Lorrah Minton has bought two houses in Italy. Lorra Minton
Lorrah Minton, 53, wanted to immerse herself in a foreign culture and bought a property in Italy.
She plans to move into the house in Sicily and was able to renovate it because it was so inexpensive.
She has bought another house with her brother, which she uses as a rental property, and she may buy another house with her sister.
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This essay is based on a conversation with Lorrah Minton, 53, about her experience as an American citizen buying affordable real estate in Mussomeli, Italy, a town of 10,000 in Sicily. Minton reports on her experiences abroad their Tiktok account. The following text has been edited for length and clarity.
I travel a lot.
I’ve been to China, Amsterdam, Paris and Germany, among others, but Italy just felt like home.
My nephew and I traveled to Italy together a year before the pandemic hit, and we thought, “We have to think about how we can live here.”
We thought about how we could do that and had ideas like, “OK, there’s no popcorn here, let’s make a popcorn shop for the tourists and we can live here.”
I paid 57,000 euros for a house in Mussomeli before taxes and fees
A few years ago I started reading about the €1 scheme, where some cities were selling houses that were in serious need of renovation for €1.
I’ve read a lot about Mussomeli. There are 1 euro houses there, but also many high-quality houses that do not have a 1 euro price.
My house in Mussomeli was listed for €60,000, which is about $65,481. We talked back and forth about the price and I got it for 57,000 euros. I made the offer in October last year and it was closed in March.
This is what the first house looks like from the outside. Lorra Minton
My brother and I thought, ‘We’ll buy a few houses and then rent them out. My sister and I are looking at a third house right now. It’s primarily intended for so-called short-term rentals, but it’s not an Airbnb. It’s more of an 18 month rental.
We bought it for 25,000 euros, but after deducting fees and other additional costs, it ended up being 31,000 euros. It is a three bedroom house and has a garden which is amazing.
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There were a lot of small fees that surprised me
I’m often asked how much I want to spend on renovations, but it’s hard for me to say because there are wants and then there are needs.
i need a kitchen I need a kitchen to keep the wallpaper on my walls from falling off. Do I need a second kitchen? No.
But the kitchens here are much more affordable – both of my kitchens cost 5500 euros to build.
The kitchen before and after the renovation. Lorra Minton
When I closed my first home, I paid a 10 percent deposit and the agent’s fee, which is generally 4 percent of the purchase price. One thing that surprised me was that they put the deposit into a bank account and not an escrow account, which I found odd, but that’s very common around here.
Another surprising aspect was that I bought my house for $57,000 but some guy in an office decided my house was worth $80,000 and so the taxes were nine percent of that.
The new living room in Minton’s first house. Lorra Minton
I assumed the taxes I paid were property taxes, but that was just the tax for the sale. Normally the property taxes are between 300 and 600 euros per year, but since my house is huge it is 946 euros.
After all fees, the total costs amounted to 69,182 euros. But if someone told me that you could get a nice six-bedroom, two-kitchen house for $70,000, I’d say, “Deal.” It was all the small steps that threw me off.
I wanted to travel abroad while I still could
I try to take a big trip abroad every year. I’ve always dreamed of spending every summer in a different country because I don’t just want to travel, I want to immerse myself in a place. You can’t do that much in a few weeks.
I’m 53, but I still have a lot to do. With my good hips and good knees and all, I can probably travel for another 20 years.
At some point you can no longer go everywhere you want. You really have to start crossing things off the list because you can’t do them in the next 20 summers.
If it was up to me, I would spend all my time here, but because of visa regulations, I can’t. I have to commute back and forth.
My home in California is a 1,000 square foot, three bedroom home and is valued at $504,000.
I probably have two more years before I can retire, but I will be in Italy most of the time and then eventually return to the US. I will be renting out my house in California for the next 15 to 20 years. And if I want to come back, I’ll still have my house there, which is now paid off because I rented it out.
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