Capitolo Otto: Lessons Learned and a 5 Month Retrospective
Welcome to Chapter 8 of my posts on our DIY renovation of our tiny Italian villa! If you didn’t already catch them, click the links to read my previous posts in this series: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6 and Chapter 7. We’ve completed the renos and our villa is now complete for us to enjoy (and, hopefully, for our Airbnb guests when we are away from beautiful Salento). In this post, I’ll share some critical lessons we learned in embarking upon this journey.
Five months of daily renovations (whilst living on site) ended up the adventure of a lifetime. If you’ve read my previous posts you’ll know that our DIY renovations were far from easy peasy. We had to overcome a significant language barrier and learn about new products and new techniques for renovation issues we encountered on the daily. We were without a working shower for days while renovating the bathroom – a situation that led us to stay in a local town for one night just to smell better and feel clean. We went through periods where we woke up in pain and needed to rest for hours just to continue the work. We also had a lot of laughs, through tears and sometimes blood.
So, would we do it all over again?
Was it worth it? It’s been months now since we completed our renovation and our property has been on Airbnb while we travelled back to Canada. We actually had very little time to live in the villetta and enjoy the fruits of our labour, so we’re very much looking forward to the opportunity to return again and just relax in our space. Now that the time has elapsed and we’ve had the benefit of hindsight, I can say we would definitely tackle a project like this again (assuming we have the time and financial resources to do so).
What would we change on a second renovation project?
If we were to renovate a villa in Italy again, I would have done our own searching to find a property that fit our needs and then hired a reputable geometra to survey the property. We spent a lot of our upfront funds on an agent who did very little in the end, partly because as English-speakers the price we were charged is a premium versus using an Italian agent. There are ways to see properties and leverage translators or translation services to ask questions. We found the property ourselves online, so could do so again, using professionals (geometra, notary, translator) at the end to close the deal.
Second, although we chose a property that was liveable at the outset, I would buy a second property needing more renovation work and use a contractor to complete the bulk of the critical items at the outset (floors, air conditioning, plumbing issues or major outdoor repairs), then move in to complete aesthetics. This requires a second property to live in whilst the first is under renovation, but it will be less stressful in the end and buying a less complete property should mean a lower purchase price. Completely finished properties that are move-in ready come with a much higher price tag, so if you are working with a tighter budget, older properties needing upgrades are the way to go. If you can avoid obtaining building permits and completing substantial work, renovations can move along quicker meaning you don’t need to rent another property for too long before yours is liveable.
Finally, for round two (if we ever get a chance to buy another property) I would ensure our projected budget for renovations is 3 to 4 times higher than we anticipate. Our cost estimates when purchasing the property were 3x lower than the actual amount we spent to make necessary upgrades (and there is still work to do)! All okay in the end, but having the right budget up front and setting aside the funds would have saved some financial stress.
All in all, while the tiny villa hasn’t been a lucrative investment opportunity so far and it is still a work in progress, we are nonetheless very proud of our immense accomplishment and the opportunity to own a home in beautiful, sunny Salento which we can enjoy for years to come.
If you have been following along, thank you for joining us on this journey! Always happy to take questions you have about the purchase process in Italy or how to complete a renovation project. Don’t hesitate to reach out through the Contact Us form!
And if you are so inclined, please view our villa on Airbnb at https://airbnb.ca/h/villettacanadese