So in reading my own writing, I realized…. I try too hard. One of the hopes for my blog is that I can keep things light, and easy to understand. Sometimes I get too concerned about writing concisely and the words lose any trace of personality. I’m sure I will improve over time! Now to the good stuff!
Our Apartment
Finally to the stuff I’m excited about. Our story in real estate. To understand we’ll start with our first apartment. Now we live near Milan, Italy. And we’re talking within commuting distance. Which in fact my wife does just that. We fell in love and decided that through legal processes, I could move to Italy easier than she could move (and work) to the United States. It seemed perfect. My wife loved her job and I would love to experience change. What could be better than making that change in Italy? Well I’m sure it’ll take multiple posts to tell about daily life in Italy so for today let’s stick with ‘home life.’
When we got married I had owned a town-home where I’m from, in Idaho, for about 5 years already. The last few years of which I had rented it out. So the difficulty would be to manage it from a distance. I made an agreement with a friend to take care of it for a while, over time that transitioned into a sister, and overall back to me, requiring I find the right tenants (which I feel I have.) My wife had about 1.5 years under her belt at her current occupation and so she had just started to save up some money in the hopes of buying a home. At that point she was renting an apartment where she commuted just over an hour to work each day. The benefit? Lower rent, and living with the greenery. At her salary, she was able to save just a bit each month.
Inheritance
My wife comes from a hardworking family, Mom, Dad, and a brother. My wife and her mother had moved from Albania to Italy when my wife was about 18. This they did to find better work and education. Like I said in my first post, my family has experienced trial and struggle just like most of you. My wife and her family included.
Fast forward back to ‘we got married.’ My mother in law had saved up a small chunk of money and had given what she had to her kids in the hope they would have enough for a down-payment on a home. We, a newlywed couple, started discussing dreams/goals/desires, and we came to the conclusion that we should buy soon, even though I still did not have permission to work in Italy. The real estate market had dropped for so long it was surely a buyers market. And we didn’t want to miss it.
Game Changer
Now remember this is us. My wife working, I’m in Italy now for 3 months. I can’t speak more than 20 words of Italian. I’m also a bit of an introvert. How do you buy a house with a deposits worth of cash and low income? My wife working in the city of fashion, meant prices would be insane right?
I would search on sites looking for prices, and in the end prices were higher (even in a buyers market) than any I had seen back home in Idaho. Just know that most of my professional experience at that point was in the construction industry. You have to understand, most of the properties within a reasonable price range at our current salary (€100K to €160K) were old studio apartments, where that price could buy you a 2-3 bedroom town-home where I am from. Not sure what to do we still dreamed and continued the search. Enters our game changer.
At this point memories are a blur, but we spoke a bit about auctions, and my wife found a link for properties that had been taken away for non-payment and were in the process of being sold by the court. I knew using auctions would give chance of finding something much more affordable. I just didn’t know how much.
Criteria
In real estate it is important to make a list of needs and desires. After all in purchasing a property, you are spending an amount that supersedes most peoples annual income. For us it was a short list.
Our desired search criteria:
- Close to church
- Similar commute for the wife
- less than €150K
- At least 2 bedrooms
- Garage
- Within our budget (we weren’t very good at this part as a family, yet)
Using this list I began the search, and was pleasantly surprised to find many properties available. I had made a list of 20 properties that fit the description. But then harsh reality reared it’s head.
Our budget
In closer calculation. Without me working, we were living paycheck to paycheck. The thought was that our rent could easily pay our mortgage. In theory would work, but when you start to calculate all the extra costs of purchasing a new home, we were well out of our means.
THE SOLUTION??? = a quick adjustment of criteria.
I found if we increased the commute slightly and weren’t afraid of a little bit of hard work, we could almost pay cash for a property that fit most of our criteria. But, what that did was narrow under options to a handful of properties.
The Search
With hope leading the way, we began scheduling appointments. Touring a home is one of the most fun things you can experience. Which was no less true for us. Sometimes my wife would come, but ultimately it was up to me to find something I felt was appropriate for us and our future. I looked at multiple properties, all of which were just over the amount of cash we had. We were trying to save as much as possible but we in the end would have to make up the difference with a loan of some kind.
One day, during my search I found a property fitting all of the criteria, I thought (Remember, the documents were in Italian.) The only problem was that there were no photos. I did my usual due diligence on google maps to see if I could find something that fit the description. I decided what was needed was a quick site visit, I scheduled an appointment for another property in the same city so I didn’t just waste the gas and went hunting.
The visit
Firstly, I was unimpressed by the first home I had seen. A lot of damage to the interior, although it was in a decent building. The floor plan killed it for me. Half of the living room was under the stairs to the upper apartment. Afterwards, I drove to where I thought I would find the mystery property. Here I found just below the community church, a one-way road. I parked nearby and walked up the street to a row of Villa a schiere (Town-homes). One one side was a private drive of 5 houses with garages adjacent each. The opposite side of the row of houses were two large properties. One a garden and the other seemed to be used as a junkyard. Based on my first impressions, I thought the neighborhood was a little bit too rundown. Walking up the private drive I discovered the address right in the center of the row. Posted on the door was a paper declaring it was under possession by the court.
I found it! It was exactly what we had been looking for, aside from the neighborhood being less desirable.
I made some initial videos of that first visit that you can see here.
Now it was time to schedule a real appointment. I made sure my wife scheduled it on a day she was available because this was a property I had high hopes for.
Day of the inspection! We met a custodian of the court and he opened the home and proceeded to open the shutters to reveal a large living room. In the room you could see 6 old television sets, a strange shaped fireplace, stairs to the upstairs and a door to the kitchen. The kitchen was decorated with broken floor tile, dirt, disease, and insects. Behind was a small room under the stairs with a tiny bathtub, sink with mirror, and broken toilet. Walking up the stairs to a large hallway revealed three doors. A bathroom, and two bedrooms. The main bedroom required you to walk through a small room (now our closet) with a homemade stair leading to the attic space.
This was it. We knew we wanted it, but with the price so low we imagined multiple people wanting it as well. Upon deeper inspection we learned that since the previous owners had left, multiple transients had broken in and made a home, selling various parts such as door knobs, and electrical covers. Every room was bare. It was ok however, we were sure to have replaced them anyhow.
Application and Auction
You would think this process would be insignificant. I will spare you the details, but just be aware, nothing is easy in Italy. At least nothing regarding technology and documentation. I just remember feeling like we quadruple and quintuple checked to make sure we had the documentation just right before we submitted for participating in the auction. Maybe it was just because we were newbies. Or maybe it was just me. I will ask my wife her thoughts from those days in time.
Day of the Auction
Checklist:
- Excited – Check
- Nervous – Check
- Documents – Pretty sure
- Game Face – Dang Right!
I really can’t quickly put into words all the thoughts we had. We were coming into a first time experience excited and afraid that we wouldn’t have a budget big enough to compete with the real estate gurus of Italy. We had heard stories from a friend of his experience with what he called the mafia trying to muscle him out of a home purchase.
We entered the court. We tend to be late, but this time I made sure we were extra early. There was no way I was going to miss this thing. We entered the court room complete with chairs a judges bench and a cell for holding prisoners on trial. There were a small number of people, but not knowing the process, we assumed they were all there for our auction. Everyone was competition in our eyes. We waited for the allotted time. And we waited some more. There were 6 judges as far as I could tell and they would say something I could barely make out, and some times people would respond by getting out of their chairs and walking to the front. Other times silence.
Our number was called. Well I assume, haha I really needed to learn my numbers. We went up to the side table where the custodian who had shown us the property and who I thought was the Judge at the time were looking through documents. On our side of the table was me, my wife, and two other people. I listened while what I believe was a verification of who we were as interested parties in purchasing the property. They seemed to be talking a lot to my wife. What seemed an era, though probably just 20 minutes passed. I leaned over to my wife and asked. What is going on?” I expected the response. “We are about to bid.” to escape her lips. When she surprised me.
“It’s OURS!” she whispered excitedly.
BOOM! What? How? Am I really that bad at Italian?
She explained that everyone besides us at the table was an officer of the court, or assistant. We got the property for the base price.
…
When I think back on those days, everything seemed to fall in place perfectly for us. There is more to this story, but we will save that for next time.
