Ten years ago, if you weren’t Italian, you’d never heard of Abruzzo.
But now you probably have.
Same story with Portugal fifteen years ago. I live in Lisbon, and a friend of mine with a rent budget above €5,000 a month left because he couldn’t find the quality he wanted at that price point…in Lisbon! Not Monaco.
Arriving early isn’t the only thing that matters. But arriving late, for sure, is.
This piece is nine European places that are still pre-hype today, grouped by country, with a “best for” line for each and the numbers behind the picks.
But before the list, let me break down Abruzzo as a case study for how these undiscovered places suddenly get caught up in hype.
In this piece:
What happened to Abruzzo (the case study)
How to spot pre-hype (the methodology)
The 9 regions: Marche, Molise, Ionian Calabria, Epirus, the Mani, Alentejo, Extremadura, Asturias, Transylvania
What I left out
The traps you should be aware of
My personal shortlist
What happened to Abruzzo
One of the oldest public notaries in Abruzzo is an old family friend. He’s the same age as my father and has been signing deeds since the eighties. For thirty years he saw nothing out of the ordinary, then around 2019 foreigners started showing up at his desk, Americans, Canadians, some Brits, and it hasn’t stopped since.
What happened? Well, a few factors came together…
Ryanair made Pescara a real airport. Italy opened the 7% flat tax for foreign pensioners. Suddenly, houses that had been cheap forever had a runway and a tax code attached. Foreigners started buying, then the press picked up on it, and within a few years the region had gone from “where?” to a name you heard a lot more when Italy came up in conversations.
In all frankness, Abruzzo was never a region that captured people’s imagination before all that happened. Tuscany always did, Umbria too. Abruzzo is historically considered more agreste, great but less “noble.”
The key question: how do you spot the next ones?
How to spot pre-hype
Over the years, I’ve developed a way to spot pre-hype. And no, it’s not just watching where the surfers are going.
First, locals like it but nobody else puts it at number one, so you see a different reading from locals and from everyone else.
Then, real estate is still fairly or even underpriced, around €1,000 a square meter, to the point that it seems almost too good to be true. If you think that, chances are many others will think the same.
Importantly, something structural changing, not just promised like a new airport, a new train line, that kind of thing. And some early spike in the data that sometimes confirms the thesis.
Plus one last thing worth mentioning, but this is for me personally: my network. I really value what my friends are chatting about, or not chatting about, because it’s usually a good pre-indicator for someone like me who talks about these topics all day.
One disclaimer, because I want to be very clear on this. Underrated does come at a cost – less international so you have to learn the language, fewer services, and a lot less glamour. What costs less isn’t worth less, but sometimes what costs more is also worth more. After all, Tuscany remains Tuscany.
So here you have 9 spots below: three in Italy, two in Greece, one in Portugal, two in Spain, and Romania to round the list off, and the one I’d actually bet on first.
1. Inland Marche, Italy: Abruzzo’s Twin
Best for: anyone who wanted Abruzzo and found it already discovered.
I’m pretty sure nobody outside Italy has heard of the region Marche, right? (let me know in the comments if you know it)
It’s the Adriatic, so hills and beach are the same distance away, exactly like Abruzzo, just one region up. A few places worth mentioning. Ascoli Piceno, for example, with a travertine piazza that Italians put among the most beautiful in the country. Offida, in the hills where they make Pecorino and Passerina wine. Sarnano and Amandola at the foot of the park. Cingoli, up north, which they call the balcony of the Marche.
People have been calling this “the new Tuscany” for fifteen years, and it never happened. It’s hard to say exactly why, but probably because of the 2016 earthquake. Now the reality is that the reconstruction money is on the ground and prices haven’t caught up yet.
Ascoli is a real city with a real hospital, the beaches are 30 to 45 minutes away, Ancona airport about an hour and a half.
Hill towns at €700 to 1,000 a square meter, Ascoli around €1,300. I double checked, and with €500K you get a restored stone farmhouse with a pool and two hectares on the edge of the Sibillini park. If we’re being purely practical, this is what probably 80% of readers here would be comfortable with.
Of course, it’s not a luxury penthouse with eight bedrooms, tennis court and a Ferrari in the garage, but I think it’s a pretty good entry point. The same house in Tuscany is seven figures, absolutely no discussion.
And since April the 7% pensioner flat tax covers the whole 2016 earthquake area: Camerino, Sarnano, Amandola, Tolentino all qualify. Ascoli city and Offida do not, check before you fall in love.
Why it hasn’t spiked: the earthquake. Two out of three public reconstruction works haven’t even started, ten years later. You buy a seismic survey together with the house.
Places to consider: Ascoli Piceno, Offida, Ripatransone, Sarnano, Amandola, Cingoli.
2. Molise, Italy: The Literal Next Door
Best for: anyone who wanted Abruzzo prices from 2016 and doesn’t need a runway next door.
Italians have a running joke: Molise doesn’t exist. It’s tiny, quiet, and literally the next region south of Abruzzo, same Adriatic, same Apennines, and same old sheep roads. If Abruzzo was underrated, Molise is the underrated of the underrated. But at some point the joke became a brand.
A few places I want to mention.
Termoli, for example, a walled old town on the sea with the ferries to the Tremiti islands. Agnone, at 800 meters, where they’ve been casting church bells for the Vatican for a thousand years. Larino, a Roman town that still feels like one. Capracotta, with real snow. And a Samnite theatre at Pietrabbondante that nobody visits. Campobasso is the capital with the regional hospital, Termoli has one too.
This is the cheapest coast-to-mountain real estate in Italy, just above €1,000 a square meter on average, Termoli under €2,000, Agnone and the inland villages around €500 or less, old-centre houses at €20,000 to 35,000. With €550K here you buy a 700m² villa with terraces and half a hectare above one of the “most beautiful villages.” Enormous for the money, and that’s the Molise story.
The signal: foreign enquiries are led by Americans, roughly a third, and they have been rising for three years. Tourism is growing faster than almost anywhere in Italy, from a tiny base. And since April the 7% pensioner tax covers Agnone, Larino and all the villages, not Termoli and Campobasso.
I almost cut it from the list for being too similar to Abruzzo, and I kept it because it’s the purest version of an early spot. If you forced me to pick one place to buy, this is it.
Why it hasn’t spiked: no airport, and it’s seismic country. Hospitals are being reorganised, the villages keep emptying. Abruzzo’s authenticity with a bit less density.
Places to consider: Termoli, Petacciato, Larino, Agnone, Capracotta, Frosolone, Fornelli.
3. Ionian Calabria and the Sila, Italy: The Wave After Tropea
Best for: anyone who can live with rough edges and wants the lowest prices in this piece.
Calabria is probably the most underrated region in Italy, along with Basilicata. Yes, historically it’s where complex societal problems have occurred, I won’t pretend otherwise. But geographically it’s fantastic, and as long as you mind your own business you’re not going to have any problem.
Everybody knows the Tropea side. This is the other coast, the Ionian one, with the Sila mountains behind it, so you have sea and a real plateau with lakes and snow one hour apart. A few places worth mentioning. Gerace and Stilo, for example. Badolato, which was literally put up for sale in 1986 and today is full of foreign families. And Camigliatello up in the Sila, which answers the question everybody asks: okay, but where do I go in July?
One thing I want to be very clear about for this one. From an Italian perspective, unless you’re from here, you wouldn’t move here, for cultural reasons, for the accent, for the baggage. BUt that’s exactly the edge for foreigners..
The objective edge here is the price, along with great nature. Gerace, Stilo, Badolato, Cirò are at €400 to 750 a square meter. Tropea, same region, largely the same sea, is above €3,000.
And yet it’s moving – I checked, and Gerace and Stilo went up roughly 20% in one year, and Calabria today takes close to a third of all foreign seaside enquiries in Italy. Also, in the last year, for the first time, I heard an American talking to me about Calabria.
With €750K you buy a three-storey villa on the panoramic road above Soverato bay, garden, terrace over the sea. In Tropea, same money, a two-bedroom, to give you a reference.
So overall, it’s not for everyone. I’ve kept it in, but flagging that it’s a unique choice.
Why it hasn’t spiked, and I know it well: 44 degrees this July. Stretches of coast with half-built concrete. The ‘ndrangheta headlines are overall real. And the road that connects all this, the SS106, Italians call it the road of death. It’s finally being rebuilt, and that’s exactly the kind of door Abruzzo got with Pescara. But it’s a long stretch, I can’t guarantee on that.
Places to consider: Gerace, Stilo, Badolato, Santa Severina, Cirò, Le Castella; Camigliatello in the Sila.