We’ve just recently purchased a house near Rome and I thought our experience may be useful for someone.
1. House search: I used Italian sites (idealista.it, immobiliare.it) with Google translation to find a house. Note that idea of “staging” a house before sale does not exist in Italy, so search for “potential”, not how it looks now. Houses stay on a market for years (very slow buyer’s market, at least near Rome).
2. I do recommend to find your own Real Estate Agent even though selling agents claim they work for the benefits of both seller and buyer. As for me a single agent is always a threat of a conflict of interests. During the purchase process we encountered some issues and having answers from qualified Agents for sure on our side was priceless. We were lucky to have a team with one person from Australia (native English speaker and great business ethics) and another native Italian with perfect knowledge of Italian realities. It is important that your agents already have a team to support every step of the process (Geometra, Lawyer, Notary).
3. House hunting trip. We had two trips before we made an offer. We almost made an offer for a house on the first trip. The house had fantastic sea view but had cracks in walls, sellers presented an engineering report saying that cracks do not represent structural problems. I was in doubt and invited an Architect to take a look. After 5 minutes of looking Architect advised me either to order full engineering inspection (which may or may not be 100% reliable) or just “do not touch this house”. I chose the latter, the lesson is if in doubt you can trust only your own crew.
4. During the second trip we found our “dream house” and started formal price negotiation having our Agent on our side. Obviously I do not have a sense for price negotiation in Italy. I have seen some deals with 20-30% discount off the asking price, but each deal is unique, so our Italian Agent provided us with some clues what to ask and when to stop. Also we included conditional on Structural Engineer report and some legal checks. It is important to think through an offer as in Italy even an offer is legally binding.
5. After sellers agreed on price and conditionals seller’s agent drafted Compromesso with all step-by-step procedures to be completed before final stage (Rogito). 10% of sale price was payable as a condition to satisfy Compromesso.
6. 2.5 month after Compromesso we had a Rogito (Deed signature with Notary). Note that there is no Escrow in Italy, Notary is responsible for the whole real estate transaction and the Deed). We chose an option of declaring this house being “prima casa” with lower taxes than “seconda casa”, now we have to take residence in Italy in no later than 18 months after the Rogito date.
1. House search: I used Italian sites (idealista.it, immobiliare.it) with Google translation to find a house. Note that idea of “staging” a house before sale does not exist in Italy, so search for “potential”, not how it looks now. Houses stay on a market for years (very slow buyer’s market, at least near Rome).
2. I do recommend to find your own Real Estate Agent even though selling agents claim they work for the benefits of both seller and buyer. As for me a single agent is always a threat of a conflict of interests. During the purchase process we encountered some issues and having answers from qualified Agents for sure on our side was priceless. We were lucky to have a team with one person from Australia (native English speaker and great business ethics) and another native Italian with perfect knowledge of Italian realities. It is important that your agents already have a team to support every step of the process (Geometra, Lawyer, Notary).
3. House hunting trip. We had two trips before we made an offer. We almost made an offer for a house on the first trip. The house had fantastic sea view but had cracks in walls, sellers presented an engineering report saying that cracks do not represent structural problems. I was in doubt and invited an Architect to take a look. After 5 minutes of looking Architect advised me either to order full engineering inspection (which may or may not be 100% reliable) or just “do not touch this house”. I chose the latter, the lesson is if in doubt you can trust only your own crew.
4. During the second trip we found our “dream house” and started formal price negotiation having our Agent on our side. Obviously I do not have a sense for price negotiation in Italy. I have seen some deals with 20-30% discount off the asking price, but each deal is unique, so our Italian Agent provided us with some clues what to ask and when to stop. Also we included conditional on Structural Engineer report and some legal checks. It is important to think through an offer as in Italy even an offer is legally binding.
5. After sellers agreed on price and conditionals seller’s agent drafted Compromesso with all step-by-step procedures to be completed before final stage (Rogito). 10% of sale price was payable as a condition to satisfy Compromesso.
6. 2.5 month after Compromesso we had a Rogito (Deed signature with Notary). Note that there is no Escrow in Italy, Notary is responsible for the whole real estate transaction and the Deed). We chose an option of declaring this house being “prima casa” with lower taxes than “seconda casa”, now we have to take residence in Italy in no later than 18 months after the Rogito date.
