Buying a renovated property or renovate it yourself?

May 4th, 2009 by Gunther Desaever Leave a reply »

If you are looking for a (second) home in Tuscany, there are 2 options: you can buy a new or already renovated property or you can buy a property to -
renovate.
If you decide to buy a property to be renovated then the way from the purchase to getting into it, will take some time and patience and not to forget some possible problems.
The fastest and easiest way is definitely the purchase of a new building or an already renovated property as you can get into it almost immediately. The time that passes from the purchase to the removal is minimum.
However there are some disadvantages:
-the price for a new building or already renovated property is mostly very high,
-the value doesn’t change much within the years
-you can’t decide anything about the project, from the layout to the finishing touch: everything has been set; the house is most of the time anonymous and has no soul.

On the contrary a property still to be renovated has the following advantages:
-it’s a good investing, the price can easily be the triple of the purchased price
-it gives you more satisfaction because you can personalise it, it’s up to you to decide everything, from the internal to the external design, from the layout to the finishing materials, …

Of course renovating your property is not so evident when you’re miles away and aren’t able to follow up the works. In the first place there’s the distance but there’s also the difference of language, of laws, habits, …
Questions come up such as where do I find an architect, do I need an engineer, where do I find a builder, what permit do I need, can I build a swimming pool, ….
You can indeed search for a geometra or architect and settle him up with the whole project, turn back to your own country and hope for the best. (for the difference between architetto, geometra ed ingegnere read article)
However my experience shows me that this is far from the best solution, if you have seen some adventures of people who put all their faith, trust in the hands of someone they don’t know and don’t understand in the BBC program “no going back” I think you do agree with me.
The point is that you need an architect – engineer, living in Tuscany, who speaks your language, who is used to the local habits and customs and who has a network of contacts and most important a person that keeps you involved all the time and keeps you up to date during the entire project.

In this way you will avoid a lot of problems such as: misunderstandings due to the difference in language, paying too much for unnecessary or not even realised works. This all results in exceeding your budget and planned finishing date
So you see that renovating your overseas property in Tuscany can be a complicated stressful adventure but with some patience and the right persons it becomes a positive project with a beautiful result. A lot of foreigners who renovated their property in the beautiful Tuscany can only confirm this.

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