you know from books and it is closest to the American idea of a house with ground around it. They are just too big. Two hundred square meters +, even if bought cheap costs too much to re-roof, renovate, plumb, etc. And then, where are your neighbors? And what about keeping up an often lengthy white road? I looked at villages and found one that was entirely expats. Uh-huh. Others were empty all day long because the residents went off to work. The houses in villages were often dark because they were joined side by side. I came to Italy once or twice a year, based myself somewhere convenient and drove around looking at towns and areas all over Tuscany and Umbria. (I'd already considered and discarded other regions over the decades.) I paid attention to climate, atmosphere and prices. I felt southern Umbria was too hot for me -- I am a gardener. The parts of Tuscany I could afford were way too remote. I had mistaken Citta` di Castello for Umbertide, which I knew slightly and didn't really like due to the preponderance of messy industrial growth that encircles it. The old town is charming, but all around is what I call the "cement factory" phenomenon. Once I got around to C di C, I knew instantly that this was it. The view from the E45 sucked me right in. It took only 1 week then and a further 2 week trip to identify a house, visit it several times and make a contract. The agency was recommended to me by a young architect at a dinner party. Was I ever lucky! I knew pretty much what to do to the house because this is what I did for a living, and I only had to learn about restoring old stone properties versus the balloon construction in the US. There are lots of differences, of course, but at least I understood what they meant. And I could choose to be different where I wished -- like paying extra and insisting on the gas bombole being outside and not tucked under the kitchen sink as they often are here. Or like choosing ochre colored plaster where it was replaced instead of slapping on a coat of whitewash. I lived in the house while the work was being done, because I was afraid it wouldn't get done otherwise. Even knowing I was here, people often didn't show up for appointments. The sandblaster was the only one who came, worked and left right on schedule! This is pretty boring stuff laid bare. You'll have to wait for the book which is interlaced with the more interesting parts of moving to the moon!
Posts: 2774 | Location: Umbria | Registered: 13 September 2001
Thanks Decobabe! I've read everyone else's book about moving to Italy, so if you are writing one too, just let me know when and where I can get it!! We don't have nay vacation time until November, and were considering the idea of NOT going to Italy, because we were afraid we would be too early for the new olive oil, but now I think we will go just to go house-hunting, and HOPE the olive oil works out! I guess I will start to contact everyone I know, or met once, who lives in Italy to get some pointers, names, advice, etc! What about you, Umbriaphile...any thoughts? Maybe we should start comparing notes! Of course, that means I have to GET some notes first! Right now I just want to jump on a plane and drive around Tuscany and Umbria until I find the perfect house in the perfect location! I know it's out there just waiting for us to discover it!
Posts: 4922 | Location: Umbria | Registered: 29 June 2001
Barb, you have the makings. People asked me many times, "Have you read 'Under the Tuscan Sun?" My answer was always yes, but I am going to do it anyway. The weather right now is so bad in some places that villages are falling. Venice is flooded in JUNE! I spent several hours huddled under a quilt reading escapist junk. It has rained dirt, yes, DIRT, several times already this year. Before it started to rain it just blew in and I had to clean the innards of my computer and mouse (as well as the rest of everything I own) to get the camel s^&*%t out. Revelations all, but I will stay.
Posts: 2774 | Location: Umbria | Registered: 13 September 2001
Am I the ONLY person in the world who did NOT like "Under The Tuscan Sun"? Maybe I just need to go back to reread both those books (Bella Tuscany being the other one) now that I have seen some of those places myself. I just found Under The Tuscan Sun rather boring and bland, not at all the enjoyable read like Extra Virgin. BAck to the original topic of buying a house in Umbria, I guess I will just have to cool my heels and wait until November when I can come back, but then I will spend all my time driving around searching for the RIGHT area, the RIGHT town, then I will have to find the RIGHT agent...okay, so patience is not my strongest suit! I just know my house is out there waiting for me to find it, I just need to find the right links. Can I expect to find a house, fix it up to a resonable standard and get by for $100,000? If no, then what is reasonable? I realize this will vary by area, but we are definitely NOT looking for anything ritzy or extravagant, and would rather have the perfect house not locking into any specific town or area at this point. I am a gardener too, so just a bit of land wuld suit me, altho I realize I might have to confine myself to some planters on a balcony. Could I survive, probably! Do I want to try? Most definitely!
Posts: 4922 | Location: Umbria | Registered: 29 June 2001
Has anyone looked at the book Restoring a Home in Italy: Twenty-two Home Owners Realize Their Dreams. Elizabeth Minchilli, Abrams, 2002; $50.00. Big and beautiful color pictures of remodeled houses all over Italy. Definately "after" pictures; there isn't a hint of what must have been the enormous amount of time, planning, love, luck, and bucks that went into these projects. Still, a nice dream book... No, I am not a fan either of the Tuscan Sun lady's books. And I can't stand the Provence version, either; can't remember thie names. Too patronizing for words. Yrs, Robert
Posts: 822 | Location: Santa Monica, California | Registered: 23 March 2002
Decobabe...well, that's solved the mystery! All the rain fell over your way. All we got was gales of dust. We could do with a few days of rain over here in Montemelino! It is - as my mother would say - as dry as chips!
Posts: 61 | Location: umbria | Registered: 17 January 2002
The story of an upperclass woman renovating her house got tiresome for me. But I loved Extra Virgin. Good luck finding your Italy house!! We can all come to visit you on our trips!
Posts: 26620 | Location: Santa Fe, NM | Registered: 15 June 2001
Mary Jane Cryan tells me that Lazio is very affordable. Houses in Vetralla (a nice small town) sell for - oh, I can't find the number now - she told me how much per square foot - I will find it in my trip notes and post here. I also met someone who owned a nice apartment in a small town between Pienza and Siena and it was under $125,000 renovated.
Posts: 26620 | Location: Santa Fe, NM | Registered: 15 June 2001
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