Where in Europe best to Buy:artist looking to live abroad

Probably unique circumstances, a friend who is a full time artist, wants to buy an investment property overseas to base herself from for maybe 6 months of the year. Currently based in Dublin she rents an apartment and also rents a studio to work from. Her logic is to buy a property overseas to base herself from and to be able to live and work in the property thereby saving on traveling time to studio and exorbitant rent for artists studios in Dublin. She is starting to make decent money out of her work, her main sales are through exhibitions & art sales in Europe and the US. So being based in Dublin is not really important.

The main critera of purchase would be
1: Price: 100-150k max
2. Location: Ideally not an apartment as peace & quite are important for work, but close enough to a town or village & decent transport links. She’s interested in France, Spain, Italy or Portugal (none of the Eastern European Countries)
3. Broadband
4. Sun- Need I say more
5. DHL or some other courier in the area

I have suggested the Algarve, I know from travel around Portugal in recent years property prices (especially off the beaten track) are quite low, both Ryanair & Aer Lingus fly to Faro also. I would imagine property prices are lower here than Spain, France or Italy.

I’d appreciate if anyone had any advice regarding agents in the Algarve or any towns villages in particular, or suggestions of other countries.

Many thanks

Re: Where in Europe best to Buy:

bamboozle said:

none of the Eastern European Countries

Click to expand...

Why would she rule out CEE? Some of the most interesting art and design work is happening in this area at the minute.

By the way, I would have recommended Szentendre, an artists colony/tourist village with a great atmosphere, on the suburban train line to Budapest, where her budget would stretch very far to buy her a great house, close to cheap airport links, with a low cost of living, beautiful surroundings, like-minded neighbours, etc.

Re: Where in Europe best to Buy:

How about North of Nice into Provence. you'd find cheap enough houses if you are willing to drive between 60mins and an hour, and you can be assured it would be quiet, but still relatively close to a major international airport (Nice). Broadband infrastructure is good and inexpensive, even in the countryside.

Re: Where in Europe best to Buy:

budapest said:

Why would she rule out CEE? Some of the most interesting art and design work is happening in this area at the minute.

By the way, I would have recommended Szentendre, an artists colony/tourist village with a great atmosphere, on the suburban train line to Budapest, where her budget would stretch very far to buy her a great house, close to cheap airport links, with a low cost of living, beautiful surroundings, like-minded neighbours, etc.

Click to expand...

I visited Szentendre a few years ago and found it pretty much suffocated by the usual tat that you see in over-touristed destinations.

In concurrence with Budapest I would query why the exculsion of CEE countries? You get a lot more for your money and budget airlines have put many of them on the map. In terms of infrastructure most of them put Ireland to shame.

There is an absolutely gorgeous hilltop artist's village in Grožnjan, Istria, very close to Slovenia and Italy. The Italian influence is particularly strong across Istria. Ryanair flies to Pula so access is not a problem. Not sure on the broadband front to be honest but it might be worth a look.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grožnjan

I don't know for the rest of CEE, but in Budapest the internet upload speed must be 5x faster than in Belgium. As I upoload a few GB everyday, I see the difference ;-)
And FedEx / DHL are also significant better in price (I have a volume agreement and I pay less than 50% of the price I paid in Brussels).

"· house for sale 80,000 euros! ·"

[broken link removed]

I have no connection with this person or sale.

You could buy the house and the hotel next door and start an artists' colony.

Brendan

Berlin? It's got a solid summer although winters are solidly cold.

It's an 'in place' for artists at the moment.

It's in germany-excellent road and rail links to the rest of Germany and thence continental Europe. The Autobahns are toll free-the Autoroutes/Autopistas are certainly not. Of course public transport within Berlin is amongst the best in the world.

Germany has strong laws governing anti-social behaviour and noise pollution. It is severely frowned upon to cause undue noise disturbance to your apartment block dwelling neighbours.

It's got budget airport (Ryanair/AerLingus/Easyjet/Germanwings) links to lots of places.

It's got nice lakes!

You'll get more in Berlin for your money than many CEE states anyway.

Calacria in Italy is a good option based on the criteria outlined, in particular Scilla in the South west of the region. Ticks all the boxes.
Because it is an historically important town, development is limited with even apartement complexes being restricted to 24 units units max. An apartment in a small complex, frontline to the beach should cost between 80,000 to 120,000

I thought this was amazing for an artist to live and work in.

[broken link removed]

I have no connection to the owner!

Burn

Sorry I can't get a link to DAFT working, maybe its too long, this is the homepage.

Link does not work - even when the whole thing is copied and pasted into the browser address bar.