Luca: Hallo Anna
Anna: Hallo Luca. Wo bist du jetzt gerade?
Luca: I’m actually at Catania Flughafen.
Anna: Warum?
Luca: I’ve just come back from a little tour of Sicily. I spent a week going around. Visiting places. Meeting up with expats.
Das war es, es war sehr angenehm. Mein einziges Problem mit Sizilien ist, dass ich jedes Mal, wenn ich nach Sizilien fahre, drei oder vier Kilo zunehme.
Anna: Mm-hmm.
Luca: So it’s a bad place for me to be.
The, the food is amazing, but there’s a lot of it that’s fried. So it’s good, but it’s dangerous.
Anna: Oh, und wo warst du?
Luca: Es gab eine kleine Rundreise, die in Caltagirone. Licata Sciacca und ging dann nach Mussomeli. Nein. Davon wissen Sie, ja. Sie wissen eine Menge über Mussomeli, also,
Und dann landete ich wieder in Catania.
Anna: Aber sorry. Sind [00:01:00] die einen Euro Häuser wirklich da, oder ist nur.
Luca: Ja, ja. Oh, ich kann bestätigen, dass es sie gibt.
There’s not many of them. In fact, I don’t think there’s any of them left. That’s actually a funny, a funny thing that all the expats I met, none of them bought a one euro home. They heard about the place from, of course from George Laing, and we know him. From the one euro home system, but none of them bought a one euro home, but they’re still affordable homes, you know, so.
Anna: Ja, das stimmt. Konntest du dir eine dieser Immobilien ansehen? In welchem Zustand sind sie tatsächlich?
Luca: Ja, also das, das müssen Sie verstehen. Mussomeli wie viele sizilianische Städte h als eine alte historische Zentrum, das nicht für Autos gemacht wurde.
Winzige Häuser, oft in sehr schlechtem Zustand, umgeben von neueren Gebäuden, die meist in den sechziger und siebziger Jahren errichtet wurden. Ich hatte gestern ein Gespräch mit einem sizilianischen Architekten, der [00:02:00] nicht genannt werden möchte. Er sagte mir, dass dies in Sizilien fast unvermeidlich ist, dass ihm keine einzige Stadt in Sizilien einfällt, die nicht diese Schicht von offen gesagt etwas hässlichen Gebäuden aus den sechziger und siebziger Jahren um sich herum hat.
So what you can play with is the size of the historical center. Some have a very large historical center like Catania, Catania, five kilometers wide historical center. Some of them have a very small historical center and, in the case of Mussomeli, you have the outskirts, which are like I don’t wanna say modern, you know, semi modern sixties and seventies buildings. Not super pretty, although the nature around it is very pretty. Then you have the historical center, which has all these very cute, lanes, alleys, stairs, going up and down, winding, absolutely not made to be driven with a wide car. I am thankful that I had a, a Cinquecento, Fiat Cinquecento with me [00:03:00] so it will fit and the one euro homes are in this section.
They’re mostly very old buildings, they need a lot of love.
Anna: Fühlt es sich an wie ein Ort, an dem man das ganze Jahr über leben könnte, oder eher wie eine langsame Flucht aufs Land?
Luca: It is surprising when George says that there’s a lot of expats. He is not kidding. I personally met quite a few of them and I’m just gonna say hi to Charlotte and Tim, I know you’re listening, so I’m saying hi to you.
There’s maybe four restaurants. Mm-hmm. But they are quite busy with expats and you find people from everywhere. Family from Colorado, there was a German couple, there was a girl from Milan, so we may have internal expats. A person from Australia, a gentleman from the UK.
It’s a bit of a varied group. It’s an interesting kind of setup.
Anna: Ja. Wird Englisch weithin gesprochen, wie in Bars, wissen Sie? Oder muss man Italienisch sprechen, um im Alltag zurechtzukommen?
Luca: I wouldn’t say [00:04:00] that English is commonly spoken, younger people get by a little bit easier, but if you remember, George himself told us that he uses Google Translate to survive.
Anna: So what’s around Mussomeli?
Gibt es interessante Orte, Strände oder Städte in der Nähe? Ist es,
Luca: Now this is the tough point with the place because, to be completely honest with you, Mussomeli is not near anything. It is set atop a, well, it depends. If you’re British, you call it a mountain, and if you’re not, you call it a hill, but a high hill. And, it’s a couple of hours away by, from Catania and maybe 40 minutes from Caltanissetta. It feels remote, uh, to be sure there are shops and the supermarket, et cetera, and the nature around is very nice, but it is a little bit isolated, so one has to be ready for that. But then again, [00:05:00] most 7% towns are like this, trust me, I have seen places like, to mention one Palazzo Adriano, where they shot, Cinema Paradiso, you know, the Italian movie that won the Oscar for best foreign film in what is it, 89? Yeah. It was shot in that town and that, for instance, is even more remote. Beautiful, but extremely remote, maybe three hours from Catania. So, you have to keep in mind that, while there is a, an expat community, that you’re gonna have to be traveling from far afield to get there.
Anna: Wem würden Sie Mussomeli also empfehlen? Zum Beispiel Rentnern, Fernarbeitern, Familien?
Luca: I’ll tell you who I saw that is the happiest there. I met a mm-hmm English gentleman that found that the combination of property affordability and his desire to help people and to have a social business, so to say, allowed him to invest his capital. And like now he wants to set up a [00:06:00] coworking space. There is one expat that set up a sort of like community kitchen. The fact the property is cheap allows you to do things. Mm-hmm. And you know, you couldn’t just start a coworking space in the central of Milan for a hundred thousand euro.
You have to keep that in mind that if you wanna do a fair bit with, uh, a limited amount of money, I think it’s a good place if you, don’t need to be in a big town. It’s a good place. And I think some people are attracted to the fact that it has a growing expat community. I would not recommend this to someone that feels like they have to be in the center of the world or even remotely in the center of the world.
Stimmt das, was ich gerade gesagt habe, mit dem überein, was George gesagt hat, stimmt es mit dem überein, was Sie im Gespräch mit ihm verstanden haben?
Anna: Yeah. It’s definitely what George said that, I mean there’s a growing expat community that, you need a car outside of Mussomeli, [00:07:00] but like the city center is walkable and we are doing lots of projects and stuff, so that’s great.
Luca: Yeah. We’re gonna be keeping an eye on this one. I think I’ll be back in the next, month or maybe two. Mm-hmm. And then, uh, I should probably say the other, the place that really stole my heart and, you know, that I’m a picky person i I really liked it. It’s on the sea, not too far from Agrigento. Und, es ist unglaublich schön. Die ganze Stadt thront auf dem Meer Eigentum, erschwinglich.
I would be lying to you if I told you that I haven’t spent a bit of time thinking about and then looking at a few properties and, excellent food. You know, it, it has a port. So fish is the, fish for breakfast, lunch, and dinner almost. The only bad thing it has going for itself is transportation links to some degree [00:08:00] because you only have buses to other major cities. But it is also too big to be a 7% town, it has 40,000 inhabitants. And, unfortunately that will preclude it from becoming too much of a expat magnet in my view, but absolutely stunning, stunning.
Anna: Yeah, I would say the pictures actually, it really seems like the, you know, one of those post postcards that you see of the Amalfi Coast, like this town by the sea with the boats, it’s beautiful.
Luca: Ja, natürlich. So, das war's. Das sind, das sind meine sehr kurzen und live vom Flughafen aufgenommenen Eindrücke.
Anna: Okay, heute haben wir einen weiteren besonderen Gast, Eliseo, unseren Datenmann.
Luca: Unser Datenmann, okay. Mögen Sie es, Datenmann genannt zu werden? Möchten Sie lieber keinen Datenanalysten, Datenwissenschaftler,
Eliseo: Vielleicht etwas Professionelleres?
Luca: Right. I think so. Welcome Eliseo. It’s a [00:09:00] pleasure to have you. Eliseo has been our data analyst since the beginnings of of Magic Towns. Is it your first time on a podcast?
Eliseo: Yes. Thanks for having me. It’s my first time and it’s a pleasure
Luca: Wir haben Eliseo eingeladen, weil er an einer brandneuen Funktion für Magic Towns arbeitet: den Abonnenten. Möchten Sie kurz darüber sprechen?
Eliseo: Sure. So, uh, we’ve been working on a property evaluator application. So our main goal is to make the decision of buying property easy for our subscribers. Either if they want to make a, a simple investment or for people that want to relocate from different countries. So it’s a data driven insight that, we provide them before they commit to investments. It’s easy to use. So users simply, provide a property URL that they have [00:10:00] liked or they have found and they provide that to the application.
So the system, leverages enrich data for cities across all Italy, covering data points like demographic trends, economic performance, geographic characteristics, social dynamics, infrastructure quality. it gives comprehensive, insights and recommendations. And maybe, it’s more insight, and fact driven than emotional.
Luca: Aber woher weiß das System, ob die Immobilie für die Person, die die Frage stellt, geeignet ist?.
Eliseo: Bevor der Nutzer die Immobilienbewertung anfordert, fragen wir ihn, welche Art von Investition er tätigen möchte. Und dann merken wir uns das, und dann geben wir die Empfehlung zurück.
Luca: So if I had to summarize this in very non-technical terms, it’s a sort of chat bot that remembers what kind of property you like and you’re looking for, and it tells you whether the property you’re [00:11:00] considering is a good match for you. If it’s a good investment, what the town is like, et cetera, would that be right?
Eliseo: Ja, genau. Wir reichern die Bewertung mit unseren Daten an und geben die Empfehlung ab.
Luca: Lovely. I’m looking forward to using it. When do you think this might be ready?
Eliseo: We plan to release this, to the general public in April, and it’ll be live then and, every user can, evaluate their property there.
Luca: Lovely. Well, thank you Eliseo. This is only one of the many things that you help us with. It’s great to have you on the call.
Eliseo: Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.
Luca: Anna fell asleep during this, you know she’s allergic to data. The two of you are yin and yang. Data and emotion.
Anna: Ganz genau.
Eliseo: Unterschiedliche Pole des Magneten.
Luca: Gut gesagt. Ich denke, wir können das Thema für heute abschließen.
Anna: Ja, das war wirklich interessant, Leute.
Ich danke Ihnen vielmals.
Luca: We’ll be back next week with a more normal podcast, not recorded at Catania Airport. And so all our listeners for the background noise [00:12:00] if you heard any.
Anna: Auf Wiedersehen. Ich danke Ihnen.
Luca: Tschüss. Ich wünsche Ihnen ein schönes Wochenende.
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