If you have dreams of purchasing a property abroad, you’ve hopefully come to the right place. We are selling our fully renovated Istrian stone house, with a unique and contemporary interior and beautifully designed exterior. Close to the borders with Italy and Slovenia, and conveniently located for the international airport in Pula, we invite you to take a tour of our home and get in touch if you think Istria, in northern Croatia, is what you are looking for…
Escape to Istria…
Do you dream about moving abroad? To somewhere where you’re guaranteed sunshine, a slower pace of life, a different life? We did – always. Every time we went on holiday we imagined what it would be like to stay, and carve out a new life. But, of course, we never did because you just don’t do that. Or, do you?
In 2016, after a holiday in Croatia, we returned home to Manchester, and as we usually did, we went online and looked at all of the beautiful properties which were for sale and imagined buying one of them.
Which we did. Yes, that’s right – we actually did what we had been dreaming about!
To cut a long story short – the longer version will be in the book (yes, honestly) – we flew back out to Croatia, saw the house, fell in love with it, met the couple selling it (who have now become friends), put our West Didsbury house on the market, sold it and bought our Istrian stone house. Family and friends thought we were mad. And maybe, we were, a bit, but that little streak of madness propelled us into a life that we could only dream of. When family and friends visit now, we don’t think they think we are mad anymore, because they too have fallen in love with Istria. This is what they think now.
Two and a half years later, we’ve almost completed the renovation (on the left, the bedroom then, the right, now). It’s not been the easiest of journeys, but with determination, we think we’ve cracked how to forge a new life in a new country. Whilst no two countries are the same, we think that we have amassed some gems of knowledge that may help you, if you are considering doing something similar. Through this website, we will share what we have learned and hopefully inspire you to realise that yes, dreams can come true, however mad they seem.
But, we’re not sitting back and resting on our laurels. Now that we feel more confident with the Istrian way of things, we’re almost ready to embark on our second project. We did not move here with the intention of buying a doer-upper and moving on as soon as it was completed. But, it’s strange how things work out and sometimes you just have to go with the flow.
For over two years we’ve driven past a neglected building, which has been up for sale as long as we’ve been here. A property which we suddenly realised had Grand Designs potential, which gave us the same feeling we had when we viewed our stone house.
So, here we are again, hoping to realise our next dream. Maybe you will realise yours, too…
Property For Sale in Istria on Facebook
Latest updates on the house are here.
It's quite a rare occurence to have snow here. In fact, all of our social media accounts have been full of people in Istria posting about the snow, but today has been pretty magical. We think we've had our one day of snow, as the April rains start over the next few days. but it has been lovely to watch the snow swirling around as we watch from inside. (And the April rains are GOOD - as soon as they end, it's almost as if a light has been switched on and the countryside is the most vibrant green).
But, we've enjoyed today. A rare snowy treat 🙂
www.propertyforsaleinistria.com
Spring evenings after a day in the garden. The covers will soon be permanently off the umbrellas & we'll be back to eating meals outside. In the meantime, we're continue to get the outside area looking as a pretty as a picture for spring/summer.
Crocuses have been planted up in between the lavenders and the solar lights now make this new planted area look lovely in the evening.
The two wisteria plants are coming into bud and we check every morning to see how much they have grown and wonder how long we'll be waiting until the first growth is big enough to start around the the frame we've built.
Under the house for sale sign, we've created another bed - this one has been filled with wild flower seeds.
The raised bed under the well room windows is now full of blooming hyacinths.
The piece of land to the side of our little abandoned house is coming to life too - the cherry tree and the apple trees are starting to bud and more wild flower seedlings are beginning to shoot.
We'll be adding some new images to the website - www.propertyforsaleinistria.com - over the next few weeks, to show the potential of the house. And, even though we say it ourselves, to show how beautiful she is, now she's been fully renovated and looked after for the last four years...
From our house for sale in Istria, you can be at Miramare Castle, just outside of Trieste, in just under an hour...
If you have looked at our house for sale website, and it’s piqued your interest about Istria, here’s a little bit more information for you. We knew very little about Istria before we took the plunge, but this will give you lots of additional information about the peninsula known as “Terra Magica”...
www.docdroid.net/FVHhYMp/time-out-istria.pdf
www.docdroid.net
ISSUE ONE, 2019. IS TRIA timeout.com/croatia. Taste the region. y a d i l o H. Istria. with a view. Istria: Life as it should be. Here in Istria, more so than almost any destination you could visit in...For all financial transactions in Croatia - opening a bank account, purchasing a car, setting up utilities accounts etc - you need what is called an OIB (Osobni Identifikacijski Broj), which is a personal ID number, similar to your UK NI number.
We can assist with this - it's a very easy process but you can't buy a house without one. All it requires is a visit to the local office which issues these - and you will most likely be given your number there and then, once your official documents from the UK have been checked. But, if it's your first foray into Croatian bureaucracy it can be daunting, so if you were purchasing our home, we would accompany you, if you wished us to. We would also be on hand to advise re the setting up of bank accounts, utilities switch-overs etc. There's a lot to consider if you are buying a property abroad, but having navigated and worked out most things, we'd be happy to help out.
www.escapetoistria.com
Clearance *still* ongoing around the house. It's become a real labour of love - as now that we've started, we want to carry on until we're completely happy with the land around the house. It's lovely now to look out of the windows and be able to see the campanile in Zrenj, rather than a mass of dead and tangled branches and fallen tree trunks. In the coming weeks, we hope the wild flowers and poppies will start to bloom so that there's colour too. This was taken a couple of weeks ago, and already it's looking more improved.
If you've not been able to work out the orientation of the house, but are interested in it, to the right of the kitchen extension is the front garden and the private parking area. To the left of the photo, the honey coloured building is the little abandoned house we bought from our neighbour and is now included in the overall sale.
www.propertyforsaleinistria.com