A little about me.
Hello, my name is Richard. Nice to meet you and thank you for taking the time to find my website. I assume that you are here because you also have an interest in living or owning a holiday home in Italy. Great - you are in the right place!
Richard, Three Acres of Marche.
Who can blame you. It is such a beautiful country with so much to offer it is no wonder why it is one of the most popular places that people research as a place to buy a house in the sun!
My plans are similar. Whilst I am nowhere near the age to retire I thought it would not be a bad idea to invest in a property whilst I am at an age where I can take on a large restoration. I am very lucky in that my full time job allows me the luxury of working from home, even from Italy, and my children are of an age where they are becoming more self sufficient which allows me more flexibility in my time away.
I live in England and have not applied for Italian residency, yet. I may never apply - who knows. The state of play for me at the moment is following the new travel restriction rules of being allowed within the Schengen Zone for 90 days out of every 180 days. As it stands, with work, my children’s busy lives, me needing a rest from hard restoration work, all this back and forth between England and Italy is working quite well for me.
The added benefit being that each journey, to and from Italy, is like an adventure for me! Sometimes fly to Italy and hire a small car, as I am not allowed to purchase a car in Italy as a non resident - one of the many rules bestowed - or, I drive my own car to Italy and take a different route each time I travel. More on this subject in other blog posts to follow but just to say that I feel that having the luxury and freedom to be able to travelling across Europe is one of my life’s great pleasures. I am very fortunate.
As to the plans for the property, well, where do I start. Budget determined the size and style of house that I was going to buy. I feel fortunate to have found a decent size main house that is ‘kind’a’ habitable. This property came with a large outbuilding, plus an additional smaller building that was used for storage. The property also came with two fairly large barns. These all sit on around 3.5 acres of land in rural Le Marche, Italy just outside of the beautiful town of Corinaldo. The land has views. Spectacular views over the Marche region that consume hours as I sit and stare - probably deep in thought as to the scale of the restoration in front of me as I question if I bit off more than I can chew.
I read a lovely quote that sums up my feelings - ‘I am more scared of regret that failure’. So lets go for it. What have I got to lose!
Whilst the house in Italy is ‘habitable’, I know that I see this through my rose tinted glasses. This place needs work - a lot of work. Not quite a rebuild. But pretty much every part that you could think of does need some attention, tweaking, or replacing. Those out buildings and barns do need to be fully rebuilt. The land is on a slope and so that needs full landscaping and planting. There are rules set as to what I can and cannot do with my land which were made very clear to me on the day that I signed and collected the keys. One for another story also…
With a few years set aside to make this place better and a tight budget that will be funded from savings and earnings as I go, this Italian property restoration should keep me busy for quite a few years to come!
If you do see my videos on YouTube under my Three Acres of Marche channel please do like and subscribe and say hello in the comments. If you know what you are doing and have good tips to help, then please do help me in the comments! I thank you in advance.
Richard.
