Buying a house in Italy

Buying a house in Italy first came into our heads last year when my Sister Debbie asked us to have a look at a property she was looking into in Italy. We had a look, and the seed was planted. A seed that hasn't stopped growing since. Like a lot of people we were attracted to the €1 Homes deal, which quickly lost our interest as there are so many rules that come along with that One Euro. I am sure it works out for a lot of people though, but not something we were interested in.

We spent Months looking through websites, falling in love with properties all over Italy. We would see a property and ask ourselves, "humm will we go for that one". Totally ignoring the fact that we had no idea what part of Italy the property was in and the fact that we didn't have the money to buy it anyway. Eventually we saw a youtube video posted by a couple called the travel beans. I will post the link below. In the video they visited a part of Italy called Puglia that we had never heard of. It is also known as the heel of the boot. The couple stopped in a town called Ostuni, and that was it. Something about this white city caught our imagination and we just knew we had to go there.

Fast forward a few Months and we were able to visit Ostuni for one night. As we drove from the motor way we saw Ostuni in the distance and thought, THIS IS IT!!!!! I mean, look at it below. It took our breath away. 

So we have the area, now we have to think about what we want. We have the three dogs, we like privacy, so what type of property do we look for? 

Along comes Jenny:

The best advice we can give when looking for a property is to join the local expat group in that area. We found 'Expats in Ostuni'. We have made some brilliant friends through this facebook page, genuinely lovely people who give us mountains of advice. One common name kept coming up when we asked who we should contact in relation to buying a property. So we contacted Jenny from the Block,  AKA Jenny O'Brien from Casa Puglia. Originally from Co Cork, Jenny has lived in Puglia for many years. She knows the ins and outs of properties all over Puglia.

We kept noticing when we looked at a property that something would be described as abusive, an abusive bedroom or patio or door. Eventually we realised that abusive means ILLEGAL. There are ways around it, but as we have enough on our plates we wanted to keep this simple. As mentioned we contacted Jenny and bombarded her with all sorts of properties we saw online to check for us. She has the patients of a saint, and eventually we learned to listen to the person that knows. We really trust her, and she sends us properties that are legal and would suit our needs not our wants. What I mean by that is, we want a one Euro home with a pool over looking the sea and the Colosseum in Rome and we want it NOW.

We were with Jenny for one day while in Ostuni in May, and I cant count how many properties she showed to us. Big, small, doer uppers, completed ones. She was aware that we were not ready to buy but had no problem showing us anyway.

As is stands Today, we travel in two weeks to have a look at some really good properties, and we look forward to seeing Jenny, this time we are ready to buy :)