Italian Words for Property

When looking for an Italian property it isn’t obligatory to use a British estate agent. You may decide to look at private ads posted by owners online or peruse Italian estate agents listings on the web. If you know the region you want to live in and are visiting, then you may decide to visit a few agents ‘on the ground’ or to pick up a copy of the local free ads paper, which will be packed with property for sale.

If you decide to go this route then many of the ads you see will be in Italian. It can therefore be helpful to know the different expressions for the various types of house in Italy.

A House in the Country

We’ll start with the iconic Italian country farmhouse. You can imagine it in your mind’s eye now, can’t you, with its wisteria clad walls, pan tiled roof and beamed ceilings. Agents and sellers will call this kind of property by several different names. For example it may be referred to as a casa colonica. This is a reference to its original use as a tenanted farmhouse on land owned by a landlord farmer.

The term casa padronale - which refers to the main or most important house of a group of farmhouses – is probably the one that the landlord originally lived in and will be a more upmarket type of farmhouse.  The casa padronale and its associated farmhouses were often quite spread out over the land and so you may find that the farmhouse comes with quite a substantial amount of land and no near neighbours. Conversely, your farmhouse could be part of a group of buildings which all originally belonged to one landowner.  A house in the country may also be referred to as a casa di campagna or a casolare.

Staying in the country, you may find your dream home referred to as a rustico, which is a charming-sounding name for something that can range from a sweet little cottage to a building with a roof but no windows and doors. Confusingly you might find this term used for an unfinished new build too.

If your taste (or pocket) runs more to a house ‘needing some work’ then you may find a romantic ruin described as a rudere. It will certainly be ‘da ristrutturare’ – to rebuild. It could be a fienile (hay loft) or a seccatoio (a drying house) or an ex-annesso agricolo- a former farm building.

You may long for your own farm, but once again there are several terms for this. The word podere is a farm in its most basic sense (a farmhouse, outbuildings and land) but an azienda agricola is a registered country business. An agriturismo is a working farm that offers farm holidays and often has tourist apartments in the main building or in separate outbuildings.

More Houses – More Words

You may think you are on safe ground with the word for a house – casa.  It does indeed mean that but in Italian estate agent parlance it often has further description added. You may see a casa a corte, which is a house built around a courtyard. Typical of these are the masserie of southern Italy, particularly Puglia, which are fortified houses build around a courtyard, often single story and with flat roofs and with a protective gated wall.

Puglia is also where you will find the cute trulli houses with their black conical roofs and white painted exteriors.

If you are after a detached house in the suburbs, in the country, in the mountains or by the sea then it will often be described as a villa. A villa is usually modern and ready to move into (but not always!)

A house with a bit of a history, what we might term in English a period home, even a stately home may be described as an immobile di prestigio which speaks for itself really.

In the town, apart from an appartamento – self explanatory - you may go bigger and buy the whole palazzo which can either mean a palace or, more likely, a large building. If you want a real palace then you will need to look for a castello – a castle. Of course, your appartamento may be in a condiminio which is a purpose- built apartment block.

A casa indipendente is a detached house but may not be isolated or private.  You may also see a villa a schiera (semi-detached) or a casa bi or tri familiare which is a building suitable for two or three families. A terratetto is a terraced house and may also be described as a terracielo, literally floor to ceiling.

Finally, in this quick tour around the arcane world of Italian property descriptions you will see monolocale, bilocale and trilocale. Literally translated these mean one, two or three rooms but in practice can mean a studio flat (everything in one room) a two-roomed and three-roomed apartment. Kitchens and bathrooms (often referred to as servizi) tend not to be included in the ‘rooms’ although they can be!