62,200 dollars - house in Italy, plan to live there. Cheap housing, bought another one, maybe one more.

Lorra Minton, 53, decided to fully immerse herself in a foreign culture by buying a property in Italy. She plans to move into her home in Sicily and was able to renovate it because it was so inexpensive. She bought another house with her brother to rent out and may buy another with her sister.

An essay on buying inexpensive real estate in Italy

This is an essay based on a conversation with Lorra Minton, 53, about her experience buying inexpensive real estate in Mussomeli, Italy, which is in Sicily, as a U.S. citizen. Minton maintains her blog on Tik Tok, where she talks about her overseas adventures. The following is edited text for brevity and clarity.

Future plans

I've traveled a lot. I've been to China, Amsterdam, Paris and Germany, among other places, but Italy just felt like home. My nephew and I went to Italy together the year before the pandemic started, and we were walking around and thinking, "We need to find a way to live here." We thought of different ideas, like opening a popcorn store for tourists and living here.

1 euro program

A few years ago I started reading about the "1 Euro" program, where some cities were selling houses in need of major renovation for 1 Euro. I read a lot about Mussomeli. There are €1 houses there, but there are also a lot of premium houses that cost more.

Buying a house in Moussomeli

My house in Moussomeli was for sale for 60,000 euros, or about $65,481. We haggled for a long time and I bought it for 57,000 euros. I submitted the bid last October and the deal closed in March. The house I bought is almost 3,000 square feet. I will install a fully equipped kitchen, a kitchenette, two living rooms and a laundry area.

Additional houses

My main house is in Mussomeli and my brother and I have bought a second house. In addition, I am looking at a third house with my sister. It is mainly for short-term rentals, but it is not an Airbnb. It's more of an 18-month lease. We bought it for €25,000, but after all the fees and extras it cost us €31,000. The house has three bedrooms and has a yard, which is great.

Financial aspects

There were a lot of small fees that confused me.

When closing the deal on the main house, I paid a 10% deposit and an agent's commission, which is usually 4% of the purchase price. One thing that surprised me was that the deposit had to be deposited into their bank account and not into an escrow account, which was strange to me, but it's very common here.

Another surprise was that I bought a house for 57,000 euros and some person in the office thought my house was worth 80,000 euros, so the taxes were 9% of that amount. If you have a residence permit, you pay 2% on the assessed value of your main house.

I assumed I was paying property taxes, but it was only sales tax. Normally property tax is between 300 and 600 euros a year, but because my house is huge, I pay 946 euros.

After all the fees, the total cost was €69,182. But if someone had told me I could buy a beautiful six-bedroom, two-kitchen, 3,000-square-foot house for €70,000, I would have said: "Done." I was confused by all the small steps. I wanted to travel abroad while I could.

Future plans

I try to do one big international trip a year. I've always had a dream of spending every summer in a different country, because I don't like just traveling, I want to experience the atmosphere of a place. You can't see and feel everything in a couple weeks. I'm 53 years old, but I have a lot of things I want to do. I probably have another 20 good years to travel with my healthy hips and knees.

At some point, you won't be able to visit all the places you want to. You'll have to start crossing them off your list because they won't be available for the next 20 years. If I had the opportunity, I would spend all my time here, but because of visa requirements, I can't. I have to move all the time.

Future plans

My house in California is 1,500 square feet and is worth $504,000. I probably have two more years until retirement, but I will spend most of my time in Italy and then return to the United States. I'll be renting out my house in California for the next 15 to 20 years. And when I want to come back, I'll still have my house there, which is already paid off because I've been renting it out.