Ski property in Italy will benefit from an early Italian skiing season. The temperature has dropped and the first snow has fallen in the Italian Dolomites consequently Dolomiti Superski is proud to announce that the Italian ski slopes will be opening early as from weekend commencing 13^th November. 3 weeks earlier than normal the heavy snow in Italy has seen the snow ploughs already in action, the Italian ski slopes have been prepared, the hotels in this Italian ski region are ready to open for the Italian winter ski season.

I was recently in the Italian Dolomites studying the Italian ski property market and will be publishing a report shortly. If you are interested in a ski property investment in Italy then please subscribe to the MIPC newsletter, in the top right hand side, to ensure you receive the MIPC Italian ski property report.

Dolomiti Superski is the brand of 12 skiing networks in the Italian Dolomites. At the heart is the Sella Ronda circuit where you can ski from resort to resort round the Sella Ronda massif, 500km of slopes and a full days skiing. The mountain range is Unesco protected and the key resorts include Selva, Arabba, Canazei, to mention but a few of the Italian ski property resorts.

Italian mortgage for the purchase of a property in Italy is available to non resident citizens with Barclays Bank. A maximum of 70% LTV is available.

Italian property in need of restoration can also attract finance with an Italian Restoration mortgage for a maximum of the higher between 70% of the restored house’s value or 70% of the restoration costs.

If you plan to buy a house in Italy and you require further information on current fixed/variable mortgage rates email MIPC for our Italian mortgage datasheet.

Yesterday the British bank Barclays made an improved offer of 540 million euros (804.6 million dollars) for 135 branches of Italian Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS).

This expansion by Barclays despite the crisis saw Barclays offer about four million euros per branch office, an increase from 2.5 million euros proposed a year ago.

Barclays is unusual among European banks in that it is expanding. Last year it picked up cheaply the North American activities of failed US investment banking giant Lehman Brothers and now appears particularly interested in southern Europe.

Whilst travelling looking for land in Sicily to buy for clients to build a house in Sicily a little local knowledge of dialect and traditional measurements is required. It gets very complicated as different regions of Sicily use the same words for different sizes of land in Sicily.

When evaluating land in Sicily always get an Italian surveyor to document its size in hectares. Remember the crop and quality currently on the land is the principal product you are buying.

Most of the land is agricultural land with restrictive building permission. The restriction is that you can only rebuild a set volume of cubic metres based on the existing registered cubic metres of buildings on the land. Always check with the local Italian land registry, where it will be documented the official volume of buildings on the land. Remember some of the registered buildings may have been knocked down to cultivate the land, so you may have more volume than you can actually see on the land in Sicily. Once you know the existing volume in square metres divide it by 3 (the average height of a room is 3metres) and this will give you the square metres that you can rebuild.

Farmhouse in sicily with 4 hectares

MIPC has available a mix of farmhouses with different plots of land and crops. You too can become part of the Sicilian culture owning your own farmhouse in Sicily producing your own grapes and olives under your own label. Follow this link to download Farmhouse in Sicily.

Sqm = square metre : Sqf =square feet :  1sqm=10sqf

1 Hectare=10,000sqm

Now for the Sicilian land sizes:

Un (one) tumolo = 2,143sqm (in the province of Trapani…remember it varies in different areas.)

Un (1) salma = 16 tumoli = 34,288sqm

1 tomolo = 4 mondelli : 1 mondello = 4 carozzi : 1 carozzo = 4 quarti : 1 quarto = 4 quartigli

So 1 hectare is just under 5 tumuli.

These are important measurements as they originate from the time that the Sicilian barons and land lords handed out land to the peasants to farm. Most farmers in Sicily were given a “Salma”, with a small farmhouse (rudere).

Many farmers are now struggling to work the land as the price of crops has dropped with the opening of European markets. Grapes once were sold onto the vineyard consortiums to produce the wine at 120 euros /kilo now the market is only paying 30 euros/kilo. With manual labour during the vendemmia costing 50 euros per day, they have to collect a lot of grapes for it to pay.

There is an increased trend for the farmers to sell their land in sicily. MIPC is currently sourcing farmhouses in the Sicilian countryside. Prices vary primarily depending on the crops and quality of the land and density of the crops. Most of the farmhouses are very old and need complete restoration.

Uncultivated land costs from 2000 euros/ tumolo  which is 10,000/hectare. The more expensive land having quality grapes or olives can reach 5000 euros/tumolo or 25,000euros/hectare.

The actual farmhouses don’t have a market value as there is limited demand for them, but they still carry a symbolic price, depending on their size and structural state, from 10,000–50,000 euros.

Salemi was discussed on National German radio today. If you are one of our German clients and you missed the transmission then we will have the link to the radio transmission here hopefully by tomorrow. Follow this link to read more about Salemi tactic.

Venice is very popular with American & Russian buyers of property in Italy. There was a very good article in yesterdays New York Times discussing house hunting in Venice. If you too are interested in property in Venice then please contact MIPC as we too have some interesting investment opportunities in Venice.

Just make sure you don’t buy a ground floor house in Piazza San Marco, as recent floodings in the Venice city centre have reached as high as 1 metre.

Salemi is back in the news with an article in the Giornale di Sicilia today documenting David from MIPC and his work in Salemi.

Se volete sapere di piu cliccate qui Salemi dove potete leggere anche notizia del Salemi International Jazz Festival.

Per contatti aziendale cliccate qui MIPC

Se anche voi avete un sito/blog/portale che promuove la Sicila o vendete prodotti siciliane sia un albergo, b&b, ristorante, cantina, negozio, associazione o una societa che vuole raggiungere i mercati internazionale possiamo inserire la Vs sito/link qui. Offriamo anche un servizio di traduzione da italiano a inglese per i Vs documenti aziendale. Per informazione contattaci cliccando sopra EMAIL MIPC.

Salemi Sicilian Wine Festival : Benedivino

The seaside here in Sicily is fantastic, the water clear and warm but here in Salemi thev’ve gone one step further and created a swimming pool of 30,000 litres of wine. The latest idea from Mayor Sgarbi to promote sicilian wine and Salemi is taking place this weekend from Friday 4th Septemberr to Sunday 6th. If you are here in Sicily come along and take a dip in the pool of red sicilian wine. Read more… Sicilian Wine

Sicily

MIPC have successfully identified Sicily as a future investment hotspot and potential property boom. The UK Financial Times confirms MIPC’s vision in a recent article about Sicily

If you are interested in a property in Sicily, the sicilian property market, invest in sicily or a villa in sicily then EMAIL MIPC (link at top of page) for further details about Sicily property.

Segesta Sicily Theatre Festival

Amazing evening entertainment in the Theatre at the Segesta archaeological site in Sicily last night, just one event of the many in the Calatafimi Segesta Festival 2009.

The open air theatre overlooking the sicilian landscape all set in a warm sicilian evening with the shooting stars of San Lorenzo overhead and the spectacular show of  Lisistrata by Aristofane, staring Eleonora Brigliadori.

Download the Segesta Festival 2009 summer program or find out more about Segesta festival

I would highly recommend a vist to one of the evenings entertainment at Calatafimi Segesta Festival if you are in Sicliy on holiday in sicilian rental property or looking for italian property near Segesta.

Tre Fontane beach Sicily

Another great day at the beach. Tre Fontane on the south coast of western sicily, not far from Mazara del Vallo and even closer to Selinunte. To be honest i’ve been here in winter when its dead, but amazingly from the months of June to September the rolling sandy beaches and crystal clear water bring  the whole coast line to life.

We arrived late on a sunday morning Read the rest of this entry »