The Search Is On: Finding Our Italian Farm with Agritourism in Mind

Finding a place that becomes our next step (and figuring out what our next step really is)

I had a chance to go to Italy in June for one week with my mom. We had a tragedy in our lives and mom needed a break to recuperate and a week in Italy is a good start for her. When I got the OK to plan the trip, I started working with our real estate agent to narrow down a few places to tour. I'm a firm believer that the more places you look at, the better informed you are. The real estate listing, the pictures, the description as well as the geographic location of the property can look very different on a web site versus in person.

There is a neat program in the Italian government called 'Agritourism' and this is where someone has a farm and apartments or rooms to rent on their farm. There are different levels of Agritourism, but the aspect that we want to be involved in is having an apartment on our farm so that we get a break on taxes and we have an income from apartment rentals and from selling goods from the farm.

Our goal in finding a place currently are: as before, two or more apartments, land and olive trees and at least one out building. Optional, a pool and additional fruit trees. Our strategy at this time is to have a place that is big enough to host people, friends and family. Then also have an apartment that we can rent to an expat couple (family) so they can use the apartment for their visa application and look for a more permanent place for their long term.

In scouring the listings, many of them have more than one unit that are legally separated. Some have olive trees, some have a pool. I'm actually surprised how many have at least two units. A word of caution, as I mentioned in my previous post, if the additional unit is not 'legal' you cannot register it as a rental property. I'm not sure exactly how all of that works, but the gist of it is, in order to have a unit that can be rented on an official lease, the unit has to meet certain requirements and be registered as a separate unit. This costs money and working with the Italian government (i.e. slow bureaucracy) to get the unit registered as an apartment. If I want to rent to expats, I must have apartments that are actually apartments, not a 'storage area'.

Let's take a step back for a moment - if someone wants to rent one of my apartments and apply for a visa, the apartment has to be a legal, registered apartment with the local Italian government. The apartment will be inspected to ensure that it is real and a registered apartment with the local government. The Italian government does not play around with this kind of thing.

OK - moving on. In looking at these properties, one of the properties was great and it had four units on it, but only two were legally registered. Hm, bummer.

We looked at two properties and determined that we needed to keep looking because they were fine, and if we were in a pinch, they would fit the bill. I was not entirely convinced that their pricing was right and that the spaces would work for us.

So the search is on - we have to spend time in the areas that we think are going to be appealing to someone coming from the States, have an apartment, farm land and be within our budget. All of this is a tall order, but I know it's out there and it's possible.