A 32-year-old woman who was unable to buy a house in her native New York reveals how she was able to buy five properties in Europe for less than the price of one house in the US.

• Amy Behl, 32, is a digital consultant who calls New York City home
• However, she had long known that she could not afford property in the city
• Read more: Home prices are hot in these 9 major US cities

A WOMAN has spoken about how she acquired five amazing holiday properties across Europe instead of spending all her savings on a small apartment in New York City.

Amy Behl, 32, is a digital consultant who insisted she loves her life in New York and will continue to live there “for the foreseeable future,” she declared in an article for the magazine Interested in trade.

However, she was quick to admit that, barring an incredible stroke of luck, such as “winning the lottery or having a huge financial windfall,” the price range for purchasing a condo in New York City was “too expensive” for her, especially amid the financial crisis. High costs of living in the United States.

Right now, she's renting a 650-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment for $2,850 a month, which is great by New York standards, she admitted.

But buying anything the same size in her neighborhood would cost her nearly $1 million.

In 2020 and 2021, while quarantining amid the pandemic, Jane went absolutely crazy and began obsessively googling properties in quaint towns across Europe, and noticed that many of the listings had become absurdly cheap.

“There were hundreds of articles about €1 houses in small villages in Italy or France or Spain – and all these people who took that chance and were able to build a house for $10,000 or something like that,” Amy recalls.

“I was like, 'Cool, maybe I can do that.'

Through her online research, she discovered August, a “vertically integrated real estate group” that connects those looking for holiday homes with a wide range of options in some of the most beautiful places in Europe – from Mallorca in Spain to the French Alps. To the English countryside.

Essentially, August allows potential buyers to acquire a percentage of a “portfolio” of five different properties in desirable locations — with other buyers also owning shares in each listing.

Each owner is given a great deal of flexibility to choose which weeks they wish to spend at the specific property during the year.

“The shorthand I use when I explain it to my friends and family is, ‘It's a non-fraudulent timeshare, because you already own an equity stake and have access to the properties you want,'” Amy relayed.

Amy continued: “The collection I have chosen is five homes located in Tuscany, the south of France, the French Alps, the Cotswolds in England, and Majorca.”

She added that even though she lives in the smallest of the house's three floors, that still gives her “three to four bedrooms per house.”

For her share in all five homes, the purchase was a “one-time flat fee” of €360,000 – just under $390,000. Maintenance and taxes cost about $10,000 per year.

Explaining her motivations for purchasing the five homes, Amy said she was “always toying with or flirting with the idea of ​​living abroad.”

While at Colgate University, she spent a semester abroad in Stockholm, and loved the experience.

While she had peers who tried to visit as many places as possible while abroad, she recalled that she “liked the feeling of stability and familiarity” in Stockholm, so she would mostly “stay put.”

“I really loved that sense of place and home that I had after only being there for five months,” she added.

Although she looked for job opportunities abroad after graduation, she never found the right opportunity.

But during the pandemic, she began to reconsider what was actually in the realm of possibility for her personally — especially given the number of companies that were starting to allow remote work.

“During the pandemic, when the realities of what work looks like have completely changed for many people, it has opened up possibility. Maybe this is something I can do sooner than I thought,” Amy wrote.

“I was very fascinated with traveling and living abroad, or at least spending a significant amount of time away from my home country. It happened sooner than I expected, but it was something I had thought about even since high school.

Amy went on to explain that she now owns approximately 1/21st of the five-home portfolio, which is split between her and 20 other families.

“You get that kind of familiarity and relationship with a place, but you don't have the hassle of having to have a property manager, or the roof is leaking but I'm 4,000 miles away,” she reflected on the setup.

When it comes to sharing spaces with multiple other families, Augustus has a point system to divide up the time he spends in any given home.

“Everyone gets the same amount of points, so it's very equal,” Amy explained.

“You get 36 points a year, and each week is weighted differently. Peak summer months are five points, then shoulder season weeks are two points. It kind of fluctuates from there.”

“For me, that was also a really attractive point: I have the flexibility of being able to use the low-scoring weeks because I don't have kids in school. Do I want to go for a month in October? I can do that, because I don't have to worry about someone's schedule.” last.

She went on to estimate that the full value of the real estate portfolio was probably worth around 7 million euros (just over $7.5 million).

“I don't have €7 million to buy five properties across Europe. So what I was able to achieve was far greater than anything I would have been able to achieve on my own.

“These are well-established, sought-after locations that will always be attractive to a certain demographic. So I also felt safe in that regard,” she added.

Above all, she felt confident that even though New York City was her home, she didn't feel the need to be a homeowner in New York City, nor in the greater tri-state area, for that matter.

“Will I move to the suburbs of New Jersey so I can buy a house?” No, I wouldn't do the calculus of moving — whether that's another city, another state, or a suburb — to buy a house. “This is my reality,” she said.

Meanwhile, when she first set foot in the Mallorcan home, she said: “I was smiling alone in this house.”

“I was like, ‘This is so cool. I'm standing in this beautiful house I own. How cool is that? I'm here on an island. Who knows if I would have found my way here another way?”

It made me so happy and so proud. It made me feel proud of my accomplishment and purchased this.