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OPINION AND ANALYSIS

OPINION: The ‘Italian dream’ – Why so many move to Italy for a brighter future

Over the years Italians have fled their country looking for a brighter future but so many Americans and Britons head the other way in search of their 'Italian dream', writes Silvia Marchetti. Share your own views below.

OPINION: The 'Italian dream' - Why so many move to Italy for a brighter future
(Photo by ANDREAS SOLARO / AFP)

Centuries ago and up until the 1970s, Italian families often left their home country in search of a brighter future elsewhere, running towards what has always been the ‘American’, or Western, dream of a better standard of living.

But for some people, this migration trend seems to have been turned upside down.

I’ve spoken to many Americans and Brits who have relocated to Italy who believe that both the UK and America are collapsing and now unaffordable. In their view, nothing works anymore, life is too expensive, and importantly so is healthcare. 

It struck me how they seem to have found here in Italy the sort of dream that many Italian emigrants searched for in the past across the Atlantic Ocean, or up in northern Europe beyond the English Channel. It’s as if we’re in a topsy-turvy ‘new world’.

Scottish-American couple Sandy and Keith Webster, both retirees in their sixties, ditched “expensive” London in 2012 and moved to the remote village of Irsina, in deepest Basilicata, where they bought a gorgeous, multi-storey old dwelling with a panoramic balcony overlooking the old town.

Although they prefer not to disclose how much the house cost them, they say the renovation alone, which cost four times as much as the purchase, would have been one million dollars back in the US.

They say their rural Italian lifestyle is also much healthier, slower-paced and cheaper. Their pensions allow them to maintain a high living standard in a place where costs are relatively low.

The rural southern Italian region of Basilicata is popular among retirees and second-home owners. Photo by Guseppe CACACE / AFP

“We go out more often to eat at restaurants than when we lived in London, tour around the region, Italy, and Europe,” Sandy, who hails from California, tells The Local.

“We buy fresh food at the farmers market and eat healthily, go on long walks, visit the nearby beaches whenever we feel like it. The village life is relaxing and we feel part of a tight-knit community.”

Had the couple stayed in London to live out their retirement years, Keith says they would not have been able to maintain the same standards of living they can instead afford in Irsina, where multiple-course meals can cost just €30 per person at local restaurants. 

The only less idyllic aspect, say the Websters, is that they miss eating non-Italian food occasionally, given Mexican, Chinese and other foreign restaurants are lacking. “We just have a more limited choice, but we love Italian food”, says Wendy. 

David Greene, a graphic designer who works remotely from the village of Ronciglione in the Lazio region, says he escaped the UK just in time before Brexit. He was born in Chicago but moved to the UK as a teenager with his parents, and voted Remain having deep pro-European feelings. 

In the UK “everything was falling to pieces, not just politically,” he says

“My mortgage was £800 per month, instead here I pay only €300 monthly rent for a lovely condo overlooking the valley.

“Plus, I managed to take up Italian residency, public healthcare is very efficient, and also the cost of private doctors, appointments, and examinations in Italy are very reasonable.”

David says he pays €150 euros per month in electricity and gas bills for his two-bedroom Italian home, and has a cleaner who costs him €50 a week, when he could never afford this service back in the UK.

He spends roughly €80 on food weekly at a nearby supermarket, and takes public transport to get to Rome and around Lazio on a ticket costing €24 a week.

One of the many Americans flocking to southern Italian villages is Amy Clarke, a 50-year-old writer from New York. 

Last year, she moved to the fishing village of Sperlonga, a popular summer destination among Romans. She bought a dazzling white one-bedroom apartment of 50 square metres in the old town, tucked away in a quiet alley, for €70,000 and says a similar-sized home would have cost her nearly one million dollars in New York.

“Sperlonga may not be among the cheapest towns in Italy, given it is coastal with lots of stunning beaches. Nonetheless, I spend just €150 per week for groceries and food, and have more than enough money to dine out six times a month,” she says.

The Italian seaside town of Sperlonga. Photo by Christianna Martin on Unsplash

“I buy fresh melons, tomatoes, premium olives, porcini mushrooms and local extra virgin olive oil at the farmers market, one litre costs just €10. In New York, an orange costs more than a dollar and Italian EVO? Forget it. In the US it has always been way above my budget,” she adds.

Amy, who is single, says another reason why she decided to abandon the States was the “increasing violence, the preponderance to guns with  a school shooting almost every week, and the political mayhem which was making the US a very divisive country” to live in.

Funnily enough, Amy’s grandmother came from Naples and migrated to New York as a kid, where she then met her American husband, Amy’s grandpa.

“Gran is probably turning in her grave,” says Amy. “She escaped Naples for a better life overseas, chasing the American dream. 

“Well, I have escaped the US chasing the dolce vita dream. Italy is my New World.”

Do you agree or disagree with the opinions expressed in this article? Perhaps your ‘Italian dream’ didn’t quite work out that way? If you’d like to share your own experience of moving to Italy, please leave a comment below or get in touch by email at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you.

Member comments

  1. We could not agree more. We have an apartment in a northern Italian city with a high (for Italy) cost of living. Every time that we go back to the US, we are shocked at the prices for groceries and restaurant meals, both of which seem to be 3x as expensive as in our “expensive” northern Italian city. The final nail in the US coffin – the last time we were leaving a restaurant in the US, a man walked in with an “open-carry” gun on his hip. We will be making Italy our permanent residence.

  2. I have also retired and moved from the Los Angeles area to southern Italy (provincia di Lecce). I found a town that is near the Adriatic Sea and from my terrace, I can view the sea and on clear days, I can see the mountains of Albania and some of the northern Greek islands. Life here is very simple, the people are super friendly (even with me being an American Black person) and the cost of living for my partner and me is within my retirement budget.

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MOVING TO ITALY

Moving to Italy: A guide to house-buying and can you get a mortgage as a foreigner?

Moving to Italy, a country infamous for its red tape, can seem like a daunting task. Our new newsletter is here to answer your questions - this time we're looking at what's involved in buying an Italian home and mortgage-hunting as a foreigner.

Moving to Italy: A guide to house-buying and can you get a mortgage as a foreigner?

Here at The Local we’re an international team living in Italy – which means we’ve either grown up navigating Italian bureaucracy or been through the simultaneously exciting and nerve-wracking process of moving countries.

Our new newsletter is aimed at people who are in the process of moving, have recently moved and are still grappling with the paperwork or perhaps are just thinking about it – and we’ll share a regular selection of practical tips. Our team is also available to answer questions from subscribers to The Local.

A beginner’s guide to buying a house in Italy

With its old houses often going for a song, Italy attracts numerous foreign buyers looking for an affordable second or retirement home. But for people completely new to the process, what does buying an Italian home actually entail?

Mario Mazzeschi, managing partner of the law firm Mazzeschi Consultancy, says there are four major stages to buying a house in Italy, from signing a contract with an agency – who typically take two percent to five percent of the asking price – to completing the purchase.

In between, you’ll be expected to sign proposta irrevocabile d’acquisto (binding proposal) and pay a deposit, followed a compromesso (preliminary contract), and eventually a final contract.

You’ll want to protect yourself from hidden traps by hiring a surveyor, who could save you a hefty chunk of change. “We had such a case once where the buyer shaved €5,000 off the asking price because his surveyor found something,” says Mazzeschi.

In all this, it’s worth bearing in mind that there are different rules for residents and non-residents of Italy, which may influence your thoughts about whether it’s worth pursuing Italian residency.

Non-residents, for example, can only buy if their country has a reciprocal arrangement in place with Italy – excluding residents of Canada and some Swiss cantons – while Italian residents benefit from lower taxes and cadastral costs.

Can you get a mortgage in Italy as a foreigner?

If you’re considering buying a home in Italy as a foreigner but don’t have the funds to purchase one outright, there’s good news: it’s generally possible for foreigners to take out a mortgage in Italy.

Persuading an Italian bank to lend to you as a foreigner, however, is likely to be less straightforward and more time-consuming than it is for Italian citizens.

Non-residents in particular are likely to require the services of a specialist mortgage broker who can help you access information about rates.

Italian banks are also known to be strict lenders and tend to require a larger deposit (regardless of whether or not the buyer is Italian) than international buyers may be expecting.

“In general, expect your down payment to be higher than it would be in the US or UK,” say lawyers from legal consultancy Italy Law Firms on their blog.

You can find out more about buying a home in Italy by browsing The Local’s Italian property section.

Questions

The Local’s Reader Questions section covers questions our members have asked us and is a treasure trove of useful info on all kinds of practical matters. If you can’t find the answer you’re looking for, head here to leave us your questions.

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