Buying property in Marche

With notable towns including Urbino, Ascoli Piceno and Macerata, Marche (or the Italian Marches to give it its Anglicised name) will be a mystery for many looking to buy real estate in Italy. Yet sandwiched as it is between mountains and sea, this predominantly rural region has a wealth of development property available at rather lower prices than in neighbouring Umbria. Want to buy an Italian castle? Perhaps you’re looking for an Italian country house to renovate? This is the place to look — not for nothing is it labouring under the title of ‘the new Umbria’ as Umbria was ‘the new Tuscany’ before it.

The people of Marche have an unfortunate reputation in the rest of Italy, dating back to the Middle Ages when Marchese were employed by neighbouring Rome as Papal tax collectors. ‘Rather a death in the family than a Marchese at the door,’ went the saying, though they are more likely to be farmers today (a sixth of the population works in agriculture). And this being Italy, farming means smallholdings rather than enormous factory farms.

People are wedded to the land here and you’ll find small craft businesses attached to farms, specialising in carpentry, pottery and the like, as well as producing crops such as olives, wheat, sugar beet and cattle of course. Veal is a speciality here, and the agriturismo programme has taken off particularly strongly in the Marches. You won’t be short of idyllic country locations to stay in while you’re looking to buy your property in Marche.

Bargain prices on Marche farms

Italians can also be very sniffy about Marche people (to be fair, regional differences are both pronounced and important to Italians). They would have it that the Marchese are a little unsophisticated, a little provincial — a little more Essex than Surrey in fact. But if Essex had sunshine, cuisine, scenery, beautiful beaches and property prices to match Marche, then you’d be buying a home there.

Of course depopulation has been a problem here as for every rural Italian region since World War II. Opportunities abound for buyers to purchase Marche real estate at a discount, with abandoned farmhouses and farm buildings ripe for development. Eight hours’ drive gets you to Munich, accounting for the numbers of Germans who have settled in the countryside of Marche, and there is also a significant number of Britons who have bought property in Marche, refugees from the increasingly high price of real estate in Umbria and Tuscany.

Why buy real estate in the Italian Marches?

Marche borders Emilia-Romagna to the north (alongside the fascinating little Republic of San Marino). It joins Umbria, Tuscany and Lazio to the west and Abruzzo on the south. To the east lies the Adriatic. Those looking for real estate in Marche will find good communications — the A14 coastal highway runs up through Rimini to Bologna and via direct connections to central Europe. And the airport at Ancona (right in Marche’s central coastal region) now benefits from very cheap flights courtesy of Ryanair. Should you be thinking off visiting the area on a reconnaissance mission, you'll doubtlessly be in need of a hotel or two - use ahotelinitaly.com for online reservation of hotels in Le Marche.

The reason the low-cost carrier flies to Ancona is plenty of reliable sunshine on a good, sandy coastline … just the sort of thing UK holidaymakers like, though it’s still relatively unexploited. Marche is not as densely populated as some of its neighbours and the seaside resorts of Pesaro and San Benedetto del Tronto though developed are nowhere near as busy as Rimini to the north. And yet you’ll find 6km of beach at San Benedetto; there is the Conero Riviera, which is a simply beautiful stretch of coastline; and there are little beaches concealed beneath the spectacular cliffs at Monte Conero.

Buy real estate in Marche — food and drink

The smallholding tradition impacts very nicely on the Marche way of eating. Buy a home in anywhere in Italy and you are in for a culinary treat, but every region is distinct and Marche has some treats in store. Smallholders will keep their own pigs, slaughter them and produce their own salamis and cured hams. Truffles are on sale and on the menu here. Buy real estate in Marche and you’re likely to discover that your neighbours produce dishes that go back generations … and often from their own produce. Specialities include the large Ascolana olive, stuffed and fried in batter; stuffed, baked artichokes; pigeon and rabbit similarly stuffed with mixtures of Marsala wine, garlic, parsley, truffles and raw ham. Stuffing, as you will discover, is one of the keynotes of Marche cuisine.

Buy real estate in the Italian Marches and you’ll find yourself feasting on fish and seafood too, with fish soup (brodetto), fried fish (frittura di pesce), and mussels baked with breadcrumbs, parsley and olive oil. Unusually for Italy, meat is big too (consumption is the highest in Italy), and barbecued mixed grills are a big favourite. There are good wines too: with dry white Verdicchio and Sangiovese and Montepulcianoreds.

Where to buy property in Marche and how much

With property starting at around €1500 per square metre (and not rising to much more than €3000 per square metre) buying real estate in Marche is certainly affordable. You have a choice of superb seaside locations (and the budget flights into Ancona can only continue to stimulate the holiday market), of country houses and farms with superb development potential, of underexploited (and very nice) towns such as Urbino and Macerata.

Recent examples of affordable Marche real estate include a farmhouse outside Macerata and requiring work for €100,000. Though pleasantly isolated you are within half an hour’s drive of the coastal highway here. Or a liveable country house outside the developing coastal town of Ancona for a similar price.