Will we ever retire??

Being an ex-pat mostly rocks, I must say. I have a great life in Trieste. But here is the thing. When you work in your own country, you have all the tools you need to plan for RETIREMENT. When you move abroad, not so much.

For one thing, retirement plans that you don't need to think about are for HIRED EMPLOYEES, not so much for people who have a Partita IVA or VAT number. Yes, we pay copious amounts of money into somebody's retirement fund, but it most likely will NOT be our own. To be able to actually retire, we have to pay in for a minimum of 40 years and, at this point, get out what we put in. For the moment that feels like a lot, but I am pretty sure that it really isn't so much in real life.

So, we must make a plan.

I started thinking about this when I got to Trieste and began asking around. I found out a couple of things about Triestini this way.

1. They don't like to talk about money.
2. They really don't like to talk about retirement.

And, when they did talk about it, what I learned was that they were very happy to let the STATE decide when and how they could retire and how much they would receive at that point. In fact, I can count on two fingers the number of people I know in Trieste who have Private Retirement funds. One of them is an American living here, and the other works for a company that opened it up automatically and has a matching program, which is unusual for Italy. She will have a nice retirement situation in the future. Lucky girl.

But, back to ME (me me!).

I was working with a physical therapist back in the day (as in, I was giving him English lessons) and I asked him what his plan was for retirement, since he was an independent person like me. His answer?

Him: "This place."

Me: WHAAAAA?

Yes, that's right. He had bought the apartment his office was in and planned to either sell it when he retired or rent it out and live off that.

That got me to thinking about who held the wealth in Trieste. I needed a benchmark.

I thought about who the wealthiest of the wealthy were in Trieste. That's easy. The Churches: Catholic, Serbian Orthodox, Jewish, Protestant. I realized they all had something in common: they are heavily invested in real estate. Unlike my church in the States, which lives off of contributions from the church community, the churches here collect rent.

So I started asking people about it, and found that people really LOVE talking about real estate and LOTS of people have apartments they rent out.

"Mattoni! They say. The only REAL investment."  Which is Triestino for: "You can't trust the banks."

Many of the apartments are inherited (I would love to be an heiress myself). Some are bought. I decided to buy once I had put away a nice chunk of change from living simply and spending MUCH LESS than what I earn. (For tips on this, you may want to sift through past posts on living the frugal life in Trieste).

Apartment number 2 (as in, not the one I live in) was a NUDA PROPRIETA. This means I bought the apartment at a much cheaper rate and paid lower taxes because a person was living in it and had the right to live in it until his death. Morbid, I know. The idea that your joyous day is the one where someone else departs this life can be a little disconcerting.

In our case we knew the person well, as he was a distant relative with no heirs. He had been looking to sell in this way anyway (even before we came along) and so it was a win-win. Our buying his house allowed him to stay at home (with home care until the very end. He was also happy he wouldn't have to clean out his house (yeah. We had to do it. Ugh). Great location, close to University. Score. We got the electrical system up to code, cleaned it out (except for one set of false teeth, which our first renters found by accident-- whoops!), painted it, put on the finishing touches and rented it out. Awesome.

Now we are ready for apartment number 3. This time we are going for something small within walking distance from the center. The historical center is priced high for what I am looking for. I want a nice return.

Here are my search criteria:
1. Close to center (within 10 minute walk).
2. A bathroom IN the apartment (some have one in the hallway. Nope.)
3. No real estate agency. I want from Privati to Privati. I hate paying commissions.
4. 1,000 euros/square meter or less.
5. Have a renter already inside with a legal contract. There are several reasons for this. Cash flow, of course, but it has to be up-to-code to be rented out legally, so that is a 5,000 euro savings right there. It also buys a little time if there are renovations to make.

I found one and we are in negotiations now. Wish me luck.

In the end the strategy is to up the passive income so that I can decide when to retire.

Stay tuned.