01 February 08

Features, Property

PROPERTY

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This year, 15 May is National Work From Home Day in the UK, a day when people are encouraged to think about the possible benefits of working from home as a career choice. For 47-year-old Italian Michel Sabatino, from Florence, working from home was never far from his mind – which is why the computer whizz decided to go freelance in the internet services industry. It meant he could not only work from home but from virtually any corner of the globe. All he needed was a good internet connection and a laptop!

His hometown Florence, while being perfectly warm in the summer, just didn’t provide the constantly good weather Michel craved, so he began to look to warmer shores and ultimately decided on Tenerife.

“The weather is fantastic all-year round, it is the only place near Europe you are guaranteed year-round to get sunny days and takes just four hours to fly there (from Italy),” he says.

Even when it came to choosing a location on the island it was again a choice about the weather. He chose Playa de Las Americas in southern Tenerife because it is one of the warmest places on the island.

“There is a difference between north and south, as there is a mountain in the middle which creates a curtain between the two areas and therefore the south is more likely to be warm,” he says.

He bought his villa 15 years ago for roughly €200,000, spent a bit of cash renovating it and recently put a swimming pool in. Michel brings his family and friends down to the villa for roughly two months a year and plans as he gets older to spend more time there and eventually possibly retire there. He also owns a small apartment in Tenerife and rents out both properties when he is not using them, finding that, with the increased availability of the internet to promote his properties, it has become much easier today to find people to rent them.

However, the only downside is accessibility, as he admits there are not many direct flights yet from Italy to Tenerife. He hopes that will change soon, but as long as the weather doesn’t change he’s happy enough!
www.holidaylettings.co.uk/25638,
www.villa-alegria-tenerife.com

Every year Richard Spence’s family would shun the traditional Irish Christmas and winter weather, and instead head to the Canary Islands for two weeks. Though mainland Spain was closer and it was easier to get to, they found sunshine on Christmas Day and a tan by New Year’s Eve was not always guaranteed.

In 2000, Richard’s father bought a duplex in a resort located in southern Tenerife, near Playa de las Americas and Los Cristianos, built in the late 1980s. It was where the Spence family spent many Christmas breaks, so they were very familiar with it having stayed there so often as paying guests.

Though originally built away from the more popular Playa de las Americas resort out in a relatively secluded location, today, as the island becomes more and more popular, the area is becoming increasingly built up – it is referred to as the “Golden Mile” because of its plethora of amazing restaurants and expensive boutique shops designed to attract the chic Marbella crowd.

“It is going for a different market to the traditional lager lout image that some of the Canary Islands have,” Richard says.

Originally bought as a lifestyle property for about €150,000, the family have since found that rental demand in the resort is very high and the property is regularly booked out year round when they are not using it.

Richard’s father works in the hardware business, but the regular travelling as a kid obviously influenced him as he decided to enter the overseas property business. After working for an agent he decided to set up his own overseas property website last year and regularly gives advice on the worldwide property market.

On his most recent trip to Tenerife, Richard observed that the healthcare system, which is often a concern for people buying abroad on small islands, is a lot better in the Canaries than people anticipate.

“We had a few accidents while there this Christmas, but the healthcare was second to none and the aftercare was great – better than you’d expect in Ireland or in the UK,” he says. www.myoverseasproperty.ie
Shane McGinley is Overseas Property Correspondent for the Sunday Tribune