Italian Adventures – We Bought a House in Italy!

May 2020

After writing many of my initial blog posts of the early days of buying a house in Italy, I realized that I hadn’t explained how I got to this point in the first place. So here is my story…

Covid was a strange and surreal time. The first case of Covid in the US was literally at a nursing home about 25 minutes from my house. So strange.

I remember the months leading up to Covid19, not knowing anything about what was about to happen and then have the entire world shut down. I was traveling for work, I was in Detroit, MI, February 26 & 27, 2020, for a leadership meeting and the kickoff of implementation for a new business relationship between BlueCross BlueShield of Michigan and my company, AbleTo. We had a 3 hour leadership meeting the afternoon of the 26th and I distinctly remember several things:

1. Dr. Amy McKenzie (now Milewski), Associate Medical Director for Provider Engagement, was one of our key executive sponsors of the partnership and she was deathly ill with the flu that afternoon.
2. A huge snowstorm hit Detroit that afternoon, making dinner plans questionable, as most of the leadership team wanted to get home before the snow got too bad.
3. The first US case of Covid19 was identified in Feb. 2020, so in hindsight, did Amy have Covid or was it truly the flu? We will never know.

In early March I went on a work roadshow to the various Regence BCBS locations in the Pacific Northwest… Oregon, Utah and Idaho. When I got to Idaho, the plan president wanted to join the meeting but sat at the far end of the boardroom table to keep his distance, as he had just come down with a really bad case of ‘the flu’. Again, to this day I wonder if he actually had Covid.

March is the Indian Wells Tennis Tournament in California. One of my best friends, Gilbert Dean (Gil), lives in Indio and always buys season tickets to the event. I have never been a tennis fan, but let me tell you this…experiencing world class athletes just a few feet away in the sunny oasis of Southern CA, I quickly became a fan. Some of the pictures below will help you understand why. But honestly, I came to love the sport the more I learned and experienced it in person.

I will never forget the day that I identify as the turning point of the pandemic for me personally. I was still at Gil’s and we had been planning a roadtrip down to a small Mexican town just across the border where you can buy Brand Drugs only available in America through a prescription and 50x the price, when they are less than $10 each in Mexico. As the nightly news grew more and more grim in it’s reporting of the pandemic, we questioned whether we should go or not. Gil ran to the grocery store for some last minute items for our dinner and came back grey, pale and shaken. The local grocery store shelves were barren, as if we were in an appocolipse. He, understandably, was completely out of sorts and we were definitely not driving down to Mexico.

I flew home 2 days later and never left my house again for several months, I can’t honetly tell you how long it was. We were in total lockdown, only allowed to go out for groceries and basic staples and only 1 family member could go. This is when I learned about InstaCart. You could select the grocery items you needed, select a time for delivery and some nice (if not crazy person) would do the shopping for you and leave them on your front porch. I honesty never left my house for the longest time! The one time I ventured out to the grocery store on my own, I almost got an anxiety attack and saw some of the strangest things, including this…

We started having Zoom calls with my mom so she wouldn’t feel isolated but we could keep her safe and not exposed to catching the Virus. 80 year olds have trouble understanding where the camera is on a video call, as noted below.

During this period of lockdown, you would see people posting on social media about learning how to make sourdough bread or crochet. Italy was hit VERY hard, with more than 60% of Bergamo’s residents getting the virus, fortunately the majority survived. You would see pictures and videos of Italians gathering nightly on their balconies singing and keeping community alive. As for me, I fell into a deep funk, like so many others. I would finish work, transition to downstairs, pour a large glass of wine and sit on the couch watching TV for hours. Not healthy, productive or mentally helpful. But that’s where I was.

Until one day, during a very boring work conference call, I started checking my personal email and found one showing properties for sale in Italy. I started to explore the site, noting how affordable most of the places actually were.

Now there’s a back story here. My daughter, Jessica, and I first traveled to Italy when she was 7. We researched our adventure following Rick Steve’s guide books, flying from Seattle to Paris in early May 1998. We spent 3 amazing days exploring Paris and then took the night train to Venice. We then spent 3 nights in Venice followed by 10 days of exploring mostly Tuscany by train. We stayed in Siena, in a small Albergo that overlooked the Centro Storico, but was walkable to the town center. We took day trips to places like San Gimignano and Orvieto, loving everything we saw and everyone we met. This is when we first fell in love with Italy. The people, the culture, the pace of life…we loved all of it.

Over the years I traveled back to Italy more than 16 times. Jess & I traveled to more than 18 countries over the years, always finding our way back to Italy. I used to joke that one day I should just buy a place in Italy and make it a second home, never believing that it could be a reality. Jess had the travel bug and is now 33, having traveled to more than 35 countries and all 7 continents. Yes, that’s right. She did a January term while in college that took her to Argentina, Patagonia and Antarctica. CHECK THE BOX!!!

So back to May 2020 and my email. Every night, instead of becoming a zombie on the couch, I started looking at properties in Italy. Yes, it was still a pipe dream but it was pulling me out of my funk. Over the next several weeks I became more sophisticated, creating a spreadsheet with tabs for the various regions I would consider, and then listing out the homes for sale. Over time I got more precise, listing Must haves, Deal breakers, Nice to haves, etc. Over time, the Italian realtors got smart and started posting videos offering a tour of the property and inside of the house. Now most of them were very rudimentary, but hey, it was a start when there was no option for travel.

I kept my spreadsheet up to date with price changes, properties being sold or taken off the market, and new properties coming up for sale. In the early summer, I received an email for an interntational property buying conference that would be held online and free. Well, Why Not! So I signed up and attended several of the Italian property buying sessions, keeping notes on the property advisors and information gathered.

Fast forward to late March 2021, when it looked like things might realistically start to open up and allow for international travel. I reached out to the various property advisors I had learned about during the earlier conference and set up appointments. I held a zoom meeting with Daniel Shalito of D&G Property Advice, and knew he is who I wanted to work with. He sent me a proposal, I held a joint call with Daniel and his partner, Giovanni, and signed a contract a few days later. Yes, it was expensive, but as a single woman I wanted to make sure I fully understood what all of this would entail and know that I had experts guiding me every step of the way. This was in investment in me and it turned out to be the best money I have ever spent!

D&G helped my understand all of the additional costs beyond the purchase price and helped me establish a budget. I shared my extensive spreadsheet with them and they were very impressed. When it became clear that we would be able to travel to Italy by mid-June on special Delta flights, D&G connected us with 2 on-the-ground agents, Desiree and Federica, who could set up all of our house viewing appointments and provide additional guidance. Desiree lives in Rome with her family and spoke great English. Federica lives in Terni with her family and (at the time) spoke no English but was very connected in the contractor and building space due to her prior work and her husbands work. This would prove to be Very helpful in the future.

We scheduled a zoom call, I shared my spreadsheet, identifying the top 20 properties we would like to visit. I wanted to explore a variety of options so I included single family homes, apartments, in-town living vs. country, and everything in between. Desiree researched my list, eliminating a few due to pending sales or issues, and provided me with about 15 more as potential options. I narrowed the list down and our 18 properties were set. Federica mapped them out in Google Maps, such that we could maximize our time and see 5-6 properties each day over the course of 3 very busy days. It was a lot but it made perfect sense.

I had prepared documents with highlights of each property, along with a check list for things to look into, ask about or highlight. It turned out that Jess would take copious notes during each visit and I would take a ton of pictures and videos. At the end of each day, we would settle back in at our AirBnB in Cetona, along with some Prosecco and snacks, and make notes. We would then resurface and share our thoughts, ruling out properties and making a note of additional questions we had about a specific property. In the end, there were 2 properties we wanted to revisit.

Villa Carnano, in Montecchio and Casale Gelsomino, in Santa Maria, Monteleone d’Orvieto.

I had Villa Carnano on my initial list but hated the way it looked on the outside. It was built in the ’80s and had no Italian charm. But hte location seemed great and the outdoor space seemed even better. The outdoor living space of this property was amazing, with a stone gazebo covered in wisteria vines, a outdoor pizza oven with patio area, huge garden with well developed trees, plants and roses, as well as an upper balcony screened in porch just off of the kitchen and a rooftop terrace with amazing views of the valley and countryside. But the house was at the top of our budget, significantly more house than we could maintain, including a full apartment on the lower level. It also had significant water damage across the entire west side of the house due to no maintenance and re-sealing of the tile flooring on the rooftop terrace. While we loved the outdoor space, we just didn’t feel that this was our future home.

Casale Gelsomino was one we learned about from Desiree’s suggested list. It seemed ok on paper and was in a good location and the price was right on budget. The minute Jess and I stepped into this house, we knew it was ours. Again, it was far more house than we were needing with a tremendous amount of garden, but it was all manageable and I had a vision. After our second visit, we KNEW this was our house.

Here is a picture of Federica, Desiree, Jessica and myself on a lunch break from house hunting. The second one is the first time we visited Casale Gelsomino.

Now begins the hard work…putting together an offer, having the Geometra begin their inspection and paperwork, and so much more.

We finally got to meet Daniel & Giovanni in person in the spring of 2023. We were headed to Lake Como for a few days so we planned an overnight in Milan so we could meet up with them.