The second-home premium
Italy charges 9% registration tax on second homes instead of 2%. France applies taxe d'habitation to second homes, with surcharges in high-demand communes. Spain's non-resident owners file imputed income tax on property they do not rent. None of these are large individually; together they change the shape of the return.
What a holiday home in Europe costs to own
Model the year, not the purchase. A realistic annual figure is 1-3% of value once you include property tax, insurance, community or condominium fees, utilities standing charges, a caretaker or key-holder, pool and garden maintenance, and a repair reserve. Older stone properties sit at the upper end.
Figures are typical ranges rather than quotes. Confirm your own numbers with a local notary, lawyer or tax adviser before you commit.
Rental income, honestly
Short-term letting is the plan for most second-home buyers and it is the part most likely to change under you. Licensing has tightened across Barcelona, the Balearics, Lisbon, Porto, Florence, Venice, Paris and the Greek islands, and licences are not always transferable with a sale.
Where letting is permitted, treat summer-only demand as the base case outside big cities. Deduct platform fees, cleaning, management, laundry, tax and vacancy before comparing the yield to anything else.
- Confirm licence status in writing before the preliminary contract.
- Check whether the condominium rules ban tourist lets even where the municipality allows them.
- Ask what the property actually earned last year, not what it could earn.
Choosing where to buy a holiday home
The pattern that repeats across every market we track: the first village inland, or the next bay along, costs materially less than the name everyone knows, with the same light and the same coastline twenty minutes away. If you will be there mostly outside July and August, that trade is usually worth making.
Test the practical stuff before the aesthetic stuff - year-round flight connections, distance to a hospital, whether the town is alive in November, and how long it takes to get from the airport with luggage and children.