i started to look for places about a year
ago, in the beginning not so serious when i was in barcelona last year, i looked more in spain,
mostly on the website called idealista, which is a spanish website, but there's an italian
version as well. so for spain you would look on the dot e s site, and dot i t is for italy.
but in spain i didn't find what i was looking for and i wanted to be in the mountains. there's places
in the pyrenees which which are really nice but i wanted to be in the alps, because, i don't know, i
just like something about the italian culture and it's closer to the netherlands, it's closer to
just a lot of things, so italy made more sense and soon i found out that i just needed to be
here to actually see the places, you know many of those adverts, especially if
they're being put up by private owners their photos are very bad, so it's hard
to imagine how those places really are that's actually why i bought the camper. because
i thought, if i'd have a camper, i could just travel easily and just spend some time in
those places, you know, and if it's high in the mountains, i brought the bike as well.
so i'd cycle up to the house to could see it I camped there sometimes, i've camped here
too, just to get a feel of the place first trip was in beginning of may this year for about four weeks i've traveled around the alps
looking at places. it started in the dolomites there were some very beautiful old cabins
there, they were wooden cabins, high in the mountains from 1200 to 1500 meters altitude, i
got in touch with one of the owners. he's a really nice guy, he gave me a lot of information
which was really helpful and i visited the place which was in the region of, it's called auronzo, a bit east from the dolomites, but very close there were beautiful cabins there
they were barns though, people would never live there, they were storage places
for for hay, you know, food for the cows and the goats, and there would be little
farms there too, it's really beautiful but the difficulty there was, first the
altitude, it was 1500 meters, it was still a meter of snow in the beginning of
may, so that's what i thought like, that's difficult and like, the building regulations there were very limited, because if i had to restore
one of those places, sort of from the ground up there's a lot of restorations to
do, because the wind just blows through those barns first of all, you have to get a permission
by the municipality, but also by the region and i think it was called "soprintendenza"
yeah and the geometra who was there too he said, like yeah, it's very difficult if you
want larger windows on the view side, you know it's gonna be difficult, you have to close them
off with doors maybe, it's difficult to get permission, it's also difficult to build there
because the roads are super steep that's the fact for a lot of places, you know, with
these amazing views, they're hard to reach viewed more properties there, i mean, the
landscape there is beautiful, the dolomites those super steep mountains, it's
just absolutely beautiful prices of this cabin was 45 000 and that's kind of the prices of cabins which
needs to be restored completely I looked at other properties, another one
which i liked a lot was, there were two cabins one was sort of a very small cabin, built
in between four or three very big trees and then there was a slightly larger house next to
it, was a lot of work too, that one was more on the grid it was just above a little village, and you
could hear the bells of the church and it would be like just on top of the village, like the highest
house just outside of it, the views were beautiful it was easy accessible as well. the
problem with that one was it was registered as a storage space, so for a farmer to
store hay for example, or equipment you could renovate it and put a bed and a
simple kitchen there, but you're not allowed to live full-time there, so it was kind
of complicated, and the real estate agent was saying, like, oh yeah, don't do this, so
didn't do that, price of that one was 80 000. yeah, it was a beautiful one, i kind of liked it.
then i went looking further, i went to the lakes Como, and Maggiore as well, and i mean, that area
is gorgeous. the lakes are so beautiful different prices though, it's it's a bit
more expensive there, but i thought if i buy something there, it's because
it's so touristic, it's also easy to airbnb it. but it becomes a
different thing, you know, i was looking for something to live off the grid. a more adventurous place, and if you want something that's suitable for airbnb, it's more like a holiday house, so it's it's a different thing but i found some amazing places there.
i was almost going to buy one place on top of the hill, also the last house on
the hill, with an amazing view. it was so good and very quiet, you could see very far over
lake Com on one side and on the other side you could look in the Sondrio valley,
it was so gorgeous, and there were sheep there you'd hear the sheep bells and the horses and
the other animals, and this place was a ruin, so it really needed to build be built up from the ground,
in between two very large trees, at 1100 meter so i was sold, you know. i had a meeting with
the the real estate agent, a few meetings actually and with the geometra as well, and we discussed the
the renovation project, and they were saying it's cheaper to rent a helicopter
for the building materials, so i was starting to ask quotes, sort of ballpark figures for renovating the entire place I talked with architects, spoke with some
builders and they gave me a figure, but i thought i talked to more people and more and more i was
realizing that this was going to be a project that would go sky high in
terms of budget and spendings. because there're so many factors that are
hard to predict when you're so high in the mountains it's hard to get the building materials
there, and you know, a lot of difficult things so in the end i decided not to do it. because that
was a different budget. that place was for sale for 70 000 euros, and it was a ruin, so
you need to build a house there from scratch that could could go easily into 200 thousand,
300, 400... a lot of money to invest in. I would need to get another loan, and i decided,
i don't want to get a loan, i want to buy something just cash and renovate it
myself, because building a house from scratch by yourself is just out of
the question in italy, it's just not allowed. you need to get building permits, needs to be
done by certified builders, you can't do it yourself, it's it's that simple.
so then i thought like, okay, the dream is over... went back to amsterdam, and then started looking
into different regions and that's where i came here, more on the on the west side closer
to France, i found out that the prices are a lot cheaper, and it has to do that there's just less
tourism here. and then i found places which were just ten thousand, ruins for five thousand,
fifteen thousand, twenty thousand, and i thought like okay i could pay that, and
then, if i could do the renovations myself, because i learned if the structure is good and
the roof is kind of good, you can do internal works, you're allowed to do it yourself, and that
way you could save money. it wasn't really about saving money. it's fine to invest in
a in a house, because it's real estate, you will add value to it, but i didn't
want to step into a renovation project with building companies, and just a lot of different
parties and permits in a country where i don't speak the language. i thought, it's just going to
be too stressful and complicated. i want to have a place where i can just work myself, spend
time... it needed to be already successful from day one when i purchased it, you know,
it's about the journey of creating a place yourselves, about learning all the crafts,
because i'm not a builder, i have a few skills, but not much, i just have to find everything out.
but that's the exciting part of it for me so that kind of narrowed it down what
i was looking for it needed to be accessible by car, it
needed to have a good view, it needed to be somewhat remote, so it would be a place
in nature, not too close to a village it made it easier to to look for places and
then i came here. i met with the real estate agent first i asked her about some properties in the
neighborhood, i hadn't even seen the advert of this one and she was saying, like, oh maybe you look
for this, okay, maybe this is something for you it was a bit higher, the price, it was
listed for 29 000, which was a bit above my budget but when i came here, i biked up
here, it took one and a half hour and it was just amazing, just the view
here, everything was overgrown... i just liked the situation of the two cabins, the the flat
space here, which is your garden which is sort of a podium in an arena, you
know, and then the surrounding mountains which you can't see at the moment,
maybe the clouds clear in a bit i was sold! so i've been here a few times and
then i made a bid. i bit 19 000. the price was 29 and then the owner came back with
23 i believe, yeah, and then if you do 21 000 he's probably gonna go with it. so i offered that,
and it was a deal. it was done pretty quickly so with with building permits, how it works
is, you need to get in touch with the geometra, which is a surveyor and an architect, the
difference between a geometra and an architect is that the geometra, i believe, is only doing the
more simple works, like smaller buildings, and normal houses, not skyscrapers for example,
and more special designs, higher bigger buildings, that's what an architect does, so the
geometra is the is the person you need, and he will ask for the building permits,
he will do all the communication between the the municipality, and for this one, because i'm
not changing the structure, i don't have to ask for a building permit, but i do need to
fill in papers to communicate the works on the building, on the inside, that's what has
to be done and it has to be done via a geometra but i'm keeping the structure as it is.
the roof needs a lot of work, but funny enough it doesn't count for changing
the structure, if you just change the rafters and you insulate it, put new rafters on
insulation and then put the stones back which is a it's a pretty big job, it's
allowed to do it without a building permit you cannot change doors, you cannot change windows because then you need a building permit.
and then there's a whole new set of rules you get into so i'm keeping it fairly
straightforward, it's still a huge amount of work but i'm looking forward to it, i'm enjoying
it so much to be here, just working here just spending time here, that is the goal. getting the house finished to a liveable house that's that's a goal in itself, but the goal is just spending time here, and and working here, and being here,
enjoy the the mountain life. another goal is to learn about renovating such a place,
so it's gonna be a lot of youtubing, reading blogs talking with people, trying it out, doing it wrong
read more about it, and do it right. it's about teaching yourself and developing
yourself about all these building skills and creating a living here in the mountains
that's what i want, that's what i'm up for.
