Are you thinking of moving to Italy and renting a house/apartment?
Are you wondering if your house in Italy will be just like the peach colored villa under a warm Tuscan sun you saw in a movie?
After the popularity of my post on the challenges of buying property in Italy, I decided to write this post about Italian rental properties, aimed at advising people what to expect and what to be forewarned about.
Many North Americans, as part of a visa process for moving to Italy, are in an awkward position of having to rent a place sight unseen in Italy in order to satisfy the Italian Consulate’s requirement of year’s rental lease.
Key things you should ask landlords ahead of time:
- What kind of heat does the apartment/house have? (Central heating will likely be radiators. If the place is the countryside it might only have a pellet stove. In a city the rental will use metano which is the cheapest, although still pricey. If it’s in the country it will likely have gas delivered in canisters. This is more expensive.)
- How is the water heated? Gas or electricity? (An electrically heated boiler is the last thing you want. Gas is also pricey. Metano is the least pricey.)
- Is the electricity on bio orario? (ask this upon arrival so you know if it’s cheaper to run appliances at night and on weekends. I was not told about this and I was operating the washing machine when I felt like it, when I easily could have done it only at night and weekends had I known.)
- Ask if there is a condo fee and ask clearly for information on all fees not included in the rent.
- Is the apartment on piano terra? (ground floor) if so, it will likely be dark, with zero natural light coming in.
- Does it come furnished? If it doesn’t this may mean that it doesn’t have a kitchen, and not just that there’s no furniture. You may be expected to buy the kitchen appliances, counters, the whole shebang.
- Is there a washing machine? (Do not expect a dryer. But DO ask if there’s a washing machine. Some rental places do not have one but landlords will often put one in if you say it’s a deal breaker, which it should be!)
Options for long-term rentals in popular places in Italy have become severely limited due to the advent of Airbnb.
Landlords can earn more from short-term rentals and now they do Airbnb with the the extra apartments they own, which they used to rent out long-term.
Additionally many landlords who do accept long-term rentals prefer what is called 4 + 4 (a contract for 4 years with the option to renew for another 4.)
If you are renting sight unseen in order to get your visa, you likely want just a year’s rental. Since options are limited, you may have to take something that isn’t optimal. But to avoid total shock don’t make my mistakes.
A side note: the place I was renting that I refer to in this post was in the countryside of Lucca. My landlady was caring and generous and she invited me into her villa often for un caffe. But I goofed by not asking certain things ahead of time, and not understanding how cold a rustic countryside place could be in the winter. It’s too bad the place was so rustic and so cold because my landlady was really good to me.
My rental turned out to be a refrigerator
For my visa requirement, last year, and to have somewhere to live upon arrival in Italy, I rented a small converted cow shed (or maybe it was a pig sty) in the Tuscan countryside. I wanted my cat to have a garden, which is why I chose countryside over city-center. I failed to ask if the place had heat, and it did not occur to me to ask about the type of hot water heater. I kept trying to endure the cold months, and make it through the winter but after hanging on for three bitterly cold months, I left the rental by February.
This rental had an electrically heated “boiler” for hot water. If an apartment you are considering has this, turn and run.
Out of all the expensive ways to heat water in Italy, this is the most expensive. The original boiler was small and had a low capacity. I could not get through washing my hair before the water would turn cold. The landlord told me to turn the water off while soaping. I’m sorry but that’s too much to ask when the place is freezing cold. So a larger boiler was bought. And I was able to have a hot shower that lasted long enough. But the bills went through the roof.
Then there was the heating problem. The place had no central heat, only a pellet stove and a poorly designed fireplace that let smoke into the room. (I did build fires on and off in it, but they would go out easily unless I fussed with it every 10 minutes. It wastes a lot of time spending the day trying to keep the place warm.)
People will tell you that pellet stoves work well, but that wasn’t my experience. The ceilings were high and the one little pellet stove could not possibly heat all three rooms. I had the idea of installing a door between the rooms to block off the main room where the stove was, so that I could at least have one warm room. A funky folding door was put in that fell down a lot, but it did allow me to get that one room warm. Whenever I pulled aside that door to go into the bathroom or bedroom, it was like walking into a refrigerator.
I could not keep the stove running at night, or when I was away for a full day, because it runs out of pellets in about 3 hours and you’ve got to add more.
Each morning I woke to a freezing house and before I could get it warm again, I had to put on boots and gloves, take the filter out of the stove, dump it outside, put it back in, add pellets, turn it on, and after at least two hours, the one room with the pellet stove would finally get warm.
When I came back to the house at night after being out for the day, I dreaded entering “the refrigerator”, knowing it would take pellet stove quite a few hours to begin to eliminate the numbing cold. (My hands literally became numb if I took gloves off to use the keyboard).
Daily since early November my attire inside the house was: fur-lined boots with smart wool socks, two long-underwear shirts, a big sweater, a down jacket, and a wool hat. I ate chocolate every night to compensate.
When I went to Florence for 24 hours and left my cat (with someone coming in to feed him) I felt like I was leaving him in a refrigerator, which really disturbed me.
The pellet stove was a hassle, and while it doesn’t use much electricity, each bag of pellets was approximately 4 Euro. I needed one a day. That’s 120 Euro ($147) a month, to have only one room warm and the rest of the place freezing.
Also, the place was highly inefficient. Italians who work as rental agents have told me that with long-term rental units, landlords throw them together (like the conversion of the pig sty where I was) with no attention to energy efficiency, or kitchen and bathroom decency.
The countertops in my kitchen were made with bricks. No, that’s not a shabby chic thing.
Being cold consistently for three months created exhaustion in my body and also made the past problem in my back flare up, that I haven’t felt for years. Then an angel tapped on my door, in the form of a newly arrived Canadian couple who came to my “Newcomers’ Happy Hour” and who are renting a two-bedroom place in Lucca’s center which has heat included in their rent. They invited me to stay with them for the month of February and they saved my sanity.
It’s been a gift to be in a warm place and even though the kitchen is crammed into an attic-like galley with low beams which you have to keep ducking under as you move about in there, it has real counter tops which make me feel like I’m in a Gordon Ramsey kitchen.
Advise and stories from other expats in Italy:
Cynthia Morgan from Connecticut who lives in Umbria:
Italy has the highest gas prices in the EU and thus astronomically high utilities costs.
Being a New Englander I was used to cold, but also proper insulation. Nothing there was ever as cold as our house is in Italy.
Our first winter, I was compelled to put our mattresses by the stufa in order to throw wood into it all night. The kids thought this was great fun but waking regularly night after night resulted in sleep deprivation.
If you rent, make sure you ask a landlord for previous bills so you get an idea of costs. My first gas bill was 1,500 Euro(1,844 dollars) for two months. I rang to see if there was a mistake and there wasn’t. Previous usage had in fact been that high over the same time period. This is JUST for gas (which covers radiators, stove top, & hot water.) We keep the heat at 18 degrees, which isn’t nearly high enough to stay warm, but, like most Italians in the countryside, we supplement with fires. Poor insulation means stuffing blankets and towels under every window and door to keep the howling winds out. The joys of winter in Italy!
Georgiana from Romania who lives in Liguria:
Watch out for hidden fees. We received a bill for waste disposal that was a shock as we thought it was part of the monthly utilities fee and it was not mentioned in our contract.
The most disturbing thing for us here is the lack of proper indoor heating. I am afraid to turn up the heat as I know the bills for this “privilege” are sky high.
The houses are old and built from stone and the floors are tiles, or marble which is worse, and these are the perfect conditions for a freezing house.
I was less cold in houses in Denmark and Romania where the winter is -20 C degrees!
Our place in Genoa has high ceilings and small radiators which aren’t able to properly heat the rooms. I’ve been inside Italian friends’ houses and they keep the radiators closed or turned on very low due to high bills and their houses are even colder than ours.
Another unpleasant surprise was that we couldn’t find an apartment in Genoa with a kitchen. People sell their kitchens before leaving the apartment and the new tenants have to buy one and do the same thing when they move out.
John and Susan from California who live in Molise:
We had heard heating would be expensive so we planned to pay more than we were accustomed. But it turned out WAY more than we expected, making it impossible to use the heat.
Our apartment is huge, much bigger than anticipated or desired. It has high ceilings and marble floors. The central heating is tiny vents near the ceiling in each room.
There is absolutely no way to heat it. We tried closing off some of the vents, but they don’t shut. It takes hours to heat a room but the heat isn’t retained at all.
If you stand at the windows, you feel a breeze, even with the wooden shutters rolled down. We have draft blockers but nothing works. It’s 12 degrees inside the warmer rooms during the day, we aren’t sure what it drops to at night. We had a pro-rated bill the first month we were here, it scared us and we haven’t turned on the heat since.
We wear hats, gloves, multiple layers and blankets just to sit on the couch. Showering is a nightmare.
We also wish we’d been warned about surprise charges. We secured this rental sight unseen from the US in order to get our visa. The rental was found for us by the guy we hired to help us get citizenship through our ancestry. He did not tell us about the bimonthly 120 euro condo fee, nor did he tell us about the 500 euro payment to the agent, who was connected to the apartment.
We found out later that he was friends with the agent and the landlord, and we feel like we got shafted while his friends got their pockets nicely lined. We pay more than anyone else we’ve met since moving here. People are shocked we pay so much and that it doesn’t at least include the condo fee. We’re very concerned about water and trash, as we haven’t seen a bill for those yet. It gets even more concerning as the exchange rate gets worse.
We know these inconveniences are temporary, as tough as they are right now. We left everything to move to Italy for a new life of adventure. This is just the first of many roadblocks we’ll encounter on that adventure.
Lena from Portland Oregon who lives in Puglia:
People get stars in their eyes, viewing online photos of charming historic Italian houses. Consider practicalities carefully.
La dolce vita doesn’t include clothes dryers.
If you have a washing machine in the kitchen and the only place to hang laundry is on the roof, do you want to haul wet loads of laundry up stairs to the roof-top clothesline? Or have a clothesline in the kitchen, with clothes taking on a smell of last nights’ dinner?
Be practical, consider the functionality of a living space and what it means to live in a 700- year-old stone house.
In a stone house electrical outlets and their placement can be problematic. A neighbor had no electrical outlets in her rental’s new IKEA kitchen. The closest outlet for her electric kettle was in the living room.
My Conclusion
Many thanks to my guest contributors. Among us we represent five different regions of Italy and we all have struggled with cold houses and high bills.
Italy gets its electricity from France and its gas from Russia which shoots the prices up. If you suffer in cold houses, the only advice I have is to get yourself into as energy efficient a place as possible. There is more chance of this in city centers. Houses in the countryside tend to be colder than those in the cities, and they use gas instead of metano, which makes bills higher. These are drawbacks to countryside places which I had no idea about until I rented one for the past ten months.
Renting before buying is important. Living in a stone farmhouse or city apartment year-round is a good idea before you decide what type of place you will buy.
Tip: wool socks, long underwear, a hot water bottle, and a hundred chocolate bars come in handy if you end up renting a refrigerator.
For my post on buying property in Italy go here
Reader Interactions
Comments
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Laura says
Great article. Thanks for sharing and the laugh. So refreshing and it pain me to write it as an Italian…but true. All the best Chandi.
Chandi Wyant says
Ciao Laura, Thanks for your comment. Fun to hear from an Italian. When you say it’s refreshing is it because I am not romanticizing Italy?
Lily says
To Cynthia Morgan who said that her 1500 euro heating bill for two months was correct: Did you read your actual meter? Many bills are estimated if you don’t phone in an actual meter reading by the date stated on your bill. This goes for both metano and GPL. They base the estimates on last year’s usage for the same time. Often, you could be getting either over-charged and not realize it, or under charged, and then you would have to pay a big “catch-up” bill at the end of the year.
Read you bills carefully, and always call in with your actual meter reading. With Metano, and perhaps other forms of heating, once your usage goes above a certain amount of cubic meters per year, the VAT on your bill goes from the normal 10% to 22%. This can happen without warning once you go over the limit. In January the limited amount starts over at 10%, but a lot of people don’t know this, so they get reamed in more ways than one from over-usage. Today’s hot water heaters (“caldaia”), for both hot water and heat are WAY more efficient than those of the past. Find out if the apartment you are interested in has a new efficient model like the ones made by Baxi, for example, before you agree to rent the place.
The good news is, water in Italy is among the cheapest in the EU, so if you have an efficient heating system, at least you can make up for it with lower water bills than you might have gotten elsewhere. Electricity is all on smart meters. Even thought these may present some health issues, especially if they are right in your house, they do provide accurate readings regarding usage, so you don’t have to call in and read your meter, like you do with gas, that is still on the older-styled meters in most places.
Paul Spadoni says
This is a great informative post which I’m sure will be helpful for many readers. Reading about the problems of others makes me realize how fortunate and blessed we were when we rented in Montecarlo, Tuscany, for 3 months a year from 2011-15. We were charged 40 euros a day, but that included a modern facility with cozy warmth in both air and water temperatures, all utilities, Internet and a large washing machine.
Paying 1200 euros a month sometimes seemed like a lot, but when I read about people who paid 750 euros a month just for gas, I feel lucky.
We were able to get a good price by staying in an agriturismo during their low season—February, March and April. We had a kitchen/living room, bedroom and bathroom. The shower was heavenly, with high volume and heat, perfect after riding home on our bikes on a cold February day.
I’m not sure an agriturismo could offer a contract that would satisfy visa requirements, but it may be an alternative to a traditional rental. We visited Italy the year before we rented and visited several agriturismi to check out their facilities and ask what special rates they could offer for long term stays.
Chandi Wyant says
Hi Paul,
Thanks for your comment. That’s a new way to go about it— staying three months at an agriturismo.
Annette says
Thank you so much for this post, Chandi. Makes for rather sober reading! If you find yourself in a situation as you described, can you break the contract and find something else when you’re actually present? I assume you’ll always have to notify the police if you move?
Chandi Wyant says
Hi Annette, It is the Ufficio Anagrafe (vital statistics office) that you notify if you move. I asked for a clause in my contract that said that the landlord or tenant can give 2 months’ warning about vacating. Just be sure to read your contract carefully and don’t be shy about asking for things in it to be added or changed.
Antoinette says
Great article and funny too. Like you, we moved to the Tuscan countryside and we are in a converted cow shed. We use a pellet heater because we have only liquid propane gas service here which is very very expensive compared to methane here.
The pellet stove heats our living room and kitchen very well, (we use 1 bag every 2 days and our pellet stove does not run out of pellets in 3 hours – it might depend on how high you set it to and how your settings are for the pellet feeding) and we run it 4 hours in the am and 4 hours in the evening in between the kitchen wood stove is on for cooking and stays on till the pellet stove kicks in. We wake up to a very warm l.r. and kitchen but not the bedroom due to the fact that the ceiling in the l.r. and kitchen is very high and all the heat goes up and the bedroom is lower (the kitchen is 4 steps higher than l.r. and bedroom and bath 3 steps lower) and we are on piano terra and btw they did not build it with floor insulation so in the winter the terracotta tile floors are ice cold (but in the summer they keep the place cooler). So, speaking of ” piano terra”- I would like to say that it does not always imply dark and no light. I’ve lived in several and they were very bright, it depends how they are positioned and how many windows there are. Higher floor apartments could be dark too.
Also, I wanted to add that here in Italy, renters are responsible for the yearly maintenance and small repair if any of the “caldaia” which is something that Italians know but Americans migh not be aware of. One more thing I want to add is the fact that I hate the way the “water heaters” work here. It takes forever to heat the water, and once hot its ok, but if you are trying to save water and turn off the water while soaping/shampooing, the water gets ice cold again and it takes time to reheat. Honestly taking showers is like going to the “Centro Benessere” with the “Emotional Showers” but you don’t have to pay for the entrance. LOL!
Chandi Wyant says
Ciao Antoinette, what a pretty name you have!
Yes, a bag of pellets in my stove would last longer if it was on the lowest setting, but that place would get so darn cold that my fingers would be too numb to type, so it needed to be on a higher setting. The ceilings were very high and front sides of the place (I supposed where cows used to enter) had big glass french doors, with a horizontal piece of glass above them. So it was hard to heat for those reasons and also because the windows on the back walls were old and drafty.
If I wanted to be warm I had to run the stove during the day and up to midnight when I went to bed. That amount of hours would easily use up one bag, unfortunately.
Ha ha, yeah I’d sure rather do the emotional showers at the terme. For three months I was tense while showering and then in early February I stayed with nuns in Florence and had a warm bathroom and one of those “sit down showers” and I ended up sitting in it for a very long time, letting my body finally relax. It was the first relaxing shower I’d had in 3 months. ????
Antoinette says
Thanks (for the name compliment). I totally relate. I have been here almost 8 years and I still curse and bitch when having to take a shower (sometimes I just skip it cause it’s way cold and it really takes forever to heat). Even taking a bath takes some know how….have to raise the “caldaia” temperature and turn on water to a medium slow flow cause if it is to the max flow it will not come out hot enough for a relaxing hot bath, which I actually take more often…having a small size tub helps with not using too much water and being short is a plus LOL!
Sylvia Skefich says
Wow. Makes me grateful for my American lifestyle (although guilty feeling at times, too). The part about the cat “got” me. Poor boy!
Chandi Wyant says
Thanks for checking out the post Sylvia. What I told myself about my cat is that at least he had a roof over his head and food. There are many stray cats in the countryside here and how they survive the cold and find things to eat is beyond me. And he would have preferred that I remained in there in the cow shed because he had a large and lovely garden. Now that I am in the center of town he has no garden.
Sylvia Skefich says
Oh I do not doubt your care for him, I can just relate to the worry for him while you left for a day. Cheers!
Kristina says
Thanks for the reality check and good advice. I dream of living in Italy someday but suspect living in a city will be easier, still never as easy as one hopes it will be.
wendy says
What an adventure coming to terms with the less glamorous side of Italy. My hope is that one day you will find a place with light and warmth! I enjoyed the humor brought into the situation and I see that many others can relate.????
Laurel L. Barton says
Living in Italy is not for the faint of heart! Our Roman apartment had sketchy electrical because it was registered as a second home for the owners (upstairs) so the kilowatts to the apartment were limited. I could not use the washing machine and iron at the same time. You could not make toast AND coffee in the Nespresso simultaneously. Sometimes the washer alone tripped the power. And to reset it we had to go to the basement.
We were almost always hot, though, as the radiators were stuck on full heat, so in winter we had to open windows periodically. Va bene. But in summer, Mamma Mia, without A/C I thought we’d die. The Romans will tell you they rarely use their A/C because “It’s not that bad.” We paid to have screens put on so we could have some air moving (senza zanzare) in the master bedroom at night and pointed a fan running on “high” directly at our sleeping selves (which the landlady thought would kiil us, Colpa d’aria, you know.) But then we suffered the motorini whizzing by until 1:00 am.
We miss many things about out Italian lifestyle, but I do wish we had boosted out rent budget a bit and had A/C and normal electrical!
Chandi Wyant says
Ciao Laurel, nice to “meet” you here. Thanks for sharing. I have had all those same experiences, some of them when I lived in Italy the time before this one, 14 years ago. Both times I’ve been on a budget, and as you say these experiences are common when on a budget.
Silvia says
Hoping.to move to Italy soon. Reading.all these problems has me worried! But at least we are aware of a few problems ..thanks for that! Didn’t realize the south would be so cold.Molise area ..We looking at Abruzzo, and hope to buy a small house. Will keep you posted . Thanks for all the advise!
Chandi Wyant says
You are welcome! Let me know how it goes!
Francine Casalino Laura says
Chandi –
This is a great article – thank you! I learned so much. Terrific and practical tips.
Cheers,
Francesca
Chandi Wyant says
I’m glad you found it helpful 🙂 I think you had told me you are planning to move to Italy in a few years?
Victoria says
Thank you for these informative tips! We just moved into an apartment in Lucca, and I remembered to ask what kind of heating is used: metano! But, they also suggested that we only turn on the hot water heater 5 minutes before we need it, and then turn it off. However, in the cooler months like now, we have to leave it on all day because it also heats the house. We were advised to turn it off at night in order to keep costs down. We are still chilly because of tile floors, but we only have it set to 18.5 degrees. I’m anticipating a high bill, but will ask what bills were at this time last year. Very helpful advice, Chandi!
Chandi Wyant says
I’m glad you found it helpful. I too am living in Lucca. I’ll message you!
Irene says
Hi there Chandi, love your website. I’m in Lucca at the moment looking to see if I can buy a small one or two bedroom apartment so I found this site very helpful. I’m looking for something furnished which one can lock up and leave for a few months before returning. Have another two weeks to go before I leave and I’m starting to think I haven’t gone about this the right way …… :-0
Chandi Wyant says
Hi Irene, for some reason I did not get notified about your comment and I just saw it and approved it. How did your apartment search go in Lucca?
Megan says
Great Post! These areas are really small more than I thought.
Kelly Borsheim says
When I moved into the hills in Tuscany, between Lucca and Firenze, two girlfriends told me to buy the … oh, I forget the Italian word, but it is logical, caldoletto or something.
It is an electric blanket that you put UNDER your sheet. This makes going to bed a dream, when paired with my down comforter.
I just turn it on for about 30 min to an hour before going to bed, then slip into deliciously warm sheets. Just remember to turn it off before you pass out. I find that it is not necessary since the heat stays inside, as at some point, my own body heat under the blanket stays warm.
This is a huge money saver as well, since I do not need heat on at night.
Then, of course, I also stop drinking fluids around 9 p.m. to keep from having to get up during the night. One works around the issues.
Chandi Wyant says
Hi! Thanks for sharing that advice! Since menopause I have to pee way more often than before, whether I drink fluids or not! Fun fun ????
Now, along with a “caldoletto” if they have “caldomani” that could have kept my hands from going numb and yet still allow me to type at the computer!