Hello again! I’m back again with some more news on our Italian Remodels. I’ve been slowly putting together a long term plan for 2018 and have realized I have consistently…. Not been consistent. Ha.. I’m talking about my sporadic attempts at blog updating. A bit in November, some before that in May.. When is this thing going to get consistent? Well, today’s the day! I’ve been so distracted on finding the right tools to plan these updates that I haven’t actually been doing the updates. Well, no more. I’m going to take a step back and focus on the content again. It’s what I enjoy the most anyhow. A few new things to mention, first is the updated home page. I changed up my theme and have to say like the way I’ve organized everything. Learning a little bit more about email marketing and email opt-in’s you might find yourself bombarded with opportunities to join an email list. Please do! This blog is mainly designed to share our status updates, but I’d be lying if I pretending I didn’t want to hear from you as well. Second, I’ve decided to focus more on the remodel and retire portions of this blog. And soon, I will be launching a new site geared to supporting people preparing for retirement. So what was I doing while I was gone these past few months?? Why… buying another auction property here in Italy of course! Did I say one? I meant two… Seriously! I’ll get to the details in a minute. The funny thing is when my wife misses a day at work, when she returns her co-workers ask her.. ‘Did you buy another house?’ At this point I’m getting extremely behind on updates about the progress of past projects… an update for those are coming, rest assured. But I’d like to start with the present, and add previous updates over time.
If you follow us on Facebook you may have seen a post about walking through the property. I even mentioned I’d get a video posted… Which I never did.. Then in mid January I posted a picture with Ela and I excited to have won the auction. Let me tell you about the property… Property Details While searching for our next big investment deal I located an apartment 5 minutes from our home in the center of Sant’Angelo. The courts estimated value was €145,716 with an extremely low auction base. On top of that the courts have been offering a 25% discount to move inventory faster. The unit was at one time 3 smaller apartments converted into one apartment of 2592 SF. Filling the top floor of an apartment complex.
Italian apartment properties are seldom larger than 1300 square feet. Especially being an auction property larger properties are few and far between. At 2600 square feet, we could easily split the property into two and double our returns. I knew we needed to take advantage of this opportunity. My wife had previously had the idea of getting a mortgage and buying multiple properties while the prices are low. I had explained to her that that’s not how a mortgage works, even more so in Italy. But, this property was the perfect way to buy two properties with one mortgage so It would seem my wife was right on target! There was no HOA listed at the time of bankruptcy. Upon my site visit and judging by the shape of the exterior it had been quite some time since it had seen a remodel with its large patches of nude brick dotting the facade. In time that will be an added expense. The interior was in good condition. Not new by any means, but spacious with rooms to spare. A balcony that spanned the front of the building peering down at the road plus another two balconies on the remaining corners. One of the bathrooms looked neglected as if it was the last on the previous owners maintenance list. After my aforementioned facebook post I shared my findings with my wife and we began speculating how much we’d be willing to pay for a property like this. These are my favorite conversations with my wife. She gets extremely expressive and at these moments I feel like she’s the driving force behind our real estate ventures! ..moving on.. The day before the auction we submitted our application with a 10% deposit. Auction day! 11:40 am at the local courthouse, my wife and I entered the courtroom to see hoards of people as always at the judges bench. A quick inquiry with the custodians to make sure we hadn’t missed our auction number called and we took our seats. 11:40 tends to be the last time slot of the day for court auctions. So as expected the seats were scarcely occupied, in fact only ourselves and two other groups remained. We could see the previous auctions coming to a conclusion and were able to determine who our property custodian would be for the upcoming bidding. We were ready to psyche out the competition with Ela’s famous auction strategy. Haha. Contrary to my brother in law’s strategy of attacking the bid price and make it go up quickly to cause an eruption of emotions in the competition. My wife likes to give the appearance of a calm, collected woman that must not have a limit on what she is willing to spend inferred by her clear bidding without a second’s hesitation.
Just before we took our places, our assumed competition stood up and walked out of the room. Apparently they were just waiting for someone else and that left us… alone.. It was hard to control the excitement we felt when we realized that we’d be getting the property at the discounted price.. The auction concluded, documents signed, we calmly thanked the custodian and at the moment we slipped outside jumped out of our socks with unbelief. Taking a quick selfie to preserve the moment and share with others. Now it’s been approximately 1 months since the day and we are well on our way to getting mortgage documents signed and keys in hand. That’s all the time I have today, but keep in touch and we’ll keep you in the know!
I am at the point in my life that I am retiring and want to move away from the USA . I have seen on one of your videos rural land in rural Sicily. Although I am not fluent in Italian, I am fluent in Latin.
I would like to known how much your services would be to find me a cheap RURAL farm with a ruin on it , with some land. I am am , also a botanist.
Please give me a reply,
Yours most sincerely,
Timothy Buero
Hello, I have viewed a number of your videos and at the point in my life where i wish to retire. I am writing to known what would be the charge for your service in locating property in Sicily. I am looking for a cheap farm with some land that needs to be improved (or could be) and a ruin on it (that would be a long term project) in a rural area that would want some population.
I am not fluent in Italian but am fluent in Latin.
Sincerely,
Timothy Buero
sincerely
Hi Timothy,
I will send an email to you today. I am jumping back on the blog and apologize for the slow response time. Thanks for following us!