Featured Image Credit: CNBC Make It
Topics: World News, Money, Life
Emily Brown
An American mom-of-one who struggled to afford a house in Atlanta is now the proud owner of a home in Italy after she widened her search area.
Stephanie Synclair decided in 2020 that she wanted to get on the property ladder, and set herself a budget of $450,000 to do so.
Her search began when mortgage rates dropped throughout the pandemic in 2020, but before she had chance to buy, rates started shooting back up again.
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By 2021, the mom noticed that homes which had sold for $300,000 in 2019 were going for upwards of $800,000, meaning she had no hope of affording a home in one of the neighborhoods she'd had her eye on.
As her search continued, Synclair decided to widen the area in which she was looking.
She told CNBC Make It: "I started looking outside the country for just what was available.
"It really was more so just curiosity, just looking. I don't think in that moment that I knew it would actually lead to a purchase."
Around a decade before she started looking for a home, Synclair visited Sicily with her then-six-year-old son after she quit her corporate marketing job to start her own consulting business.
"I knew from the moment I landed that I loved it here, and it was almost like home for me," she recalled.
Synclair was made to feel like part of the community from day one of her trip, when she went out during the town's siesta in search of some food, only to find most restaurants closed.
She was spotted by a woman who didn't speak English, but who took her by the hand and walked her to a nearby store.
"I felt like that was one of the most hospitable things anyone could have done, instead of just leaving me to be lost in the streets of Sicily," Synclair said.
Having loved the time she'd spent on holiday in Sicily, Synclair took notice when she saw a post in a Facebook group for American expats in Europe which discussed cheap houses for sale in Sicily.
She came to learn about the town of Mussomeli, which has previously gone viral for selling crumbling homes for 1 euro, and set about seeing whether there were any more stable, but still affordable, homes on offer.
By November 2022, she'd found a three-bedroom, two-bathroom, 4,000-square-foot house for 59,000 euros - roughly $62,000. The mom has also budgeted around $21,000 for renovations.
She still rents a home in Atlanta, spending $2,275 per month on the home, but she hopes to retire in Italy in the future.