Blessed with stunning geography, lovely weather, superlative gastronomy and a sky-high quality of life, it’s a wonder Piedmont hasn’t yet seen a stampede of foreign buyers. Fleur Kinson lifts the lid on this beautiful, affordable region.
It’s a bit of a mystery why Piedmont isn’t better known and loved by us British. Other nationalities lap up the region’s manifold delights: immaculate green countryside, endless vines arcing across gentle hills, handsome and super-civilized little towns, celestial peaks with world-class skiing, elegant lakesides, Italy’s finest wines and gastronomy... How have we inglese largely overlooked all this for so long?
It’s a northerly region, so perhaps we’ve assumed the climate can be grumpy, or prices high. Fact is, less rain falls in Asti each year than in Florence or Rome. You don’t produce some of Italy’s premier red wines (Barolo, Barbaresco) without lashings of sunshine. And as for prices, well, habitable farmhouses for under €200,000 compare very favourably to prices in other equally-desirable Italian regions.
Tucked up in the far northwest corner of Italy, Piedmont borders France, Switzerland, Lombardy and the ‘Italian Riviera’ region of Liguria. It contains a staggering array of landscapes. In the north and west, magnificent mountain scenery and charming Alpine villages. In the northeast, pretty Lake Orta and the popular western shore of Lake Maggiore. Moving south, through a flat infinity of bright green rice-fields, Piedmont soon buckles up again to form the exceptionally beautiful hills of ‘Le Langhe’ and its neighbouring areas – gastronomically legendary places, groaning with white truffles and world-class wines. [See Fleur Kinson's article on Piedmont's white truffles: www.where-to-go-in-italy.com/white-truffles.html]
Market-wise, Piedmont has been in the doldrums since the onset of the global financial crisis, as you might expect. Foreign buyers are beginning to trickle back in now, but the languishing pound continues to dampen what was a burgeoning British interest in farmhouses here. Property prices are generally down by about 20% across the region, with offers beneath the asking price commonly being accepted.
You will note that this is nowhere near the kind of price-drop-disaster we have witnessed in other favourite holiday-home countries. As these articles have often pointed out, Italy has proven to have a remarkably stable property market. “Italian property prices were not greatly affected to the upside during the boom, so they are not greatly affected to the downside during the bust,” says Angelika Smith-Aichbichler of Piedmont Properties. “This is due to a number of factors,” she adds, “but the main ones are the extremely cautious attitude of Italian banks and the relative lack of speculative development in Italy.” All in all, Italy remains a safe bet. And now is a pretty good time to buy, or at least a good time to start looking while waiting for the pound to rally.
Piedmont remains an especially appealing prospect because it has yet to reach the height of its potential popularity. Long-term, the market outlook here is very bright. This is a sophisticated and very well-run part of Italy, with rock-solid infrastructure and a tremendously high quality of life. Piedmont can only grow in visitor popularity, especially when we ever-globetrotting Brits finally wise up to the region’s considerable delights.
For the foreign buyer, Piedmont clearly divides into four main market-areas: Turin, the Alps, the lakesides and the rural south. It is this last that is probably of most interest to British buyers, and to which we will be giving greatest attention here. But first, what of the other three?
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An underrated metropolis, Turin has wide boulevards, elegant Baroque facades and miles of arcaded pavements flanked by sleek boutiques. For all its hard-working industry, Turin’s air blows in clean and fresh from the surrounding Alps – making it a very liveable place. The population is manageable too, with just under a million inhabitants. There’s not a lot of tourist rental potential in Turin, but medium-to-long-term lets to students and professionals are a safe bet. City apartments are a fraction of the cost of Milan or Rome, with two-bedroom homes going for about €200,000.
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As for rentals, you could expect to rent out a ski property for about 14 winter weeks, asking around €600 per week for a studio, and double this amount for a two-bed. Helen Thomson, who owns the Chalet Le Reverier in Valle d’Aosta, points out that these post-credit-crunch times are proving especially good for ski holiday rentals in Italy’s smallest official region. People are less keen to pay the higher prices of French slopes, but still want top-notch skiing in beautiful, well-equipped resorts. Valle d’Aosta fits that bill perfectly.
Italy’s heartbreakingly lovely northern lakes are among the most desirable and expensive places in the whole country – green mountains plunging into glittering blue water, leafy slopes dotted with fruit-coloured villas, watersides strung with elegant little towns. Who could fail to fall for all that? Piedmont contains the popular western half of Lake Maggiore, and all of tiny Lake Orta. Maggiore is an old favourite with British visitors, and there are lots of apartments available in converted period villas here. One-bedroom apartments go for about €150,000, two-beds for about €200,000. Summer rental prospects are excellent, and you could expect to gain about €650 a week for a one-bed apartment, €800 for a two-bed. Charming Lake Orta has slightly lower property prices, and sees slightly fewer visitors.
But perhaps Piedmont’s most promising area for British buyers is its rural south – in particular the southeastern areas Le Langhe, Roero and Monferrato. The leafy, vine-clad hills down here are home to some wonderful little towns, and offer some of the best food and wine in Italy. Le Langhe in particular is home to more Michelin-starred eateries than any other comparably-sized area in the world. The world’s best hazelnuts, best polenta-maize, and best white truffles all sprout from this beguiling landscape, not to mention grapes destined for the mighty Barolo. It’s no surprise that the Slow Food movement was born near here, in the handsome town of Bra.
Over the last several years, property prices rose by about 25% across Piedmont’s southeastern areas, with 2007 a particularly booming year in which agents struggled to find enough properties to satisfy the growing foreign demand. The global financial crisis halted all that, of course, but the things that had been drawing foreign attention to these lovely places are still here, waiting for buyers to pick up where they left off. The area remains wholly unspoilt, and able to soak up many more foreign buyers without putting a dent in its character. Country houses to restore start at about €70,000, habitable farmhouses can be had for under €200,000, and lavishly restored homes might ask €300,000-€450,000.
In terms of holiday rental prospects, southeastern Piedmont is a good bet. Beyond Barolo and Barbaresco country, there’s a serious shortage of self-catering properties (and not many hotels either). Eli Anne Langen of the estate agency Case in Piemonte says “We still lack apartments and houses to rent here in southern Piedmont. The request is high, and the supply low.”
The southeastern area is steadily becoming better known to visitors, especially of the gastro-tourist type. Thanks to the benign climate and to various wine and truffle festivals, the visiting season starts in March and goes on till early November. Filling twenty weeks of your rental calendar is not impossible if you choose well and market effectively. Currently most of southern Piedmont’s visitors are from the eurozone rather than Britain or America, and if you want to succeed with rentals, you should definitely be prepared to target the continental market. [See Fleur Kinson's article on buying for holiday rental: www.where-to-buy-in-italy.com/holiday-rental.html.]
As for buying a property to restore here, there are plenty of old country homes you might transform into your dream house, but it’s a moot point whether this is the best-value route to a property in Piedmont. Many agents believe it’s cheaper in the long run to buy somewhere habitable, or ready-restored. Many foreign buyers – if not most of them – long for an unrestored house so that they can transform it according to their exact tastes. But they often find that the expenses end up going way over budget and/or that the whole project takes far longer than they anticipated. Obviously only you can decide which route you want to take – pay more up front for a place you can enjoy immediately, or risk paying more in the long term for a place which perfectly meets your specifications. [See Fleur Kinson's article on restoring Italian property: www.where-to-buy-in-italy.com/restoration.html.]
Elio Virlo of the agency Case Monferrato points out something that should interest anyone thinking of relocating to Piedmont. “For those who wish to come to Italy for work, there is an economic advantage to renovating a property,” he says. “Under a current Italian law, the government will reimburse the homeowner 36% of renovation costs as an incentive. There is also an incentive of 55% reimbursement for use of energy-saving materials and installations. The money will be reimbursed in your tax statements over the next ten years.”
If you haven’t thought about Piedmont before, perhaps now is the time you should start. There’s a lot of potential here, and it’s very likely you’ll be hearing a great deal more about this thoroughly beguiling region in the future. Definitely one to watch!
[All quoted prices accurate in 2010]
With its beautiful Alpine backdrop and its wide, elegant boulevards, Turin is an attractive and much under-rated city. Switched-on and techno-savvy, Turin prospers on its car-manufacture and hi-tech industries. Its glossy bars and cafés are lively with students, and its miles of arcaded pavements glitter with sleek boutiques. Some of the city outskirts can be fairly characterless, dominated by uninspiring apartment blocks, but the more central areas are very likeable indeed. While property in Turin can be almost double the price of similar accommodation in Piedmont’s other towns and small cities, the city is still much cheaper than nearby Milan – northern Italy’s other economic powerhouse. One-bedroom apartments go for about €120,000 on average; two-beds for about €200,000. The rentals scene is dominated by southern Italian migrants who’ve come to Turin to work, and students at the university here. So, think mid-to-long-term rentals rather than short-term holiday lets.
West of Turin, Piedmont’s spectacular Alpine area spreads to the border with France. It’s a skier’s paradise, with the busy ‘Milky Way’ network of resorts offering together about 400km of excellent slopes. The unspoilt, picturesque villages round here flank thoroughly modern ski facilities – made even better by an estimated billion-euro investment in the run-up to 2006’s Winter Olympics. Sestriere, just 60 miles from Turin, draws a metropolitan crowd at the weekend. It was Italy’s first purpose-built ski resort, and it’s still a fashionable and well-equipped place. Nearby lie attractive towns-cum-resorts like Pinerolo, Pragelato, Claviere, Cesana and Sauze d’Oulx. Bardonecchia is especially loved by snowboarders, and family-oriented Sansicario is best known for its challenging runs. Property in Piedmont’s Alpine area is popular with local buyers as well as with foreigners. Ski-oriented studio apartments ask about €100,000. Holiday rental prospects are excellent. In addition to the eager snow-crowd, smaller numbers of summer walkers are drawn to the area, making year-round rentals a possibility. You could reasonably expect to rent out a ski property for 14 weeks in the winter, garnering €600 a week for a studio apartment and €1,200 for a two-bed.
With 100,000 inhabitants spread across 8,500 square kilometers, Valle d’Aosta is Italy’s smallest region and one of its most thinly-populated. It’s a very wealthy and contented place, however, tucked up against the border with Switzerland and enjoying a mixed Swiss-French-Italian culture. With such celestial mountain scenery, it’s fitting that the huge national park up here (Italy’s oldest) is named the Gran Paradiso. Valle d’Aosta’s skiing is amongst the best in Italy, with stylish Courmayeur regularly acclaimed as the country’s superlative ski resort. Summer hikers are much less numerous than winter visitors in Valle d’Aosta, but they still offer some potential for year-round holiday rentals. Property in Courmayeur is hugely expensive, with villas here asking more than a million euros, but a little cottage needing work five minutes away from a lesser-known ski resort can cost as little as €80,000. Prices tumble just a short distance from resorts, with ready-converted 3-bedroom properties asking less than €200,000. A small apartment right next to a ski slope, meanwhile, might ask €150,000.
Lake Maggiore’s long and popular western shore – including its number one resort, Stresa – lies in Piedmont. So does all of tiny Lake Orta. Both lakes have the exquisite landscapes, elegant atmosphere and pretty buildings you’d expect from Italy’s northern lakes, and both are blessed with villa-studded islands that greatly enhance their charm. Maggiore is much better known than little Orta, and is today particularly popular with older British visitors. As befits a long-loved holiday destination, property prices on Lake Maggiore can be quite high, with one-bedroom apartments going for about €150,000 on average, and two-beds for €200,000 or more. But many of the properties on offer are charming, with plenty of apartments available in converted period villas. Rental prospects are excellent, and in the summer you could charge about €650 a week for a one-bed apartment, €800 for a two-bed. Lake Orta’s property prices are a bit lower than Lake Maggiore’s, and slightly fewer visitors find their way here. Piedmont’s lakesides are within easy daytripping distance of certain ski resorts. If you were to choose to buy halfway between a lake and a piste, you could have access to summer and winter entertainment, and/or rent your property to two kinds of holidaymaker.
Southern Piedmont is a super-fertile realm of teeming agriculture and wonderful foodstuffs. The pancake-flat Po Valley area grows tons of rice, its bright green paddyfields stretching for miles into the distance. Further south, hills and ridges start to appear and eventually dominate the landscape. Lushly green and meticulously farmed, these beautiful hillsides produce some of the best food and wine in Italy. It’s down here in hilly southern Piedmont that the property market is really going to be something to watch over the next couple of years. Foreign buyers have started to ‘discover’ the place – with the lovely area called Le Langhe being particularly prized. Vine-clad Le Langhe produces the stunning Barolo wine, as well as the world’s best white truffles. Its property prices are the highest in southern Piedmont, yet remain great value for money. Habitable country homes with several bedrooms here go for about €200,000. Beyond Le Langhe and the other wine areas of Piedmont’s hilly south, similar properties ask only about €120,000. But prices down here have risen steadily over the last few years and will surely keep doing so as foreign buyer interest grows further. Note that there’s not a lot for sale in the south that needs major restoration. Old properties are generally well-maintained. Holiday rental prospects are very good. There’s a shortage of self-catering accommodation across much of Piedmont’s south, and the holiday season is very long thanks to good weather and popular autumn food festivals.
London-based Ingrid and Phil Blades own a large farmhouse surrounded by vineyards in the Monferrato area of Piedmont. They produce and export their own red and white wines,and offer holiday rentals.
“We spent two years looking for the right property,” Ingrid says. “We considered Tuscany, Le Marche and Emilia-Romagna, as well as Piedmont. We fell in love with Piedmont because of the landscape, and because it’s an area that isn’t full of tourists or ex-pats. To enjoy the lifestyle here you’ve got to integrate well with the community, and learn Italian. Piedmont is real Italy, far from the package-tourist trail. You also get far more property for your money in Piedmont than you would in Tuscany. We didn’t want to be in Italy’s south because of the excessive heat in the summer. We love the climate in Piedmont, and the fact that there are very distinct seasons. Proper fluffy snow in the winter, a short spring, long summer, and wonderfully golden autumn – my favourite time of year here.”
The Blades’ property is a very old farmhouse, ‘Vecchio Podere Santa Cristiana’, which had previously been owned and partially restored by a well-known Italian racer and Ferrari test-driver. “We did further restoration work,” Ingrid explains, “and now we have two self-catering holiday apartments in addition to the five en suite bedrooms inside the main house which we run as a B&B. We put in a swimming pool too, and spent a lot of money on the vineyards. Really the reason we bought the property was because of the vineyards. They were fairly neglected, and we had to bring them fully back to life. We did the usual English thing of working all hours, including in the midday sun. All our neighbours kept telling us “Piano, piano!” – which in this context means ‘slowly, slowly!’ So that’s the name we gave our Barbera d’Asti wine, Piano Piano. We ship to London and Manchester and sell from there. We restored the vineyards biodynamically, which is better than organic, and involves fully respecting natural processes, the seasons and the whole ecosystem around the vines.”
Ingrid says the rentals are going well, as southern Piedmont increasingly appeals to discerning travellers. The region’s legendary gastronomy is a big draw, and visitors love the idea of staying somewhere surrounded by working vines. Ingrid points out that “You need to drive here, and that deters a lot of people who would normally go on package holidays.”
Ingrid and Phil go out to Piedmont very often, and especially at key stages in the wine-producing year. Back in the UK, they attend wine fairs and events to promote their Barbera d’Asti and Moscato d’Asti wines. Sounds rather an idyllic life, doesn’t it? www.stayinpiedmont.com www.piedmontwine.com
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