Life After Recognition: Buying Property in Italy with Nikki Taylor

In this episode, Lauren talks with Nikki Taylor, founder of Italy Property Consulting and one of the leading experts on buying property in Italy as a foreigner. Nikki shares her journey from Australia to Italy, how she built a career helping international buyers navigate the Italian real estate market, and what anyone considering a home in Italy needs to know before taking the leap.

Together, they explore the questions people ask when they begin imagining a life in Italy. How do you buy a home in Italy as a non‑resident? Which regions offer the best value? What should buyers look for when evaluating Italian properties? And how can you avoid the pitfalls that often surprise first‑time foreign buyers?

Nikki also opens up about the realities of the Italian property market, including some of the unforgettable moments she has experienced while touring homes across the country. From breathtaking opportunities to situations she never could have anticipated, her stories reveal the full spectrum of what it means to help people find their place in Italy.

This conversation is practical, inspiring, and filled with clear guidance for anyone dreaming of owning a home in Italy. Whether you are exploring Italian real estate for the first time or actively planning a move, Nikki offers the insight and confidence needed to take the next step.

A must‑listen for anyone considering buying property in Italy, building a life abroad, or turning their Italian citizenship into a meaningful new chapter.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Welcome back, everybody, to your Italian podcast. I'm Lauren Hopkins, your host and founder of Your Italian Passport, your one-stop shop for everything, Italian dual citizenship. As you may recall, in our last episode, we dove in with my mom about why one might want to be an Italian citizen and what our Italian heritage means to us. And today we have the honor of bringing on Nikki Taylor of Italy Property Consulting to talk to us about hey, now that you're an Italian citizen, you gotta put a roof over your head. How do you buy? Do you buy? How do you buy a home in Italy? Nikki is a wealth of information. She is a three-time Amazon best-selling author featured in Forbes magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine, Italy magazine, multiple appearances on HGTV's Househunters International. She lives in Puglia, she's from Australia. She has been in Italy for over 10 years, and she is a wealth of information on this topic. Let's get into it. Nikki, welcome. So good to have you here. I so appreciate you coming on the podcast. And it's just so good to talk to you again.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

How are you? I'm good. Thank you so much for having me. Um, I'm really looking forward to this um chat between with the two of us and just sharing a bit about what it means to buy property in Italy.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Yeah, absolutely. Can I say before we get started how much I love those glasses? I'm I'm wishing I had glasses on right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

I feel like regrets. Um I actually sat on my Swaroski ones that cost 200 euros, and these are 15 euros from the pharmacy. Go figure.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Can't beat them. I just uh they're adorable. Thank you. Before we dive into property purchase, I wanna I want to share with the audience a little bit about who you are, how you ended up from how you went from Australia to Italy, and how you got in the world of real estate in Italy.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Tell us. So I am from Australia, from Perth. Um I lived quite a long time in London and worked in financial planning, investment banking, moved back to Australia, moved to Sydney in 2012, and straight back into investment banking working for Deutsche Bank. Really long hours, and you know, my health took a bit of a tumble, classic corporate burnout, ended up in hospital with severe um gastric problems, and it was really around about that time that I had my little line in the sand moment about where I saw myself and my future because you know I was a single woman, didn't have any kids back then, no ties, and I'd always loved Italy. And because I have British citizenship and I and I moved to Italy before Brexit, the idea of moving to Italy wasn't that challenging from a visa perspective. I'd always loved Italy, and I just had this thought one day, I'm I'm gonna move to Italy. I'm gonna move to Italy, and I started learning Italian, and I gave myself a 12-month window to kind of figure out what I was gonna do. And I moved to Italy in December 2014, and in February, so a couple of months after, I was having an apetitivo, and I saw this billboard for a global international estate agency, luxury estate agency called England Volkers, and I got really excited because it was written in English, they needed someone to go and work with them. And given that I was living in a town called Bolzano, which is in the far north um east of Italy on the Austrian border, they spoke German and Italian. I didn't speak really any of either. So to see something like a job advertisement in English is like, oh my god, I have to get this job. So I got the job, and that started my foray into real estate in um Italy, and I stayed with them for a couple of years, and then I really missed the south, like bitch, the beach. You know, I'm from Australia, you know, while I was living in the mountains, it wasn't really beach kind of vibe, freezing cold winters. And my Italian teacher from Sydney was from Puglia, and she said, Why don't you go and check out a place called Monopoly? So I went to Monopoly, and I remember walking through the old town, and I had these goosebumps come all over me. I was thinking, Oh my god, this is my place. Like I just felt like this is the Italian dream that I was searching for that I didn't get in Bolzano because it just didn't really feel like real Italy to me. And I started working for an estate agency immediately there and started my journey.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

And the rest is history. When you first went from London to Italy, why did you choose Bolzano, especially as a beach girl from Perth?

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Um, I had some connections there, um, people that I knew, and so that's where I kind of started my journey. But you know, it's a beautiful place, don't get me wrong, it's picture postcard perfect, and I loved it, but it just didn't feel like the Italy that I was searching for.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Understood. So when did you when exactly did you make this transition from working for someone else to doing Italy property consulting your own company?

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Well, um, I was working part-time for an estate agency in Monopoly dealing with all their business development inquiries, mainly from overseas investors, and they all had the same kind of fears about buying property in Italy. You know, can I trust an estate agency? You know, what's big building construction gonna be like? Am I gonna get ripped off? Am I gonna be like falling into a constant money pit? And it was during that time that I had an idea to create the first ever course in the country and the industry to assist foreigners with buying property in Italy, and that was seven years ago. Good on you, yeah, and um that it just snowballed everything from there. So I I sold the chorus within all the spots within the first 12 hours, and I started doing that every you know couple of months, and then it went to like a kind of evergreen kind of chorus, and then I started um a property magazine called La Dolce Vidal Lifestyle Magazine during COVID, where a lot of my um contacts, you know, clients in my Facebook group and you know on social media were all Americans, and they wanted to understand what I could buy in Italy for a certain type of price bracket. So I created the magazine, and it was something that I did every week, and then my business evolved into going into one-on-one consulting, which I absolutely love. Um, I just got back this morning from seeing some clients from in the first time in person that they entrusted me, you know, to help them buy a house sight unseen, and you know, it was just great to, you know, they flew over um the other day to see the house in person, see the town, you know, discover poolio a bit more, and it was just so rewarding. So working one-on-one with my clients is really where my business is focused right now.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

That's fantastic. What percentage of your clients would you say are American or Australian? I would say 99% American, 1% Australian. Oh wow, okay. 99% American. Okay, fantastic. And they have found you through the magazine, they have found you through other internet uh uh offerings that you have historically had and now you're doing this one-on-one consulting.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Lucky enough to be, you know, on House Summit International a few times, so that's where my clients have generally find me social media, Forbes, um, USA Today, um, and I've written a few books, so they they find me through that. So I've been really fortunate. I've never had to try and find clients, they find me, so it's great.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Yeah, and I think you're I think you're you're kind of underselling yourself here. Not just written a few books, but uh on the New York Times bestseller list multiple times. That is no small thing, that's a really big deal. Good on you. So when a client comes to you, what is the first step in this process? Of great, Nikki, I want to buy a property in Italy. Where do I begin? What do you tell them?

SPEAKER_00 8:17

So I generally um, and this this is where my background in financial planning kind of really helps with what I do. So I go into a real deep dive into what is it, what is your Italian dream look like? You know, where in Italy do you want to be? What kind of property do you want to have? Do you want this property to generate you an income? Do you want this to be your new forever home or just to use for you know your holidays with family and friends? And then we start to dig deep and then we start to kind of understand where someone is actually looking to buy. Because sometimes what people describe as their dream doesn't actually match up with where they want to buy. It's it's this is this is where a lot of you know deep dive um conversations happen.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

And so they say to you, What would you say that most people are saying this is a second home for me, this is a permanent home for me? Uh, would you say that they are looking to do rental properties? What's the majority, what's the average person looking to do who comes to you looking to buy a property in Italy?

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Most of my clients um are looking to have a second home that they can rent out as a holiday rental, and that's really my area of expertise. Although I do assist clients with looking to make a permanent move as well. But generally speaking, my clients contact me because they know like I do work all over Italy, but I work predominantly in the three main regions Pulia, Tuscany, Sicily, and those are the regions of which are absolutely booming and consistent growth with holiday rental investments. So they come to me, they want to have a property that they can utilize themselves in their holidays and then rent it out and make a good return.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

I guess a good question that a lot of viewers might be having is how do they even decide should I rent or should I buy? How do they discern what the right avenue is there?

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Well, I think if someone is looking to move here permanently, I would definitely suggest they rent and understand the area first and you know come here in the off-season and see if it if it is kind of like a town that's driven by tourism. See, like, can I live in this town in winter when it's completely dead, as opposed to being in here in summer when it's just thriving. But most of my clients, because they are looking to buy investment properties, a lot of them don't even come and view the properties with me. They entrust me to do all the leg work, booths on the ground, I take extensive video footage, I do walking tours of the towns, and you know, I point out all the you know defects of the property so they're getting a real clear understanding of the property, and they what they want to understand is how much is this property going to earn me in a rental income perspective, and then we can do an ROI, and then they just go, right, you take care of it and let's let's go.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

That's an excellent point. So, what would you say are the main differences financially for people to be aware of who are considering a rental pro a holiday property in Italy versus someone who might have a second home already in the US that they use as a rental property? Are there big differences that people should understand in terms of what you can expect to earn and overhead costs you might incur?

SPEAKER_00 11:17

It really depends with regards to the earnings as to where the property is. Size, how many bedrooms, proximity to um, you know, popular tourist destinations and whatnot, um, you know, places of interest. Um, property management costs can vary between 20 and 30 percent depending on whether you have a property that's got land and a pool and things to maintain, all this sort of thing. But it's a question that that I do come across with my clients a lot when they say, well, we could buy a second home in the States, which probably earn us more money than a property in Italy. But I don't look at it just as an ROI from a financial perspective. It's an ROI to your soul. You're coming to Italy, you're switching off, you're immersing yourself into that alter vita, the slow life. Most of my clients are corporate executives that are just constantly on the go and they need to have that switch off time. So it's kind of giving back, not just from a financial perspective, but also like a mental health perspective. People can just sort of reset, recharge, rejuvenate.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Yeah, that's a really good point. Is that this is not just a holiday rental that people use that are looking to make money off of, but it's somewhere where they intend to go for their own personal holidays, which you know, yes, you might find something like that in the US, but is it gonna have that Italian charm, that Italian food, that whole, like you said, that ability to reset. It's a completely different thing. What percentage of time would you say your average client is personally spending in the homes that they're purchasing if they are holiday rental and not permanent movers? Generally about two weeks a year.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Or if they're retired and the rest of the time, yeah, or if they're retired, they might come, if they haven't got citizenship, they might come and do the Schengen shuffle. But most clients they don't come in the height of summer because they lose too much money, because obviously the rental income, for example, like in Pulia, for example, through the high summer months, you can earn a really, really good income.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

And would you say if if in in this example, if somebody purchases this holiday home, they're there, they're personally there two weeks of the year. What percent of those other 50 weeks are they able to rent out the property successfully?

SPEAKER_00 13:29

So here, for example, in Pulia, our seasons start at around um mid to end of March, and they can go on until about November. So we have like a two-month, two to three month winter season where you know it's the it's pretty dead, right? And then things start to ramp up end of March, April. It's still warm enough to go swimming in October, November. So it's it the the autumn is still very, very warm. So from a rentability perspective, it's absolutely fantastic because the house might stay empty. You know, even in December, we have all the Christmas markets, Loco Rotondo, and people come in droves from northern Europe because they want to escape the brutal winters. So it's like you might have the property empty two to three months of the year. Oh wow, that's that's not bad.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

I mean, to be able to rent it out nine to ten months of the year, that is good investment income. Talk to me about taxes. What should people expect on the rental income? Not just I let's come back to rental income. Property taxes when they purchase a home and also taxes that they can expect to incur on the rental income itself.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

Okay, so when you purchase a uh a property, if it's not going to be your main residence, it will be your second casa, so your second home. You're paying 9% of the cadastral value of the property. Okay, so that does what's the cadastral value? It's the land registry value of the property. Okay, so that doesn't mean the purchase price, it means the the value that's on the land register. So usually it's a lot less. So that when you when you come across a property that you like, you know, whoever's representing you, you just say, Look, I want to understand what the purchase taxes will be. We can get the documentation which shows the price per square meter, and you do a calculation, you go, okay, this is the actual value, land registry value of the property, and this is what the tax is going to be.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

And then what sort of income tax can these guys expect when they are renting this out?

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Um it's a 22% income tax. However, if you decide to, and some of my clients do this, they actually set up a company, so like an LLC in Italy, and they have an accountant manage it for them, um, English-speaking accountant. So things like property management costs are offset, cleaning costs, maintenance costs, like all those kind of ancillary costs that you might pay are offset against the rental income that you're paying tax on.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

And do most people, do you have to set up an Italian bank account in order to have a rental property in Italy? Or can this all be going on through American banks?

SPEAKER_00 16:16

You can have your money sent to your bank account in the States. You don't need to actually set up a bank account when you buy property in Italy because most of my clients that purchase aren't residents. So, what they do, we um have in our team a currency conversion agency that we work with that assists the clients to transfer large sums of money from their bank account, wherever it be in the world, to um to the notary to go to close for the sales. And the benefit of using a company like this is that they get a really good margin between, for example, the US dollar and the EU. They get the most competitive rate on the margin on the market, and they have a more competitive rate than you would get from your normal bank because they're buying currency in such a large format. So, what they can do as well is they can actually block in the dates, you know, the currency rate for up to 90 days. So if you're looking to close on a property, you're not subject to market volatility when it comes to currency, because you already know you've booked in a forward trade, a forward contract with a certain amount of money, and that money is going to be sent across to the notary prior to closing, so you don't need to actually have an Italian bank account here.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

And you know, I mean, maybe this kind of exposes my sneaky ways, but how does anyone, if you are an American citizen who has purchased a holiday home and is renting it out to other non-Italians, and perhaps these payments are happening in dollars, how does the Italian government know what you're earning in terms of rental income anyway?

SPEAKER_00 17:54

Well, if you are using a property management company, everything's registered, right? So And if you don't? Well, generally speaking, most people do their bookings via Airbnb. Airbnb booking via Airbnb, so everything's kind of like registered. So you would need to to have if you want to have an Airbnb or a property, you need to have something called a CIN number, which needs to be registered at the local comune to register the property as a holiday rental.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Okay, so long story short, it's the ability to market your home through Airbnb, through VRBO that's going to expose you to having this that will tell Italy you have a home here in Italy on the market for holiday rental, etc. So, yes, otherwise, how would people even know that your your home is available? So it's it's being able to use those platforms that kind of exposes you to tax tax uh taxation. All right, stepping back for just a moment, going back to all right, I don't yet know whether I want to have whether I'm gonna use this as a rental property, whether I'm gonna be permanent. Would you say uh buy something that is move-in ready, or do I dive into this one euro home market that you hear so much about online and do a fixer-upper?

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Right, so I'm not a fan of the one euro homes, and I it's very public knowledge I'm not a fan of the one euro homes because you're buying properties in areas that are severely lacking in services, lacking in population, you can't most of the areas that have the one euro homes, you actually have to move in and make it your permanent residence because the whole idea is to repopulate towns, so you can't just Airbnb. It wouldn't be probably a very successful Airbnb because there's nothing around. However, if you were to think about buying a property and having a project and developing it and constructing it and having your own personal design on it, having the right team is absolutely key. Having a project manager that speaks English that can guide you through that is absolutely key. So delivering you a turnkey ready product. And within my team, we have all of that. So we do developments, you know, across Tuscany, across Sicily, across Puglia, and you know, I was just on the phone to a lovely couple from Florida earlier today, and we've been talking about this beautiful project in Puglia with a trullo and a lamnia, and you know, they're really excited about it. I mean, there's nothing it's a plot of land with one little trulo, but we can construct a lamnia, they can have their say in how they want to have it designed on the inside, personalise it, and they're really excited by that. But having that team that can speak both Italian and English, and you have your own point of reference person that's giving you constant updates, it's absolutely crucial.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Just for people that don't know, a little trullo is like a little gnome dome. They're adorable little properties with like a conical roof with a is there a hole in the top that lets sunshine in?

SPEAKER_00 20:51

Uh no, they have like a it depends different parts of Julia in the Value Chair have different styles of truly, but generally they have like a little ball, like a little concrete ball that sits on the top of the comb.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Oh well, that answers my uh my other question about these little truly. I always thought it was letting sunlight in, but I also thought, well, how do you keep rain from coming in? But ignore me. That's stupidity. But picture a little gnome dome, they're so adorable. Okay, I guess something that we should probably go back on. So what is the biggest surprise that people embarking on the a prop a property purchase in Italy from the United States, what is their biggest surprise for most of them when they when they get through this process and say, Oh my gosh, if only I had known this?

SPEAKER_00 21:40

I think the biggest shock to people is they expect everything is going to be the same as the US. You're dealing with things in a different language. There is there's different types of bureaucracy, different types of laws. A lot of things that people didn't realize don't realize that you know the buyer and the seller pay an agency commission here. So that's something different. You know, we don't have like an MLS system. You know, a lot of agents multi-list the same property and have different price points all over it. So there's these all these little things, but I always say to my clients, like you've just got to forget how things work in your country and just trust the process and surrender. The more you try and fight it and go, oh, well, it doesn't work like that where I'm from, you're just going to be banging your head against the wall. And that's why a lot of people hire me because they want me to take care of all the headaches and the bureaucracy and fight the fires and whatnot, and then just go, What we're paying you, you deal with it, just give us the keys at the end. Yeah, I can totally agree.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Uh, I would say uh it's very similar to the Italian citizenship process, which is the best advice is just throw out everything you know about the legal system in the US because it's not going to work like that. It's going, you'll get across the finish line and you'll be shocked when you do after the sort of hurdles that you encounter in the process, and it sounds like the real estate market is no different. Just kind of wild. Uh all right, would you say that clients are do they make a biggest mistake aside from just not realizing that the process is going to be different? Is there a mistake that they make that you say, if people would just stop doing this in their whether that's in the initial search, in their decision of what to purchase, whatever it is, is there a biggest mistake that you can tell people, don't do this?

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Well, I would not rely on the let's just say the reality of a lot of the photos on the portals. It's like a catfishing exercise. So a lot of the time, and I was with Francesca Montilogs, I think you helped Francesca get her citizenship. We embarked on a week-long, we had 28 visits booked in. Some of these houses, like one of the houses, we couldn't even get into the front door because it had been locked up for so many years, the front door wouldn't even open. So you've just got to be really like um aware that this can happen. Something I always harp on about as well is the compliance of a property, whether we have something called a Casa Pulsiva, where, for example, a house that's been modified that the owner hasn't thought about getting planning permission, then they go to sell it and then there's an issue. Or a ceiling that's like too low, and it's like they're trying to put a um a mezzanine up with a bed, and all of these things you need to think about because if you buy a property that's irregular, you need to obviously state that you're happy to take on that property as it is, but if you have to resell it, it could be an issue.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

All good things to know. You have to tell the story of showing the home to Francesca. I just I absolutely love this story. So uh talk about crazy things that can happen when buying a property in Italy. Tell us.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Well, I was always wanting to write a book on my experiences, and after this um this particular experience I'm going to, I actually wrote a best-selling book called The Bumpy Road to La Dolce Vita. Short stories of my actual in-person viewings that I go on with with my clients. So Francesca and I were doing Umbria and Toscany for about a week, and we went to we were in Castellone del Lago and we were on the way to an appointment. We're actually on the road to get to the house, and the agent was calling me, going, Are you coming? Are you coming? We were like on time. And I was like, Look, we're 30 seconds away. He goes, Are you sure? Otherwise, we're gonna have to postpone to like another two hours. No, no, we're on the road. We pull up, the agent's standing out front, the seller who was a very elderly lady, the agent's looking sheepish, the seller looked like she'd been crying. She started talking to us about you know that her husband was not well and his demise of health, and the kids never come visit, and we were like, Oh, okay, you know, so we'll start to do the visit. Anyway, so she's the the seller, and it's quite custom for the seller to be present in um property viewings as well. The seller starts walking through the house, and as she opens up the French doors to the bedroom that she shared with her husband, she opened it up, and there is the husband on the bed with no pulse. So Francesca, being much braver than myself, went and checked his pulse twice. I, being the chicken that I am, I pegged it out of the room because I thought I was gonna be sick. Anyway, so the So he was dead on the bed. He was dead on the bed, yeah. But then she continued to show us the rest of the property.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

I mean, unbelievable. I I I mean, what would they how could they not be thinking to themselves, well, the most important thing to do today is get Giuseppe, Giuseppe's dead body out of the house. No, instead they thought, well, we have a potential buyer coming. Unbelievable. Let's make sure that they see the kitchen and the lanai.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Oh my. That chapter's called Unlively in Umbria.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

Well, Umbria is a little bit more of a quieter region than some other parts of Italy, so I guess so. Uh this will definitely be a question that not only from my own personal experience, but other viewers will certainly have. Is there value in being a citizen in the property purchase?

unknown 27:29

Not really.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

A citizen of Italy. Not really, unless you want to live here permanently. So having, you know, having buying a property doesn't grant you the right to have citizenship and to remain in in Italy. And that's a common question that I get asked a lot. So if you buy a property, that does not mean you can stay longer than the 90 days, you can stay here permanently. Um, that doesn't have any weight on it at all.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

And how about financing? I know I just a little for the viewers, it several years ago I attempted to buy an apartment in Rome and was approved for, I wanted to finance. I was approved for a mortgage. I am an Italian citizen, approved by an Italian bank. And I came over there, I signed the paperwork, this was a done deal, the realtors were paid. And a few months later, I get a notice that, uh, hmm, we're gonna want a co-signer on this after all. And long story short, after, you know, sort of pushing them through some questioning, saying, Well, what kind of cosigner are you talking? They kept saying, well, of, you know, of sufficient familial relationship. I said, What do you mean? Like my retired mother, I don't think she adds to this financial picture. Or, you know, siblings, I don't think siblings purchase homes with one another too often. We got to the bottom of it that they wanted me to have a husband, which I don't have to this day, and was denied after having been approved, flew to Rome, signed the mortgage paperwork, everything, was denied for this financing because I didn't have a husband co-signer. Have you seen something like this? Does this have anything? Obviously, I was a citizen going through this process. Do you see things like this, or is financing available to everybody, non-citizens and citizens alike, women, people purchasing a loan, or are there are there groups that should be cautious about the way financing is handled in Italy?

SPEAKER_00 29:23

I experienced this firsthand myself. So when I went to buy my property, um, you know, I turned up to the property, he knew that I was, you know, a mother of two children, single mum, foreign, you know, a woman, all the black marks against my name. He actually went to the bank to ask my bank manager, can she afford this house? Like, never in my life. Ever in my life imagined that that would even happen. However, financing is possible, but the property needs to be completely clean in the sense that what is on the floor plans must match what the house looks like. So if someone's done, if the seller has done some amendments that they didn't get planning permission for, when they go and do the inspection, they'll immediately say, no, we're not going to give a mortgage.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Right. So problem there. So it has to be completely clean. And obviously, I mean, Italy being Italy can still be a little bit like good old boys' club. And look at how those two men were like, Oh, do you think this little lady can handle it? You know, in 2020, whatever it was, can can little lady over here, can she handle paying a mortgage?

SPEAKER_00 30:47

I ended up paying more for the house than that they actually advertised it at. But I wanted it so badly. I thought, you know what? I'm just gonna pay. Now, is that typical? I've never ever were you in like a were you in a bidding war? I was in a bidding war, but to be fair, the property was on the market for a long time because the floor plans weren't up to scratch because they had done some modifications, they were trying to get um backdated planning approval, right? Planning permission. So there was someone in the mix for this house way before me. And then I went for a walk because I was living around the corner from this house and I saw the house. I thought, oh my god, that's that house that I fell in love with online all these years ago. Called up, is it still for sale? Has the planning permission been sorted out nearly? I want to come and see it. And then that the poor other chap that was um, you know, waiting for all these years for everything to uh to get approved, he was still in the running as well. So we just had this bidding all between the two of us, and they ended up giving it to me because the other guy wanted to subdivide this house and the seller wanted the house to remain intact. You know, I've got two kids, a family, a young family, so you know, but he gave it to me because I'm obviously paid more money.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

So at the end of the day, money talks. Money talks. Now, in terms of uh financing, what did you have to put down on the house? And you know, because in in the US we're kind of used to okay, 20% down, the rest can be mortgaged. Is that the Italian norm or should people expect something very different?

SPEAKER_00 32:23

If you're buying a property in Italy and you're living in the States, so you're gonna have to get uh opt for a mortgage, you know, using your income, what have you, that's not based in Italy, you have to put down between a 40 to 50% deposit. And then the bank will loan up to the remaining um remaining for um 60, 60%, right? Here myself, because I'm a cit a I'm not a citizen yet, I'm a permanent resident. I can get my citizenship, I just haven't done the test yet. Anyway, um I put down 20% deposit.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

Okay, now so how is that decided? Who will put down 20%? Who is going to be required to put down 60? Is that credit worthiness? How is that determined?

SPEAKER_00 33:02

If you're a resident here and you can demonstrate that you've got, you know, either um what do you call it? I've just gotten think about the word in Italian, busta paga, like a wage slip, yeah, like a work contract.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

Or you've got your business and you can submit your tax returns. They evaluate that, and then you know, they usually put down 20%. The bank will then. I could have put down 10, but I had I want to put down 20 because I wanted to have the repayments be less. But generally speaking, as a foreigner, you know, opting for finance here, it's at least four it's between minimum 40%. Some banks ask 50 for as a deposit. And what is a typical mortgage interest rate? Now you're testing me. Um when I asked about a month ago, it was 3.25%, but don't quote me on that.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

Okay. Not too shabby. All right, tell us tell us overall, what are the best areas of Italy to invest in right now?

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Well, I am for me, Puglia is still very much at the top of the list. It's constantly getting, you know, at the increasing growth every single year. It's showing no signs of slowing down. However, Sicily is very much hot on the heels of Puglia. Sicily is growing in leaps and bounds. The other day they just announced that a new um airline company called Aetna Sky is going to be launching in May. With by the end of summer, they're going to be having um flights going to the States. That is going to increase tourism to Sicily dramatically. So if Sicily is on your list, don't wait for the prices to keep going up property-wise. You just you want to kind of get in there before things start to really really go out of hand. Tuscany is always a firm favourite as well for obvious reasons. But yeah, Sicily is very much catching up on the heels of Puglia. I don't feel like I love Sicily. I I would love to have a house in Sicily. I'm you know, I've got my eyes on a few little things at the moment, but it hasn't got the same infrastructure as Puglia yet. They're not there, I would say they're they're they're really working on adapting to kind of you know the international tourism. It has improved a lot since I first went there 20 something years ago. But you know, piano piano, little by little.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

When you now Puglia being nearly almost entirely coastal, or almost any town in Puglia is close to the coast. Sicily not the same way. Would you say you're talking about the coastal market of Sicily? You're talking about the interior mountainous part of Italy, uh, Sicily, excuse me. More coastal. The coastal region. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

More coastal, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

Are there any regions of Italy where you would say, I wouldn't do it? Because I know there are a lot of people that I know through the citizenship process who think, okay, I am from a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, and it would be endearing as a new citizen to go back and maybe think about setting up shop there. Are there parts of Italy where you think it is just the the infrastructure is just not there, I wouldn't recommend investing in this area.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

That's I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna be very diplomatic because if there could be people that listen to that. More than me. Because I haven't been diplomatic in the past and I have been trolled on social media for sharing my opinions on certain areas. Only thing I would say, if you have a special connection to a region or a town that has, you know, family heritage and roots, blah blah blah, by all means go and rent there first. If you're thinking about moving to Italy full-time, go and rent there first, and then see, you know, is can I do this, you know, with a real estate purchase? That's all I'm not gonna name any. That was very diplomatic. I'll get in trouble.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

Very, very, very wise. I think that leads us into something I want to do to close out our time together, which is I know that and when you meet a new client, you give them a quiz that is essentially like uh tell me about your ideal day in Italy. What are you seeing? What are you doing? What are you eating? All of the things to help narrow down, okay, what is the experience you're looking for? So I thought, okay, well, let's do this quiz live online with me. Uh because I would I don't own a property in Italy. I have dreamed of it for years. I as I just disclosed to everybody I tried years ago and failed miserably when I didn't have a husband. Thanks, Italy. Uh and so, you know, if I ever revisit this, I think I have changed. I don't know that I would be going back to Rome for an apartment. I think I would be looking for something else. But I often think my life has changed too. So, okay, let's do the quiz. So, my dream day in Italy, I think a little bit of background about me. I have a four-year-old daughter. She is, of course, uh there with me in the in my vision of what I would be looking to purchase. This would be a permanent move as opposed to a holiday move. So let's do that that way. That if I were coming to Italy, moving with my family, I have a four-year-old daughter. My Italian is good. My family's Italian is non-existent at this point in time. So we're obviously talking about okay, yes, there's gonna be a learning curve for them. We have schools to consider. Um, in terms of what am I doing? I'm a very physically active person. I love snowboarding, I love beach volleyball, I am a nearly daily swimmer in terms of lap swimming. Uh, and so that those physical outlets are really important to me. I obviously run a business that is primarily online, so having internet, quality internet, and infrastructure like that is essential. Plus, we might be going back and forth to the US. So, you know, we don't want to feel like, okay, well, it's 24 hours door to door to get from your home in the US to your home in Italy. That can be too long on me, let alone a four-year-old. Uh, some other things. I don't love seafood and pasta. I I don't know why I feel the need to say that, but uh, I saw in your quiz it was like, what are you eating? And I know that I'm somebody who hates when the seafood is in the pasta. I don't know what that is. Uh maybe it's because my family's from Abruzzo, and we feel like, you know, no, like a good meat sauce is how this goes. So whereas I love seafood, don't want it in the pasta. I don't want to be around a ton of tourists. I want to feel like I am in an environment where real Italians are living, but I don't want to be the only expat either. I'm also very frugal. Uh and I love a buy one-get one at the grocery store. So am I looking to pay top dollar in Tuscany? No, I know I I can't hang with those with that crowd. Uh so and I guess a little bit more. I'm also a French speaker. Most people who watch this don't know that about me. Or most people that I work with in the Italian citizenship industry don't know that about me. It's probably a language I'm more comfortable in than Italian. So there's that. Alright. Initial thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 40:13

Well, I've had about three different areas coming to mind now.

unknown 40:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

Until you mentioned seafood, I was thinking poolia. Why? International schools, two airports that fly direct to JFK, right? Brindisi and Bari. Then you threw this and you love to swim. But then you threw the seafood curveball in, and I'm like, oh, she's got me now. But I don't like seafood either. And every time I go to a uh a restaurant near the sea and I order the ali oro and peperoncino, they look at me, they want it like they want to spit in my parcel. I look at this heathen, she doesn't even like seafood. What is she doing here? It's a seafood restaurant, it's poolia, you're on the beach. Then you're talking about the seafood, but then I thought, what about something like Sienna? Because Sienna isn't as costly as Florence, it's not so overrun. It has a beautiful countryside, international school. You're close-ish to snowboarding, if you want to go to Apetone. Then you threw in the French elements, and I'm thinking, well, she's gonna have to go to Val d'Aosta. But there's no beach. Unless you drive down to Liguria.

SPEAKER_01 41:27

For those of you who don't know, it's a super tiny little region north of Piemonte.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

Yeah. So then I'm like, well, unless you're happy to drive down to Liguria, um, yeah, you've got a you've got a you've got it all going on there.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

So this is exactly the dilemma that I face, which is I feel like, okay, there are things I would love about a mountainous region. There are things I would love about a beach region. Yes, uh schools are a critical factor, as well as transit from the US in and out of Italy. You know, I I mean having true, I know Puglia is on the uh on the Adriatic side, but other parts of the Adriatic side of Italy are not so easy to get in and out of necessarily. Uh so this is this is the dilemma that I face, which is I am I feel like, yep, there are things that I would love about Puglia. It's definitely on my radar screen. Central Italy, definitely on my radar screen. I'm a big proponent of Umbria. I don't know whether you are, but I personally love Umbria as like a the the cheaper version of Tuscany. Maybe not quite those idyllic images that you see, but I think it's fantastic. It's a beautiful and then I I also love the north. I love the proximity to France. I would stay on the, I'm not a German speaker, I would stay on the western side of northern Italy as opposed to the eastern side. So, okay, so here I sit. So the maybe I'll turn it over to the audience to say your tips are welcome. Any sort of uh recommendations that anybody has to say, you know, here hearing all of that, here's the place for you. But I have a solution. I have a solution.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

You buy yourself a chalet. Okay, yes, yes, yes. A little, you know, farmhouse in Umbria, and a seaside pied de terre in Pulia. I mean, why not?

SPEAKER_01 43:14

Well, what about my frugality? What about my buy one get one nature at the grocery store? I mean, I am, you know, if I don't get a deal, I am not a happy camper. So I don't know. We'll have to see about buying three places, but you know, this is this is my my my life's dilemma. You know, woe is me. Like I can't figure out where in Italy I would I would settle down. So the the the story goes on. And I we we very well may be coming to Puglia this summer. In fact, it is already booked. So I hope to see you there. I know we're coming in August, and you said don't do that, but it's what works for us in terms of schools. So I hope to see you there this summer. Any parting words for anybody thinking about embarking on this journey?

SPEAKER_00 43:58

Look, I have this. I say this to all of my clients, and this is something that I said to myself before I thought about moving here. It was the thought of moving here was so scary. The thought of not following my dream was even scarier and being stuck. Right? I have clients that have been following me that they haven't actually taken the not clients, I guess, people who've been following me on online that have been, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it. And then what's happened? Poof, prices go up and they're out priced out the market. You need to.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

I can totally relate at this time. You need to get something similar. Right.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

You need to take action. And when you have people that are helping you take that empowered action, it just flows. But the you know, when you when you're too scared to too scared to make that choice, just think about okay, so I'm still where I am in the next five, the next five years, I haven't done anything. What's scarier? You know, ripping that band-aid off or being stagnant.

SPEAKER_01 45:02

That's right. I mean, we only get you know 80 years to live. Some of us don't get that many, some of us get more, of course, but you know, uh, it's not, it doesn't go on forever, everybody. So, you know, make your dream a reality. Absolutely. Take that first step. Well, Nikki, thank you so much. This has been absolutely fantastic. Thank you, Nikki Taylor. This uh, what an honor to have you here. Uh you are certainly the go-to for anybody embarking on this process. So we're so happy to have you in our network. And uh we'll stay in touch. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. Big thanks to Nikki Taylor of Italy Property Consulting for coming on with us today. What a wealth of information she is. She is your not only your starting point for your purchase of a property in Italy, but she is your one-stop shop, whether you're doing a one-year home, sounds like maybe not, or something that is turnkey. She is a wealth of knowledge, and I am just so honored to have her in our circle. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the last few weeks in Italian citizenship law have been, let's say, turbulent. So lots going on in the news, things that you're reading that are true, things that you're reading that are untrue. In our last virtual aperativo, our happy hour that we do via Zoom once a month, we got into this in great detail. And you can find the link to that below. So please tune in for an 80-minute analysis of the law. Pour a drink, as we always say, when uh joining us at the Aperitivo, because that's quite a lot of legal information to digest. And stay tuned. Welcome to come back to your Italian podcast for the next episode where we're gonna get into life in Italy in terms of kids in school, healthcare system, all of those things. You're a citizen now, you've got a roof over your head, but daily life goes on. We're gonna dive into it. See you then.