GRAND DESIGNS
Twenty years ago, Peter Mayle, an advertising executive turned author, bought a 200 year-old farmhouse in the Lubéron, Southern France and set about renovating it.
Twenty years ago, Peter Mayle, an advertising executive turned author, bought a 200 year-old farmhouse in the Lubéron, Southern France and set about renovating it.
The account of his encounters with local builders and tradesmen became a best-seller, A Year in Provence and inspired thousands of others to buy and restore a ruin somewhere in the Mediterranean.
Today, buying a dilapidated farmhouse in Provence would be an expensive proposition: most have been renovated already, and prices have soared. But for those looking for a ruin to restore, the horizons have expanded: from France and Spain to Italy, Greece, and more recently Croatia and Bulgaria.
The appeal of doing up an old property is the province of dreamers. Practical types will opt for a brand-new lock-upand-leave, where everything works and they can move straight in. Restoration junkies, though, set themselves up for years of frustration, and an open-ended drain on their financial resources.
The reason they do it is generally twofold: a belief (often naïve) that an unloved pile of stones represents a tremendous bargain; and a desire to create a home full of tradition and authentic materials and craftsmanship. But success requires patience, imagination and determination in equal measure.
France still has endless restoration opportunities outside the gentrified areas such as Provence and the Dordogne. Brittany and Normandy have long been popular with British buyers because of their proximity to the Channel, and prices are accordingly higher. Some of the best bargains are in areas like Limousin in central France, or Gascony in the south west. What makes France especially attractive is the sheer range of different house styles available: from mas (farmhouse) to maison de maître (townhouse), and bastide (country house) to château (castle). And prices in much of rural France are still remarkably cheap: it’s still easy to find a cottage in need of restoration in central Brittany for less than €50,000 (£39,500).
Most people associate Spain with rampant development along the costas, but there are opportunities to buy old properties to restore inland, too. Andalucia Exclusive (+34 650 795416, andalucia-exclusive.eu) was founded by British duo Robert Barclay and Jon Clarke to help clients restore old fincas or farmhouses in the Andalucia region which lies behind Spain’s Costa del Sol. Barclay says: “There are large swathes of Andalucia that remain relatively unknown and magical.”
Barclay says most renovations in the area are poorly carried out and keep little of the original building. But he adds: “Getting the planning and building licences is the most difficult and daunting stage of the process, and on your own it can very quickly become a nightmare.” Prices vary widely, depending on the scale and quality of the buildings and the distance from the coast; at Iznájar, he’s offering a hillside farmhouse with stunning views for €80,000 (£63,000), but others will cost more than €1 million (£790,000).
Many of Spain’s rural houses are very simple; in Italy, by contrast, architectural detail is everywhere, and even the humblest country house can reveal unexpected treasures such as bas relief or decorative craftmanship. Finding an unrestored property in the popular regions of Tuscany or Umbria requires deep pockets. But there are more reasonably priced parts such as Abruzzo, the region east of Rome. It has mountains, skiing, national parks and a coastline, but is still relatively unknown.
Helen Queenan of Abruzzo Property Italy (+44 (0)121 745 8650, abruzzopropertyitaly. com) says would-be buyers in the region have little choice but unrestored property. “Very few properties are ready to move into,” she points out. “Most Italians live in apartments; they moved to bigger towns and cities and left these buildings empty.” British buyers, she says, are usually looking for an isolated property with land. Prices start from €10,000 (£7,900) for a complete wreck, but you must budget for the restoration cost, usually about €350-400 (£175-315) per square metre in a building that is structurally sound. “But the cost will go up significantly if you have to run water and electricity to the house,” points out Queenan. Many rural Italian properties are on what is known as a “white road” – an unmade road, which can also be expensive if you have to arrange utilities. Budget around €100,000 to €200,000 (£79,000 to £158,000) for the building and restoration of a fairly simple property, says Queenan. Abruzzo, Pescara and Teramo are the more expensive provinces, while the mountainous areas, Chieti and L’Aquila are less so.
For something truly unusual, the southeastern region of Puglia offers some extraordinary houses. They are called trulli and are typically white, cone-like buildings resembling a beehive. Trulli were originally built so they could be dismantled quickly if a tax man was on the way – and then re-built afterwards. Quite a few Brits have snapped them up; as well as their character, the thick walls keep them nice and cool in summer.
And so to Greece, a country where there are reputedly twice as many properties as people. Crete, especially, has thousands of ruins. Oonagh Karanjia of Crete Property Consultants (+44 (0)845 3372717 creteproperty.co.uk) says that although a few areas have become expensive – Elounda in the north-east is a prime example – you can usually retreat a few miles from the coast and find old village houses for sale at next to nothing and maybe a sea view thrown in.
“The Cretans had little interest in these old buildings, but they see people from overseas come and do wonderful things to them, and some are now doing the same thing themselves,” says Karanjia. “It’s not difficult to find good builders in Crete, they have fantastic stone cutters who do really beautiful work,” she adds.
A village house with some land can be bought for €35,000-50,000 (£27,600-39,500), she says, and you should budget €1,000 (£788) per square metre for building and taxes – or less if the walls and roof are sound.
For anybody embarking on a restoration project, unless you’re going to be on the spot for the duration, you will need somebody to oversee things. In each of these countries there’s no shortage of people willing to do that – for a fee. The alternative is to do things very, very slowly. One friend took three years to buy the pile of rubble he wanted to turn into a bijou holiday home in Greece’s Peloponnese. So if you retire in the next 20 years, start looking now.
Alexander Garrett is a property journalist based in London
TELL ME ABOUT…
BOGUS HOLIDAY CLUBS
LOOKING TO AVOID BEING CONNED INTO A SCAM ON HOLIDAY? ANDREW GARRETT, DEPUTY HEAD OF THE OFFICE OF FAIR TRADING’S SCAMBUSTERS TEAM GIVES HIS ADVICE:
I’ve won a free holiday! A guy selling tickets on the street said all I have to do is attend a short presentation.
Be careful. That presentation will never be short. It will always be several hours and it will take place in a pressured, quite nasty environment.
But isn’t it worth it for the holiday?
You wouldn’t give money to someone you just met on the street at home, would you?
I have to sign today to get the deal…
Don’t be rushed into things. Obviously the salesman will be telling you it’s a great, once-in-a-lifetime deal only.
What if I decide to go to the presentation?
Think about it before you commit like when you buy a car or a house. Don’t sign the contract just to get away. You can’t just say: “oh, I was on holiday, I didn’t mean to sign a contract.” Read what you’re signing, ask questions, and if questions can’t be answered, walk away.
GETTING THERE
FOR MORE ABOUT HOLIDAYS VISIT YOUR LOCAL THOMAS COOK OR GOING PLACES STORE, CALL +44 (0)844 412 5966, VISIT THOMASCOOK.COM OR TUNE IN TO THOMAS COOK TV ON SKY CHANNEL 655
Leave a Reply
Ink Publishing 2009. All Rights Reserved