How to find international buyers for an Italian property

The answer, straight away

Foreign buyers do not arrive from a translated listing. They arrive through three channels: agents and professionals in their own countries, the people who assist them here, and those who have already bought in your area and talk to people like themselves.

And they arrive with different objections, which have to be known in advance or you discover them when the deal stalls.

First channel: colleagues abroad

An agent in London, Zurich, Munich or New York has clients looking in Italy and nothing to show them.

It is the easiest collaboration there is, and almost nobody does it, because it requires sharing and writing the terms down first.

Second channel: the people who assist them here

Relocation advisers, the tax advisers who handle people moving residence, lawyers, private banks.

They know months in advance that somebody will buy, and they hold a relationship you do not.

Third channel: those who have already bought

People who bought in your area know others like themselves. It is the most underused channel and the cheapest.

One call to a client from three years ago is worth more than a month of international advertising.

The objections change by origin

People from systems where each side has its own lawyer do not understand the notary's role and feel unprotected. Explain it first.

Northern Europeans look at annual running costs before the price.

People from further away worry about who will find out.

And almost everybody underestimates Italian timings between offer and completion.

What to have ready

The documentation in order, because a foreign buyer who discovers an irregularity halfway through walks away and does not come back.

A written explanation of the procedure, from offer to completion, in their language.

A clear idea of their tax position, or at least the name of somebody who will explain it before rather than after.

What is not enough

Translating the listing and waiting. A translation is the minimum, not the channel.

The mistake that costs most

Treating all foreigners as one group.

A Swiss buyer and an American have only one thing in common. Learning which objection belongs to which market is the difference between being caught out and closing.