ITALIAN ISLANDS
Janet Rankin pictured with the water mill ripe for conversion that she is selling in Ville di Paraso. The historic shell is for sale for €645,000 and could provide a six-bedroom home if you’ve got £50k to spend on renovation.
now 72 from Crowhurst, East Sussex. “It’s more rugged and sparsely
populated than neighbouring Sardinia, although it’s similar in that there are some quite sophisticated resorts now on the coast, whilst inland it remains quite old and traditional. “The Corsican language is also similar to Italian.” It has been the French who have
historically holidayed in, and bought homes, in Corsica and they make up the bulk of visitors there. Tourism fi gures for 2011 show that 71 per cent of the 2.9 million tourists visiting Corsica are from France, and of the rest only 5 per cent are from the UK, with the bulk from Italy, Germany and Switzerland. So the UK market is “small but
slowly growing” according to Rankin, who says there have been few new apartments going up anywhere – planning is very strict. Some terrorist activity over the
years – stemming from the Corsicans’ fi erce desire for independence – may also have also deterred people, although the private homes of foreigners have not been targeted. Rankin and her husband Iain fi rst
72
aplaceinthesun.com
bought a two-bedroom village house in Speloncato in the north on the early eighties, which they renovated and holidayed in every summer. In 1986 they bought another one as
an investment: a half-renovated house in a little hamlet nearby, which they turned into two rental apartments. It was holidaymakers asking her
for other properties to rent that steered her into the business of rentals – which culminated in her developing, in 2004, a new online business, specializing in travel and tourist information about the island, including rental properties and a few homes for
sale too (
www.directcorsica.com). She says that the supply of old
character homes is still greater than the supply, although prices are currently static – they haven’t boomed like parts of the French Riviera, yet scarcity of stock means it isn’t as affordable as you might expect. She has a lovely water mill ripe
for some tlc in Ville di Paraso on the north-west coast, for sale for €645,000 (£511k).
“It is a beautiful building which has been structurally renovated but is essentially a shell. There are cavernous rooms with vaulted and
two-bed apartment with views over the Valinco Gulf near Propriano is being sold for €250,000 through
www.directcorsica.com. Les Terrasses des Oliviers consists of nine aparnents, sharing a pool and an acre of landscaped grounds. This unit also has a private 15m2 terrace.
This 50m2
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