The advantages of buying a home to renovate

Why is buying a home to renovate not such a bad idea? Here are the advantages of buying a property to refurbish.

When buying a home there are two schools of thought: buying new, or buying to renovate. Which is better? The answer is: it depends.

A new home is ready to live in, fresh, and the only effort required is choosing the furniture. Taking on a renovation, instead, demands an emotional, financial and time commitment — but it allows you to buy at an advantageous price, with some genuinely appreciable extras.

First of all, there is more space on average. Apartments built decades ago offer generous volumes, wide windows and additional rooms such as a storage room and an entrance hall.

Think of the formal entrance hall of the past, or the extra room where guests were entertained among porcelain, paintings and family photos.

Features that over time have given way to modern open spaces and kitchens opening onto the living room.

Then there are the high ceilings: recent buildings average 2.70 m, while older ones reach at least 3 m.

Some time ago we listed a 1930s home on via Alessandro M. Calefati with 4-metre-high ceilings. The owner had chosen to add a false ceiling in the bedroom for reasons of heat dispersion (warm air rises, so with the heating on it takes longer to warm the room).

All this abundance of space, typical of older homes, can be customised at renovation time.

In our work we have witnessed transformations that made homes truly special.

Among many, an apartment sold on via Dante — to which we dedicated one of the very first articles of this magazine. A four-room apartment in poor condition, transformed into a welcoming, ultra-modern home with the unique character of the houses of the past.

To support the financial effort of renovating, various bonuses were introduced at the end of 2020 and extended throughout 2022:

Renovation bonus, 110% "superbonus", furniture bonus, façade bonus, green bonus, seismic bonus, under-36 home bonus, bonus for removing architectural barriers.

Tastes and choices aside, we believe that renovating a property from top to bottom lets you live in a one-of-a-kind home, built around your own style.

And an old home, once modernised, undoubtedly acquires remarkable charm.