How I Bought My House in Italy On A Modest Budget

By Jim Perkins

In 2016 I bought a home in a small mountain town in Sicily that I had never been to. I didn't know a soul in Sicily. I had been to Italy, but never the island of Sicily. I had a very small budget, but I knew I wanted to retire somewhere in Italy. So with the Internet as my Real Estate Agent, I purchased a fantastic, inexpensive home without even seeing it in person.
This E-book details that adventure and may be of help if you want to buy an inexpensive vacation or retirement home in Italy. I am not a real estate expert or legal professional, but you will find helpful information and entertaining stories about how I found and purchased my home and how you can too. Ciao for Now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jim Perkins
• Release date: Jun 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9781370844067

Jim Perkins

Yes its true that Perk Perkins (Yes, I know it’s a stupid name like Zig Ziglar, but look at all the books he sold)!Perk’s articles were published in many non-fiction magazines over the years. He then started writing spec movie scripts, short story collections and eventually landed his own weekly newspaper column.His award-winning column, The Smile Factor, ran every week for 8 years in Southern Missouri, and occasionally was picked up by other papers.Currently, Perk has six available Ebooks both fiction and nonfiction. There are two more in the works and will be out soon.

Book preview

How I bought My Home In Italy

On A Modest Budget

by Jim Perkins

Table of Contents

Beginning

Sicily - The Fountain of Youth

Always Say Si in Sicily

Sophia and Me in Sicily

I have been urged to share my adventure of buying a house in Italy by many people. Both my American friends and Italian friends are curious as to my motivation and the step by step process it takes in buying property in another country.

My close American friends are more surprised that I haven't written much about it as they know I'm a writer and had a popular weekly newspaper column for almost 8 years called The Smile Factor. They assumed I would be champing at the bit to put the experience on paper or computer screens. I did have the desire, but chose to wait as the timing just didn't seem right. I wanted to devote serious time to it and I've been distracted it seems until now.

So I am devoting this Ebook to explain how I came to buy my house in Bisacquino, Sicily. I will include the step by step method I went through and what it took to make it happen. I will discuss the process I used to weed through so many options in so many places in Italy and also how I did it all on the Internet.

I have many beautiful photos to share as well as many unique experiences that happened along the way and since I bought my dream home. The people in Bisacquino, Sicily have adopted me and treated me with great kindness, generosity and love. They are my family, Bisacquino is my home. Here is my story.

My love of Italy began as a small boy. The first Italian thing I fell in love with was Sophia Loren. I grew up watching her movies and her beauty mesmerized me as well as her accent. I wondered if all Italian women were beautiful like her. The answer is yes, well, maybe not all, but most. I'm not trying to sound like a sexist or a pig, but I am an observer of life and must remain true to my mission. But more on that later.

As a young man interested in Christianity and the New Testament, I found it interesting that Peter, Paul and the new followers of The Way, put down roots in Rome of all places. That religious study led to a study of Rome and then the many Italian saints and popes. In 2002 I joined the Catholic Church and then really dove in to researching the Italian saints and the towns they came from in Italy.

It fascinated me that these towns from the first century still existed today. Modern day pictures and videos of these Italian places, incredibly, still look much the same in the modern era. The architecture of the buildings and churches are breathtaking. I started to develop a yearning to visit Italy. Although I always thought it may be interesting to see Europe someday, I wasn't keen on the idea until then.

I had the opportunity and funds to finally go in 2011. I have many stories and photos of that 2 week adventure and crazy incidents from that trip on our website, www.meetyouinitaly.com. But, that visit to Rome, Sienna, Florence and several small Tuscan villages set a fire in my soul that continue to burn to this day. I tried to picture myself living in Italy and a few thoughts came to mind. First, all the places I visited were tourist places and therefore the crowds are huge. I hate crowds. I hate crowds a lot.

Second, my initial inquiry in to prices of property in Rome and the Tuscany region where I visited in 2011, showed they were very expensive. Way out of anything I could realistically afford. The lifestyle and both natural and man made beauty of Italy was intoxicating, but it seemed not practical or affordable. At least not for a middle class schmuck like me.

It's important to note here that at that time in 2011 the Euro to US Dollar exchange rate was 1.47 Euro's to 1.00 American dollar. So any price tag I saw I would pay half again as much for in US money. At the time of this writing the rate is way less and not a deal breaker like it could have been at that time.

And finally, the actual moving and living in Italy has legal issues to be considered. I would not be able to work there as I am not a citizen. And Italy is very strict, with allowing non-citizens to get a work permit. To work there the company who is hiring you has to file for the permit, which can take six months to a year for an answer. The only way I'm told that the government will allow a company to apply for a work permit for a non-citizen is if there is no