Spring is unusually late this year but I am writing this sitting in the sunshine with a coffee, looking at the castle in Nardò and life is good! With the advent of Spring the property market is speeding up, estate agents are very busy and, already, three of the properties I wrote about here have sold.

I was going to immediately follow up the town property article with one about countryside property but have decided to wait until after Easter as I am doing a couple of property viewing trips for country houses in the meantime and so will have more updated material.

I now have limited space for viewing trips – I could squeeze a couple more in but things are getting busy. With this in mind, I am going to run more webinars in order to be able to help more people. These are designed as a crash course to help navigate all the stages of your Puglian property journey, spotting and avoiding any red flags and pitfalls, with specific examples, and enabling you to feel confident in your choices. There will be 4 webinars, each accompanied by detailed notes and ending with a questions and answers session. If you can’t make a particular webinar you will be sent a recording and can send in your questions in advance. The cost will be 100 euros for the four webinars, or 35 euros per single webinar.

Numbers will be kept very small and places allocated on a first come basis. Email for further details.

With every year Puglia seems to become more popular with foreign buyers. Prices have risen steeply in the better known towns/areas and availability of  interesting properties has decreased. With this in mind I will be writing a series of articles on lesser known areas where there is still more choice and prices are lower. Signup above to follow this blog and you will get an email when new articles are published. Your email address is never used for any other purpose.

One of the things that I find frustrating, other than how quickly interesting things get snapped up is how badly and unimaginatively properties are restored, on the whole. In Nardò for example, the huge growth in demand for the town has seen a stark decrease in unrestored properties for sale and tons of, in my mind, ruined properties which have been quickly ‘remodernised’ and put up for sale.

I wrote here about wanting to start up a Puglia Property Fund. Covid, and too much work got in the way but am now raring to go. The basic idea is to collect funds to buy up and restore interesting properties. Investors will get a good return (at least 10%) on their investment, with the added benefit of being able to use properties for free or almost free during off peak periods and at a discount high season (depending on numbers of shares held). Minimum investment is 2500 euros. Investors will choose whether to have shares in a particular property, or in the fund as a whole and can switch at any point. The first property will be Villa Carezza, but I have others in mind.

I am excited! I will really love taking on this challenge and anyone taking part will get a much better return than leaving money in the bank and be able to start their Puglian journey at a more leisurely pace with a stake in the area and a cost effective way to have a base for exploration,  while growing rather than blowing their budget! Email for more details, or I am happy to chat on the phone at a pre arranged time..

STOP PRESS: Was on site this morning at a historic centre property we are restoring and an English couple stopped to chat as I was outside in the street peering up at the façade.. To cut a long story short I went to look at their, just purchased, property. To our horror, on their roof terrace they have a room where walls were raised without permission. I know this for sure because the covering (some 20 odd square metres) is asbestos and permission would not have been given. Let me just say now – it is illegal to sell a property with any exposed asbestos. The estate agent who sold them the house knew this, as did the vendor and also the, agency recommended, geometra who checked the house for them before they bought. No one told the purchasers. All asbestos must be removed, at the vendors expense (and it is a huge expense because a specialized firm must be used) before they can sell. In this case we are talking 15 – 20,000 euros on a 97,000 euro property. I have said I will help but this was a huge blow to them and now they are going to have to go the legal route…

Makes me realize that those webinars are really needed….