I recently purchased a small flat in an

josieverona Image
01/05/2019 - 09:21

I recently purchased a small flat in an Umbrian town but I can tell you that it has taken me years to get to this point.  I started researching years ago and came across exactly the same situation as yourself.  I would fire off email after email in regards to places I was interested in and I think I would have received about 5 replies for every 50 emails I sent.I am lucky because I speak Italian, but even that is not enough to convince most agents that you are worth contacting.  Sometimes I would ring places and speak to someone and if they did speak to me the usual response was "you need to come to Italy and come to our office and then we will talk".Buying a property in Italy can be a complicated process and quite possibly they did not want to have to spend time taking me through the process.This year in May my husband and I booked five weeks in Umbria and armed with research that I did that narrowed our search down to three properties and having contacted all three agents to let them know that I was coming to Italy, I rang them and emailed them once in Italy to say that I had arrived and that I wished to see the properties.  Once they knew that I was in the area and that they had forewarning that I was coming to Italy and contacting them again with firm dates for when I wanted to see each place, this seemed to do the trick and I was shown all three properties by the three different real estate agencies but I must say, being able to speak Italian certainly helped the situation.I am now the proud owner of a little apartment which I cannot wait to return to and start putting my stamp on, but I must say that the buying process was fraught with problems and there were a couple of times where I was convinced that we were not going to be able to complete the process.  Luckily, that is all behind us and we now look forward to the future of a little bolthole in Italy.Good luck with your search!

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Hi Josie!Saw this was an answer to somebody else's troubled home search in Italy however, could totally relate to your post!! have been living in Liguria for 15 years now and have been searching for a home for half of that time!Between the agents who don't answer emails - or don't even grace their answer with a "Hello", those who don't bother showing up at appointments, the ones who just stop answering after 2 emails or...the agents who still believe they will sell you a house after 1 visit...I am literally thinking of starting a blog!I mean, you have to live it to believe it! Real estate here is out of this world. Bless you for having found your perfect place!!! Gives hope to the rest of us :))Take care.

Yes, I totally feel your pain!! It is quite unbelievable and so different to what we are obviously used to.  I too could write a blog (in fact I have filled a 150 page notebook with my real estate trials and tribulations so I suppose you could say I wrote a book!) but there is light at the end of the tunnel because with a lot of prompting and persistence I purchased my darling little place and finally became the owner in October - so there is hope for you too!

Hello, I'm Milena, I'm Italian and together with my Dutch husband we have a casa vacanze about 20 km. from perugia, in a small village called Pietrafitta, in our place there is an Australian painter, I understood that you are Australian that's why I like to inform youMy email address is milenab63@hotmail.com as I'm not always connected to this community.If you like to discover our area just let me know, we have a Glass Museum and several beautiful places. ciao, ciaoWelcome in Umbria !Milena 

To help you about your renovation of the flat I will need to understand which kind of works you need to do, we have a good company who can renovate houses,internal and external as they built in 2006 our house and renovated our casaleIf you could send me an mail to milenab63@hotmail.com, I will appreciate, I'm not every day on this communityGrazie mille and ready to help you P.S. On 17-2 in a lovely church in our area called GAICHE we will have a concert dedicated to San Valentino, are you joining ? The concert is free, at the end, if you like you can leave a donation.