Property on the Italian coast HOME » NEWS » Property on the Italian coast When the writer John Steinbeck first encountered the Amalfi Drive more than half a century ago, it scared him out of his wits: “Flaming like a meteor we hit the coast, a road, high, high above the blue sea, that hooked and corkscrewed on the edge of nothing, a road carefully designed to be a little narrower than two cars side by side,” he wrote. “In the back seat my wife and I lay clutched in each other’s arms, weeping hysterically.” His essay, Positano, which appeared in Harper’s Bazaar in 1953, played its part in transforming a hard-to-reach fishing village into the chic playground of the well-heeled it still remains. Today, along this iconic winding road, which runs from Amalfi westward to Sorrento, near the tip of the peninsula, there are magnificent villas for sale, if you have several million pounds to spend. The 19th-century Palazzo Santa Croce, for example, overlooking Positano, with four bedrooms and an indoor seawater pool, is on the market for £6m. Apparently undaunted by the credit crunch, British buyers are sniffing around. “We’re seeing interest from South Africans, Britons and some super-rich Americans,” says Elisabeth Catuogno, the Cluttons representative in Positano. “The Russians are looking, too, but they tend to want to go only where there are other Russians.” Cluttons is the only international estate agent with a declared presence in the area. (Savills, by contrast, works through a local agent.) This is a part of Italy where much property changes hands privately, without recourse to agents: often a waiter, for example, will play the role ofzanzara (mosquito), uniting buyer and seller. The “envelope” he receives will be ample reward, but only a tiny fraction of what a seller would pay in agent’s commission. “I compete with word of mouth – a variety of local unlicensed fixers, fromzanzareto lawyers,” Catuogno says. The spectacular beauty of the Amalfi peninsula, south of Naples, the glamor-ous names it evokes – from Jackie Onas-sis in the 1960s to Jude Law and Gwyn-eth Paltrow in The Talented Mr Ripley – and the vertiginous landscape (which prevents the villages expanding), make it fairly immune to the downward pressure on property prices in the rest of Italy and beyond. Way up above Positano, in the village of Montepertuso, I found a semi-restored shell for £550,000, but along the Amalfi Drive itself, even “fixer-uppers” will take you beyond the £1m mark. Seven miles further east, in Praiano, Catuogno showed me a solidly built sea-front villa crying out for a makeover. It is her bargain of the moment – at £2.4m. Drive south for an hour or so, however, and it is a different story. The Cilento, in southern Campania, mixes hilly countryside with dense woodland, and a sometimes rugged coastline with white sandy beaches and sparkling, clean water. Much of the area is a designated national park, with Unesco World Heritage status. From hill towns such as Cas-tellabate, you can trace the coastline to Salerno, 40 miles to the north, and back out along the Amalfi peninsula – and watch the sun set over Capri. Homes here cost a quarter of what you might pay near Positano or Sorrento, says Clare Shipston, whose website, Italian Properties (www.italian properties.org), lists homes both around the busy port of Agropoli and further south, near Pisciotta and Palinuro. Vanessa and Richard Hawes, who used to make a living renovating properties to let in Britain, left Suffolk for Italy five years ago. After two freezing winters in the Marche region, to the northeast, the Haweses packed the dog and drove south until the gorgeous coastline near San Marco and Santa Maria di Cas-tellabate stopped them in their tracks. These resorts, which buzz with Italians (and some Germans) at this time of year, are not on the radar of most British holi-daymakers – or househunters. It was what the Haweses had been looking for. In 2006, they paid just £55,000 for a classic stone farmhouse and are busy renovating it – this time for themselves. Perched on a hillside at Laureana Cilento, it has sweeping views of the coast from Agropoli to Capri. “The Amalfi coast never appealed to us – it’s so busy,” says Vanessa, 46, who will resume her career as an aromathera-pist when the farmhouse is finished. “We wanted somewhere very Italian, somewhere we could immerse ourselves in Italian life, and we found it in the Cilento. It’s unspoilt and has a real charm.” They were looking for a stone farmhouse they could restore themselves, using original materials wherever possible. The place they found – 400yd from the road and overgrown with nettles – did, however, fall some way short of a dream home. “Many of the places we looked at were completely crumbling: this had walls and part of a roof,” laughs Vanessa. “And it was a really good price for what it is: a 120-square-metre house in five acres of land, with a view of the sea.” Since then, prices have risen – but from a low base. An almost identical ruin nearby is on the market for just over £70,000. By the time the couple move into the house next spring, they will have spent another £120,000. As well as renovating the main house, they are building a guest cottage that will sleep up to four people. They will also install an eco-friendly swimming pond – “There are no chemicals, no chlorine: birds and insects can drink from it without being poisoned,” says Richard, 45 – and a water wheel and solar panels to produce electricity. The couple have learnt a lot from the experience. Having sacked one geometra (surveyor) and two architects, they now have the help of an engineer who also works for the local commune, so can advise on the red tape. Although southern Italians are becoming more conservation-conscious, the Haweses had a job convincing the locals that reusing tiles and other materials was a good idea. “The builder thought I was nuts,” says Richard. “But he has come round. It’s almost as if he is rediscovering stuff he might have done years ago.” Now the couple are recycling not only roof tiles but also their experience. They have set up a website, Cilento Properties (www.cilentoproperties.com), to help people to find a home and obtain planning permission. When buying property in Italy – particularly semi-abandoned rural properties in the south – it’s important to establish two things: first, that the person selling the house has the right to sell it (the nature of the inheritance laws often results in family quarrels about ownership); and, second, that if the owner of a house has committedabusi(building or altering the place illegally), they have taken advantage of one of the frequent amnesties to obtain a condono – and have the certificate to prove it. Because they saw so many restored farmhouses with aluminium windows and concreted interiors, the Haweses are convinced it is best to buy a ruin and renovate it yourself. At the upper end of the market, however, you can find rural properties that have been carefully rebuilt. On a terraced hillside near Ogliastro Cilento, I found Casale Torone, a four-bedroom country house, set amid vines and olive groves, with splendid views of the coast. The house has been beautifully restored, using local stone, chestnut wood and Vietri tiles, by a former Neapolitan banker, and is on the market with Cluttons for £1.26m. If you want to be closer to the beach, shops and restaurants, a flat in town could be the answer. Soluzione Casa, based in Santa Maria, has several airy, high-ceilinged examples priced from £160,000 to £450,000 near the lively pedestrianised centre. Tucked into nearby Agropoli’s centro storico, Tafuri Immobiliare has an 80-square-metre flat on two floors with rooftop views and a small garden for less than £200,000; below the town centre, it has a 190-square-metre, semi-renovated shell, looking out onto the bay, for £142,000. Just south of San Marco is Punta Licosa, a pine-studded headland with an island at its tip. Here, set along a private road, amid lush gardens filled with azaleas, oleanders, bougainvillea and honeysuckle, there is a string of detached villas. They don’t often come onto the market, but Cilento Properties has one on its books for just over £700,000. With 6,000 square metres of garden, it has panoramic views of the sea. Better still, the water is just a few paces away. Inside, the house needs a makeover, but the price includes planning permission to build a second balcony and strip back the render to expose the stone walls. The narrow dirt road from San Marco has no hairpin bends of the kind that terrified Steinbeck, but if you want to feel part of a secret elite – and be the envy of those stuck in a traffic jam near Amalfi – this could be the place to buy. Source: http://property.timesonline.co.uk/