With the promise of a well connected, urban environment that maintained all the charm of Italy the idea that we have found our home looked promising. The week prior to our visit in Milan we did hours of research, narrowing our real estate appointments down three neighborhoods: Arco della Pace, Chinatown, Brerea.
Chinatown made us feel like “home” in a way, reminding us of the months we spent in Hong Kong. The men wheeled around supplies on the streets, red lanterns hung for good fortune, women enticed passerby’s for massages. But it was still Italy. People drinking coffee smoking cigarettes on carless streets. It was hectic, busy, quiet, and charming all at once.
Things changed when we looked at places and actually imagined ourselves living there. Pointing to a still undeveloped building with a questionable bar across the street that My Italian Wife didn’t want to stop for a coffee I thought, “so this is where the kids are going to grow up?”
Life there became real, and we dismissed it really quick.
Arco della Pace was a bit too quiet, and homogenous albeit having an incredible private school which only cost €8,000 a year (it would be much more for the equivalent in say, New York City).
Aside from that we saw no enticing places and apparently there weren’t any available.
Brerea was truly charming, and if we chose to live in Milan it would be there. The problem is that you’re not buying anything nice for less than €10,000/sq meter (€1,000/sq. ft), and we weren’t willing to settle on less than 70 meters (700 sq feet). After all we live and work from home. Add in a potential kid and it’s really hard to do with much less.
Quickly weighing our options we realized that for $1,000,000 U.S. we could live literally anywhere… did we really want to spend it in Milan? Big questions put into such immediate perspective makes one rethink things. Yes Milan is wonderful, but is it our first choice? After all we had no economic there.
But what about being close to family? Nearly a two hour train ride away, how often would we actually see them? Hardly ever. Big questions and real answers.
We could of course rent and never buy for a usurious €3,500/month for something half way decent, but that wasn’t so appealing either. In asking ourselves why we realized we didn’t want to move, meaning we didn’t want to live somewhere short term. What’s the point of investing and settling down if you’re going to do it all over again in a couple of months?
If my experience in Milan taught me one thing it’s that we had some of our priorities wrong. Maybe long term was more important after all… And what about being close to family? To really make it count, you need to either be right there or you might as well be anywhere? And further still… would it be her family in Italy or mine in California?
Big questions… still no answers.
Me and My Italian Wife 