Availability:

Restoring an old house is another way to acquire your ideal Paxiot property. Properties full of character and some fairly derelict ones are available in most parts of the island.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Restoring an Old House:

There are a few advantages in restoring an old house rather than buying land but there are also some disadvantages. With an old house you are tied to its current appearance and size. You don't have a free hand to build what you want - all you can do is restore what is currently there. You will also need to commission a structural survey before entering into any contract. However, it can be quicker and there are tax advantages, in that you will pay a lower rate of tax if you don't have essential services when you purchase.

Location and Size:

The first thing you will need to do is decide how important a sea view is. If you are looking for an investment property to rent out to a tour operator, a sea view will certainly help you to obtain a good price and a fair amount of interest. However, old houses don’t usually meet modern day requirements and very few have a sea view, so you may be better off looking at the options for purchasing land and building a new house.

Other important factors are how close you want to be to a beach or to the sea and whether you want to be in or near one of the main villages of Gaios, Lakka, Loggos, Magazia or Fontana.

You should also consider whether you want to be away from the road on a track, or you are happy to be near to a road. The roads on Paxos are never as busy as in the UK!!!

Finally you should consider how large a house you need. Again we work in square metres. 200 sq metres is a large house and 100 sq metres is a two or three bedroom house.

Help with Getting Started:

Once you have bought the house and are ready to start restoring it, we can introduce you to project managers to assist in the building process and put you in touch with builders and developers on Paxos and Corfu.

Additional Costs:

Just to give you a very rough idea on costs at this stage, you will need to allow between 15% and 18% of your purchase price for taxes, lawyers, agents fees etc. Unfortunately all old houses are different and we cannot provide a guide to restoration costs, although these will usually be lower than the cost of building from scratch.

Timescales:

You need to bear in mind that all processes here in Greece take much longer than you may imagine. It may well take three months to complete the purchase, the planning permission, if you are lucky, may be through in a further three months but can take much longer and the restoration work can also take many months! So it is best not to be in a hurry and you may then be pleasantly surprised with the rate of progress. It goes without saying that we will do our best for you at all stages, even after you have completed the purchase and while your house is being restored. You can easily contact us by email or phone and we speak English!

Guide Price: 

The price of land and property on Paxos is rising fairly quickly at the moment. We have therefore decided to provide a ‘Guide Price’ for the land and properties on this website rather than a fixed price. It is always possible that you may be able to persuade an owner to accept less than the ‘Guide Price’, but on the other hand you may have to pay more. We try to keep the ‘Guide Price’ for each property up to date and most of them are accurate.  However, please be aware that in the present climate, even when an owner has agreed a price for his property he may subsequently decide to increase it. You might therefore like to consider entering into a pre-contract with the owner but should discuss this with your lawyer.