Italy- Parking spots

[Henry Clark]

Hard to drive along and not see CRE opportunity everywhere in the U.S. and also in Italy. Visiting my brother and son in Italy.

Just as a reference.  Italy has 16% of the U.S. population size.  Only 2% of the land mass.  And a large part of Italy is not habitable due to mountainous regions.  So the population is very compact and since it is so old, very hard to find open land near population areas.     

We have never been in Italy or Sicily during the High season of tourism.  Parking is hard to find during the off season.

Parking is an option. 

Two types of parking we ran across other than surface parking.

Two story Lego leg construction.

Formed Concrete

What both of these are in common are they are both in high density areas where tourists overwhelm the surroundings.  

The Lego leg structure had 120 parking spots.  There is very little parking near this area for a mile each way.  Beach both ways.  Restaurants and rental cabanas both ways.  Would rent 1/2 day for $20 euro till 1:00 or $40 euro for the day.  $4,800 euro per day.  Say $5,000 for easy math.  120 days during the “High” season.  $600,000 for 4 months.  Another $200,000 for the side seasons.  

So you pay $500,000 for 1 acre.

Pay another $3mm for the erected structure.  

About 5 years for payoff. With taxes.  

Great thing about this is it is a cookie cutter program.  Scalable.  

[Henry Clark]

In Lucca where we stayed in door parking is $30 euro per day.  All year round.  They don’t hike during the busy season.  This is inside the walls of the town.

Would have to check the parking I pictured above.  To see if $40 euro per day is marketable near the beach. 

Last day in Italy.  Staying in Florence or Firenza tonight.  Watch new years fireworks. 

Had a great dinner last night with my brother and his friends.  We ate in the wine cellar in Florence.  Part of the gladiator quarters under the former Florence coliseum.  Little uncomfortable sitting next to some boxes of $1,800 bottles of wine.  

Lots of opportunities over here.  It was fun looking on a new market and culture with “new” eyes.  Will let my brother get settled here, then look at investments while he is here for 5 years.  Time for a late lunch  Ribillito  or peasant soup.  Carbonara later  

[Ronald Rohde]

Looks like fun, the only (and major) challenge is that often in foreign countries, each step is a grind. Every counter party tries to extract maximum value from their transaction, seller may go under contract at $500k, but if he thinks value has gone up prior to closing, he wants more money, you can sue for $100k and 3 years to win, or pay him an extra $50k at closing. Which do you do?

[Henry Clark]

Not run into any issues on closing on contracted prices.  Belize where we have done 4 deals, is a buyers' market.  Last time we bought we had a prioritized list of 13 properties.  Started at the top making really low offers and purchased our third offer.  If we got tangled up on a deal, would just walk away and move on to the next property.  I never like being tied to one deal.

Italy is also a buyers' market generally speaking.  Although each market is different depending on if in vicinity of major tourist areas.  

The above probably wouldn't be true if in Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, etc.