How We Found Our Villa in Albania
When we visited Tirana in the spring and the girls made the decision to try a year of international school there, we started casually looking for a place to live. I had seen someone post in the local expat group about a villa they were renting; they were looking for a roommate. Clearly, we wanted our own place, but we also preferred a villa versus an apartment, so I messaged her and asked how they had found their villa and how much it cost. I was simply curious how one found such accommodation. Turns out, her name was also Laura. ;)
We had some initial back and forth and then, a few days later, she asked what our timing was and if we might be interested in taking over their lease because they were considering leaving at the end of the summer. Interesting! The best next step was for us to see the place, so we headed over one afternoon. Unfortunately for N, it was on a day she wasn’t feeling particularly well and we ended up walking (slowly) from where we were staying at the time in central Tirana; it took about 30 minutes.
The good news was that the villa was within walking distance of the lake; the bad news was that it was up a big, long hill. But that meant it had nice views—more good news. And it turned out to be huge. Well, huge is relative, but it was large by local standards: About 1800sf (170sm), plus it had a terrace upstairs and a yard (of sorts) with some fruit trees. We liked it, despite the more remote location. The price was likely higher than what locals would pay, but it was a good deal for us, especially given the space and views it offered.
We were interested, so the next steps were for Laura and her fiancé to figure out their plans and then float the idea by the landlords. They did and arranged a meet-and-greet at a bar down the hill from the villa where we all met up one evening. The couple who own the house are local and only speak Albanian (Shqipe), so their adult son came and translated.
We discussed two options for renting the property: an official path and an unofficial path. The official path meant we would need to notarize a contract so they could register things with the government. Also, we’d have to pay about 20% more in rent each month to cover the government tax. (Technically, it’s the responsibility of the landlords to cover this, but often it’s passed on to tenants.) The upside is that we could pay by wire transfer. The unofficial path was to keep the arrangement informal and pay each month in cash at a 20% lower rate. (So many things are paid for in cash in Albania; it’s pretty much the opposite of Scandinavia and the UK, where nearly everything is cashless.) We told them we’d think it over and get back to them.
It only made sense to secure the villa if we could enroll the girls in school. At this point we had already visited and knew we liked it. We just needed to understand the next steps for enrollment and whether that would make it a done deal or if the girls’ enrollment would be contingent on anything else. I also asked whether we needed to pursue residency for them to attend. The short answers were yes and no. Yes, submitting all the documents online would be enough to enroll them and no, we didn’t have to pursue residency.
Sidebar: One of the huge benefits Albania offers to US citizens is the ability to live visa free for up to 12 months. It’s one of very few places in the world that allows this. After 12 months, you have to leave the country for 3 months before you can come back; at that point the clock resets and you can stay another 12 months.
I started the process on their enrollment and got it to a place where the school was able to confirm their placement for the next school year. I still had a few things to finalize, but I had some time. With their acceptance secured, we decided we wanted to pursue the unofficial rent agreement; it was more affordable and there were fewer hoops to jump through. Yes, we knew there was an inherent risk in taking this path. However, we likely would have little recourse if something went sideways even with an official contract, as the law doesn’t work the same way in Albania as in the US. And for what we’re paying each month (roughly equivalent to the amount we paid for our small SF apartment in the early 2000s), trying to hire a lawyer to fight something wouldn’t be worth it.
More importantly, Albanians mostly are trustworthy people; they do business based on relationships. We knew that Laura and her fiancé had had a good relationship with the landlords. Also, the landlords didn’t strike us as people who were out to take advantage of us. Worst case, if something did go sour, we could look for a different place to live. After being nomadic for so many months, that didn’t really phase us as it once might have. It would be inconvenient for sure (and a learning lesson), but navigable.
One thing to note is that the villa did not come furnished. Fortunately, Laura and her fiancée had furnished it, so we agreed to pay them to take everything over, as we didn’t want to have to figure out how to outfit an entire villa in a foreign country with no car and no Amazon. Their selection isn’t what we would’ve chosen, but it was fine. This likely isn’t a long-term housing arrangement (then again, one never knows), so we didn’t need to be in love with the decor. And we could personalize some of it over time as desired.
One of the last dinners we ate before heading out for our summer travels was at a seafood place at the bottom of the hill from the villa. The server asked where we were from and what we were doing in Albania. We told him we would be returning to live for a year and he surprised us with a lovely dessert and welcome.
The day we flew to Norway we stopped by the villa to leave some of our things that we didn’t need to travel with over the summer. It was so nice to have that option!
We have no idea how things will go living in the villa (or in Albania in general), but at least finding a place to live that we all liked enough to try wasn’t a difficult process.
Have you lived abroad? How did you go about securing a place to live? What surprised you, if anything, about how it may have been different from securing housing in your home country?