Now You Can Have That Dream Home in Italy

Anyone with a heart and a soul who’s spent time exploring and enjoying Italy in the summer months, who has enjoyed Italian hospitality, the fantastic cuisine and who has witnessed the immaculately changing face of Italy as you move from North to South will probably have fallen in love with this fascinating and charming nation.  Which means…chances are…if you fall into the above category you too will have a dream of one day living in Italy or at least owning an Italian home in which you can holiday, relax and thoroughly enjoy life in the effortless way that Italian’s seem to inspire!

Well, with a little careful planning, some considered research and ShelterOffshore’s helping hand, now you can have that dream home in Italy!  Read on to find out what we’re on about!

Italians own property – Italians do not generally consider anything other than bricks and mortar (and maybe a decent cellar of wine) a good investment.  Even when many Italians started to be bitten by the worldwide stock market bug and examine alternative investment options in the past decade, the world’s stock markets took a nosedive and there were a series of scandals to hit companies in the US and in Italy that soon shook notions of investing in anything other than their own home out of the average Italian’s mind!

As Italy has one of the highest percentages of homeownership in the whole world this may suggest to you that there is no way you will ever be able to afford any home for sale in Italy unless it is a ramshackle ruin in the middle of nowhere…but you couldn’t be further from the truth!  Because property in Italy is so highly in demand from both the local and the international marketplace, the property market is strong, it’s healthy and while it may not be witnessing the double digit annual returns of emerging European and world property markets, it continues to be a good place to invest in for a secure long term investment return.

What’s more, because the property market in Italy is so mature and well explored and understood, many local lenders will lend to overseas buyers and many international lenders will lend locally on Italian property!  The mortgage market is mature, you can even include projected rental income from a property in Italy into the affordability equation when it comes to how much you can borrow with some lenders, you can borrow for up to 30 years, you can get a mortgage to self build, renovate, buy new or you can even refinance a property you already have in Italy.

If you want a dream home in Italy but you’re concerned about repaying any loan, why not look to the longer term and buy an apartment in one of the most popular Italian cities – you have many to choose from – rent it out, derive an income from it which will repay your loan, resell the home a few years down the line when it will likely have gone up in value and move out to your favourite region and put the money saved through the apartment into a home more befitting your requirements or idea of that dream home in Italy?

Despite the fact that Italians do all they can to get on the property ladder all the major cities such as Rome, Milan, Florence and Venice have a rental market and so you can buy a property, rent it out and ‘use’ your tenant to help you get on the housing ladder in Italy.

Another option is applying to a well known bank with international presence such as Barclays Bank which has branches in Italy with more opening all the time and who can arrange international mortgages for all sort of properties – you can leverage against another home you own, you can raise the money to renovate a rundown wreck if that’s what your heart desires or you can get money to buy an attractively located property which can easily be rented out until you’re ready to retire to or move to live permanently in Italy – click here to contact Barclays.

Just because you don’t have the money in your bank account to buy a Tuscan farmhouse today doesn’t mean you have to forego your dream of a home in Italy forever…examine the local buying culture, understand that the property market in Italy is healthy, that there is room for some rental property and that there are attractive finance options available to you – and somewhere in amongst all that information will be the solution you’ve been looking for…come on, what’s stopping you?

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