I am talking about a small one-floored 2-3 bedroom cottage; I have a few regions in mind...maybe Lazio, Abruzzo, Le Marche..open to anyplace where I can swim in spring and fall in heated pool.
Renting first is a good option but where to even begin searching?

I have no problem with language. Must have access to medical care. This would be in addition to our home in the US. Will have a car.

Spain is my first choice but I travel there often and partner likes Italy more.

Just a dream now but how to begin turning a dream into reality?

Just to be clear, are you talking about a purchase? Though maybe first rent to be sure of the location in general.... in which case for what length of time?

If purchase, I would google search for 'immobiliare' and name the region. If you want, you can limit your search to .it websites. From there you can look through lisitings and filter for what your priorities are.

A general question: Do people in Italy install heated pools at a cottage? Seems like a combination of a modest house with a luxury item. That's a tricky combo.

We bought a small apartment in Brussels in 2022. For now it's an investment, eventually we will split our time between there and our home in Sydney (probably a decade off). If it doesn't work out, it has all been a very interesting ride and earns us a modest income. If you are talking about buying somewhere, I would advise 1) settling on a region, 2) visiting that region (Google Street View is helpful until you get on that plane) and 3) finding a realtor who can do a property search with you (this may cost money, we chose to invest in this). You don't have to be there for that stage, and depending on the laws you might not even have to be there for the signing. A lot changed during Covid and the realtor may be able to do video recordings of properties on their phone. We also asked people a lot of questions - mainly addressed to the notary, about whether it is possible for foreigners to buy real estate. There may be tax implications - we pay property tax, which is not so straightforward but I will not bore you with the details from Brussels when you are looking at Italy. There may be advantages to selling the property when you are finished using it rather than passing on as an inheritance (death taxes). We spoke to notaries, tax advisers, fiscal lawyers, realtors. Zoom is amazing!

Also start looking at real estate websites to get a feel for what your money can buy. We looked at Germany for a long time and I felt we would be priced out until I started looking at Brussels seriously. It was much cheaper and if I want to visit Germany it's less than 2 hours by train, so this was a compromise. There are also good guides written about buying real estate in Belgium in English because there are so many expats there (good for my mostly monolingual husband. Well, he speaks some German and is now doing Duolingo in French.) I have a friend whose mother bought and renovated a house in Italy somewhere, and wrote a book about it, Denbigh Sale. I don't remember the title, but maybe you can find it online somewhere. You will of course need good Italian, but Google Lens is your friend.

Of course your journey will be different being Italy but maybe this will start you off.

Lavandula

I maybe misunderstanding the question but the obvious answer is you pull up one of the real estate websites and you search.

https://www.casa.it/vendita/residenz...ype=price_desc

Those are places in the province of Rome claiming to have a pool. Glancing at one it has a hottub not a pool. We're talking real estate and the truth tends to vary.

A few things. Small places won't likely have a pool. Some of the above are actually apartment buildings. If you buy a villa and the pool isn't heated you could just add it. Far easier than trying to find a place with a heated pool

Car? You mean a rental? You won't be able to buy a car without residence.

Thanks for reminding me about residence, Nick - another thing for you to consider is that if you don't have a residence permit you might not be able to put on utilities (water, internet, etc). Again I don't know how it is in Italy but this is a sticking point for us and one of the reasons why we are delaying inhabiting our property until later, when we will be free to stay for longer periods of time. We also have a family here and dogs, so it's definitely a longer-range proposition. We knew about all of this before taking the plunge. So you would have to look into this, too. Do your homework. There are plenty of other people who will have gone before you in Italy (not so much in Brussels, except for the crazy Australians . Also bank accounts - it is difficult to get bank accounts as non-residents who do not have a local income. We got past this using Wise (which is ostensibly an international bank account / money transfer service) but we decided we do want a local bank account and so are working on this now. Again I will be sparing with details here, it's a process, and if you really want the information send me a PM. As Australians there is no special barrier but I understand European banks view Americans differently and I think it may have to do with the lack of a double tax agreement. So the financial side of things would need to be resolved for you also. So much to tell, but I will wait for questions to spare you the overload!

Lavandula

Once you have the ownership paperwork utilities are easy.

The OP will likely pay a bit more for a non resident contract but on a vacation home it's not a big issue. They'll likely be paying more for standing charges . No need to worry about the higher use charges.

There are non resident bank accounts. Fairly expensive. One possible problem is if the OP has American citizenship. Most non US banks are scared to deal with the US citizens. Been this way for over a decade. It's not the tax treaty it's the various tax evasion laws. US has a nasty habit of fining people who get caught in it's legal web. Far easier to just avoid Americans.

If you want funny I have heard fear in the voice of my UK bank on the phone when they thought I had an US accent . You could hear the wheels whirring . There are various expat banks based offshore on the UK islands.

Once again there are ways around this but you'll have less choice.

I might look at Portugal rather than Spain and Italy. Certainly when I, members of my family, and friends have considered it, that is where we started, just a bit more open to people coming.

In terms of heated pool I'd start by looking at rentals rather than straight buys, partially as it gives you time to "try before you buy" and rentals will be cheaper out of the summer plus a longer term rental should catch you a lower rate.

Start with booking.com

For this kind of topic, I would have assumed that one of the several expat forums would be a better platform. This one is one is about vacations.

Is it intended to become your permanent home? If so you will need to take a driving test should you wish to continue driving. A US licence is only allowed for 12 months after residency is granted.
Like most European countries the driving test is two parts, and not easy.

There are plenty of expats forums and information sites to help you, and you may be able to find an American or UK agent to help you in your house search on such a site. They will be very useful when dealing with red tape.

Not a permanent home. A small cottage with a heated lap pool that I could undertake building myself (the pool, not the house) with local tradespeople.


Are there any expat forums that are better than others?

Thanks for the comments..its kind of a dream now since I already spend a month in Spain in March, so...
Agree renting would be the way to go...

These links on YouTube may help:


https://www.youtube.com/@BradsWorld

Off the top of my head I don't know which if any forum is still active. Your best bet might be facebook.

But with Italy you might want to look for regional groups. Most of the basic information is national but if you need information on workers etc a more narrow group will be better.

Downside is the areas with expat populations tend to be more expensive

BTW I'd really suggest avoiding any real estate agent that advertises in English.

Nick, very interesting tip!

The trouble for now is that I have o idea where we want to be....someplace south of Rome and none of the famous tourist resorts......I' thinking of a small cottage with 2-3 bedrooms, within 10 minutes of a town to buy groceries and go to decent restaurants. For example, we loved Senegallia...never been to Pescara but from what I've read the sounds lovely. Ancona? Near Sulmona? Loved Veiste but Gergano is too far for medical help is something serious arises and it's likely dead off season.....

Pretty sure I can be happy in many spots, making friends would be great but I'm a loner and if I can read and swim, and explore the area.....and of course we need to get American tv for my partner but that's far in the future....... I know I can meet people pretty easily.......this is just a dream for now but how much time is left to do something like this? I'm not 50 anymore!!

That may be the most difficult ask.

Even before you wrote this -
"The trouble for now is that I have o idea where we want to be....someplace south of Rome ..."
- my advice would be to do rentals.

How many years are in front of you? 10 seasons in the overseas "home"? 15?

A family with teen girls were finazling the purchase of a villa outside of San Gimignano and having a pool put in - but were already dealing with months of delays. There were only a matter of a few hours away (by plane) and he had very flexible work obligations. When we talked at dinner, the process of just getting to closing had taken almost two years. They had a favorite place to stay - a home away from home - during the process and were very excited, but they were at least 20 years younger. I was excited for them but couldn't imagine dealing with the obstacles still ahead of them.

As others have said, a small quaint cottage isn't going to come with a heated pool. One can put one in after the purchase, but pool installations in the US can take months longer than expectations. One you've finalized the investment, you'll need someone to oversee it when you are not there - so there's someone who can deal with problems that will arise. Then there's the problem with buying/ owning a car.

I love the optimism, excitement... and the youth... of the young(er) family but if it were me, I'd do long term rentals - especially if you don't already have any idea where you would like to settle down. Try out different places.

But with all of the complications, "Amercian TV" may be your biggest stumbling block. I returned from Italy with my news habit definitely broken last year. Which was a good thing - for me.

>But with all of the complications, "Amercian TV" may be your biggest stumbling block. I returned from Italy with my news habit definitely broken last year. Which was a good thing - for me.

Isn't there a way of watching online with a VPN? Most of our TV stations have a watch online option, the only trick being that you can only watch if you are in your own country (hence the VPN, to fool the TV station into thinking you are back in the States). And there are Android boxes with software that will allow you to watch foreign TV channels on your own TV. We had something like this until we got a new TV and we just haven't plugged it all back in again. It's not amazingly good but after the purchase of the box it costs nothing, the only hitch being that we see TV shows that are showing in Germany in the middle of the night, and those shows are always terrible. I suppose if you get satellite TV it depends what sort of packages you can get. From the Netherlands and Belgium you can get British channels in the regular packages, but Italy may not provide British channels. And probably you can always get CNN, that is pretty much everywhere.

Lavandula

Just another thing about the car - in many countries you can lease cars for a longer period of time (I think usually 6 months). These are brand new cars, always from French car manufacturers, and you can pick them up in France and also from a limited number of locations outside of France - for example, Frankfurt Airport. I don't know if this is a thing in Italy but wondering if you could pick up a car from Nice airport and drive into Italy with it, if you can't pick up a car from somewhere like Rome? That would be a way of getting around the car issue, as it's more economical to lease than to rent. Many of my colleagues have leased cars when on sabbatical in Europe.

Lavandula

TV meaning?

Most of the same programs are shown . Often with the English language option.

The problem is these days things are spread across twenty different services. Netflix and Amazon Prime being the bigger two but then you have all the rest including the Italian services.

The next problem is stuff moves. This autumn Amazon has announced it'll include NBA. No idea how many games but I'm supposedly getting NBA come October.

Of course this means you need fibre. The sort of place that's most likely to have room for a pool may not have fibre service. If you're lucky DSL.

Timezone issues are an added problem if the idea is to watch live sports.

I imagined her male partner settling into a recliner or wherever to choose from at least a few channels of "American TV". Kind of like someone would do in NYC or south Florida.

I think that will be a harder find than the small cottage with a pool, much less a heated pool.

I know for visitors there are some work arounds. If that's a big deal to a potential buyer of a home in Italy, I'd do some comparison shopping. During our visit last year, staying in several places from "American hotels" to options in Venice and a week in a villa in Tuscany, it was difficult to find more than one channel in English from the options at several lodgings, including those who cater to the American market. That's only antecdotal, of course.

I think of that trip as my "Bridgerton" trip. I streamed S3 on Netflix and watched a lot of reels on Facebook. Every TV had options of multiple channels, but none with "American TV" in English. Maybe English subtitles via CC would suffice? Depends on the viewer, I suppose.

These days the major OTA channels tend to have original languages on the second language channel. You just need to figure out the right button on the remote.

Some of the smaller channels don't. Strangely these are all American owned. No I don't understand why WB etc don't. But checking right now Little house on the Prairie is in English on one channel But Supernatural isn't on WB.

Hotels often have strange hotel remotes and it may not have the button.