Past four years
For just over four years a large portion of my time has been spent investigating auction properties through the region of Lombardy. I feel like I’ve seen it all. But with the number of properties that are still up for auction I’m sure that more surprises are in store. Most I have visited were in the fixer upper category. My favorite category.
Experience gained
Amongst the mass of properties I’ve inspected, a decent portion of them i have either attended as an auction participant or given counsel to the winning buyer. Needless to say I’ve become accustomed to the process and feel comfortable in the atmosphere.
Truth be told since I started searching auctions in the first year of my life here in Italy, I can give credit to searching legal documents for the base of my limited Italian knowledge. Of course with legal jargon there is still much to learn, but I can hold an Italian conversation about property much better than I can at almost any other subject.
In addition to my language skills, I have gained a grander perspective on real estate as a whole. In the world today, it is easy to discard that which is old and seemingly destroyed, for new and fashionable, which is most true here. If it’s not new, most people will dismiss it. Better for me! Keeps the competition slim. Point being, coming from my small corner of the United States, having purchased a new property in 2008, I never imagined I would one day be able to buy 7-10 properties for the price I paid for my humble start townhome. Not something I’ve achieved as of yet, merely because I chose to control my debt this time around.
2015 law change.
One thing of significance that happened in 2015 was the changing of a law that led to the hyper processing of 1000’s of auction properties. First of all, from my point of view it seems like there is a law changing every other day here in Italy. No one is ever satisfied with the changes so another new law is proposed and the process starts all over again. Keeping the laws in motion must be the best way for the politicians to keep their jobs. Back to the story, we won our first auction in early 2014, but I often wonder what would have happened if we had waited. In 2015 a law was passed that would changed the way court auctioned properties would be processed. But since a typical property up to that point took years to compete, there was already a large inventory needing to be liquidated. So the plan was to offer a 25% discount to draw the attention of new buyers and ultimately speed up the sites process by about half a year.
People started buying in droves. But it has still taken until early 2018 to begin implementing the new processes, Missy likely due to the need for supporting technology and platforms. After winning our auction back in January, I began noticing many of the estates I had been tracking were not resurfacing like they had done previously. Upon investigation I discovered there were about one-tenth of the typical inventory available in my region. Upon further investigation I learned that it was due to a change that would be occurring in April of this year. All properties were to be sold through a new portal. But not just properties. In April, all public asset sales will have found themselves a new home.
Long term goals
Previously I stated my goal was to purchase five rentals and after five years sell them off, following this process a number of times. I see that goal coming to life everyday. To date we own our own home plus three other income properties and are making steps to increase again before the end of the year. I truly see this as a blessing for us and many others around us.
When I think long term, I always default to the thought that our paths will lead us back to America in a decade or so. But during this interim I plan to keep our family engaged in helping as many people as possible take advantage of these real estate auctions.
Serving others
To me participating in these auctions seems intuitive, but the more I speak with others, the more I realize I have a wealth of knowledge on the subject that needs to be shared. So from now on, my big focus will be to serve others by educating them on how to avoid the pitfalls that lie in wait. I will have much more to announce this following quarter on the matter, including the beginnings of my blog articles being written in Italian. Which I am sure will help me most of all.
Adjusting to the changes
In order to really help others I have a bit of learning to do since the entire process as I knew it is going digital. The good news is that it is supposed to become even more user friendly. The downside is that it is unknown how these changes will affect the market prices.
Most times change is a good thing. If change was not a base principle of life we’d never have come as far as we are as a civilization. It’s time for me to grab hold of the reins of change and become an expert of my field!
