August 23rd, 2021. A look back at the early days.

We had completed the SmartMoveItaly.com classes and feeling well educated on a number of things to consider if you want to move to Italy. We also learned from others: See Nancy’s blog in Favorite Links.

We had scheduled another visit to the area on vacation, with our friend Billy and reached out to some resources to inquire if they could assist us with seeing some properties on this visit. We had used idealista.com to pick a few that we thought were a good match for us. So many hours on this site, looking thru many properties and narrowing, narrowing.

As we go back and forth with a property consultant, she offers an early glimpse of the future. We would find out later just how right she was.

Buying property in Italy is not fast, or easy so it can take some time to not just narrow down the criteria but also the area.

We literally sent her a list of active links from idealista.com, her response was she thought our selection was lovely and she actually knew the Orvieto property.

We get connected to an Italian team Cortona Case Real Estate. Luca and Patrizia. It’s pretty clear from the outset that they support the full process and purchase real estate effort. Our problem is we are not yet ready to actually purchase due to retirement being out a couple more years. So we do our best to communicate this with mixed results. They describe the Orvieto house with mostly positive notes, calling out the power lines that can be seen in the background.

Ultimately they connected us with Diana as a local agent, and she agrees to give us a tour of two homes around October of 2021. We visit Casa Emilia in Baschi and Farm House in Colonnetta. Emilia had a great view, two floors, unusual floor plan, was sort of next to other neighbors and was rather small for our goal. Orvieto on the other hand was very exciting. Big property, plenty of room, very separated from next neighbor. We came home very excited but as mentioned we have some time before we can purchase.

I think this visit is when we really bought in to the idea of moving and we would find ourselves spending countless hours researching and talking about the possibilities.