I work with a lot of American clients buying homes and relocating to Italy, and over the years I’ve noticed something.
There are certain things about living here that surprise them every single time. And they’re not always the things you’d expect.
We all know the stereotypes: tiny coffees, dinner at nine, everything closed at lunchtime, bureaucracy that tests even the most patient person on earth. But the surprises I see in my work are usually more practical than that. And some of them show up long before the keys are even in their hands.
€9.99 a month for a mobile phone plan. Yes — per month.
This one never gets old. When I tell a client they can get a perfectly normal Italian mobile plan for around €10 a month — data and calls included — there’s usually a pause.
“Per month?”
Yes. Per month.
To us, this is unremarkable. We complain about our providers just like everyone else does. It took working with enough international clients for me to realise that what feels completely ordinary here can sound almost implausible from the outside.
Home insurance is another one.
They look at the quote. They look at me.
“Is that… per month?”
No. That’s per year.
Premiums vary, of course — by property, by location, by coverage. But the reaction is nearly always the same. They’d braced for a number considerably higher.
The cost of an Italian home isn’t just its purchase price.
When people compare prices between Italy and the US, they focus on the number in the window. A €200,000 house costs €200,000. Except it doesn’t.
There are taxes, notary fees, agency fees, sometimes renovation. And then there’s the other side of it: what does it actually cost to live in that house once it’s yours? Insurance. Utilities. Local property taxes. Condominium fees, where they apply. Maintenance.
Some of this pleasantly surprises my clients. Some of it very much does not.
And then there’s the notary.
By the time we get here, most clients have already adjusted their expectations for Italy — lower monthly bills, higher closing costs, a country that seems to run on its own private logic. But almost nobody arrives prepared for the notaio.
In the American imagination, closing on a house involves two sides, each with their own lawyer, positioned somewhat against each other. In Italy, the notary is a public official who represents the transaction itself — not the buyer, not the seller. Neutral. Almost ceremonial. Clients walk in braced for a negotiation and instead find a formal reading of a document, sometimes followed by a coffee. It takes people a moment to stop waiting for the catch.
Nothing moves in August — and everyone already knew that except you.
I can give a closing timeline in June with total confidence, and by July someone will gently ask whether I’ve accounted for the fact that half the country simply closes. Notaries take holidays. Technicians take holidays. The one person who has to stamp the one document you need takes holidays.
It isn’t inefficiency. It’s a country that has decided, without apology, that rest isn’t negotiable. Most clients find this bewildering at first. By the end, most of them are a little jealous.
Relationships move the process. Contracts don’t move relationships.
This is the one that seems to catch people most off guard. Americans often arrive expecting the contract to be the thing protecting them — and it is — but it isn’t the thing that moves the deal forward. The technician who prioritises your file because he trusts the agent who called him. The seller who agrees to a small concession because the room felt honest. None of it is written down anywhere. All of it decides whether your purchase takes four months or eight.
My American clients have made me look at Italy differently.
This is maybe the part I enjoy most.
When you live somewhere, you stop noticing the small things. A €10 phone plan is just your phone plan. An annual insurance bill is just another bill. A notary appointment is just a notary appointment.
Then someone arrives from somewhere else and says, “Wait — how much? Wait — that’s it?” And suddenly you’re seeing your own country through someone else’s eyes again.
Working with international buyers has taught me a great deal about how foreigners experience Italy. But it’s also made me notice things about my own country I’d stopped questioning a long time ago.
Some of it wonderful. Some of it frustrating. Some of it completely inexplicable.
Buying a home in Italy is only the beginning of discovering how different life here can be. 🇮🇹