Conversation about property prices spurs Carla Passino to try and find properties for sale priced at €100,000 or less. It is not easy`—but she succeeds.
My family and I were having a conversation about property prices over a glass of red and a handful of prosciutto slices (the food and drink presumably having the function of making it easier to digest the topic). For all that Italian papers are full of news of a softening market, when you actually try to buy a house and look at what you are asked to pay now over what you would have paid a few years ago, you realise that values remain a lot higher than in the past.
There is no doubt that this is a buyer’s market, especially for those who have cash in hand and can expect their offers to be readily accepted, but that’s far from saying you can get a property for a song.
“Nowadays,” sighed my father, “you don’t even buy a garage for €100,000.”
Now €100,000 still is a respectable amount of money. So of course his statement prompted a challenge. Could I find a handful of properties for less than that?
The verdict is—it is not easy. But yes, you can find a property for €100,000 or less—so long as you are prepared to look outside urban centres or popular second-home areas. In places such as the Chianti, this budget buys flats, village houses or small casali in need of complete restoration or outbuildings with permission to demolish and rebuild.
Elsewhere, however, it fetches resale flats in a civile (i.e. mid-brow) building (near Trieste) , a handful of (smallish) new build flats (in Calasetta, Sardinia), small terraced houses in need of an upgrade (near Florence) or even the odd detached house (near Trapani, in Sicily). Wherever possible, though, read the fine print, because some of the places I came across did not have heating or had electrical wiring that did not meet the most recent standards and regulations.
Among my favourites are a €100,000 flat dripping with exposed stone and wood, which is set inside a fortified farmhouse near Castellammare del Golfo, in Sicily - view; a panoramic flat in the ancient town centre of Montebuono, near Rieti, in Lazio, which has been renovated with strikingly modern interiors and is on the market for €96,000 - view; and a tiny house in need of full restoration in Amandola, in Le Marche - view, because it is priced at just €15,000, leaving you with €85,000 spare change to spend on renovation work to create a lovely little haven in one of Italy’s prettiest towns.
