The purchase of our house in Nistora has a long history. In 1990, we set foot on Greek soil for the first time and it clicked immediately. That was the country we wanted to live in. But where and how? Looking for work did not seem a good idea to us; both of us had plenty of work in the Netherlands at the time. So first the question where?
We spent many years exploring Greece, by fly-drive, camping and in hotels. In the end, the choice fell on the mountainous area of central Greece. Then we started to investigate how to get a house. We found Elxis and after that we never cheated again. Because only Vangelis and Giorgos offer total support, while other providers get stuck in property development projects. We were informed clearly and thoroughly about buying a house in such an area. Through various contacts of Elxis we did an extensive search for properties from 2006 onwards. But we persisted in our favourite area, the mountains between Arta and Ioannina. Elxis did not have a current offer there and armed with their advice, we started looking and talking ourselves. Our certainty was: if we would find something, then the handling would be in good hands with these two gentlemen.
This is how our house in Nistora (Google Maps coordinates: 39.506367,20.967311) finally came into the picture. In July 2009 a real estate agent from Ioannina – an acquaintance of Elxis – called us and said that they knew a suitable house for us. The property had been for sale in the village of Nistora for some time, but the price had been too high for us a year before. Now we could take advantage of it. The house is from 2004 and is located in this tiny village, in the middle of Greek natives (the prefecture of Ioannina counted 7 Dutch people in 2009!) and with a beautiful view of the Xerovouni mountains. With another 1000 m2 of land it is ideal for us.
And then comes the power of Elxis. They arranged for a lawyer to fly in from Athens. In one morning he checked the land register and all the necessary permits. We admit, the Greek estate agent had of course already done a lot of preliminary work. Around noon on 31 July, we signed the deed at the notary’s office and on 6 August 2009 we could move into the house. The estate agent did all the aftercare for us by guiding us in practical matters such as: arranging telephone and ADSL, opening a bank account, arranging SoFi-numbers and many other things that come with it. And everything went amazingly fast and precise, when we compare it to the Dutch way of doing things. Until 2011, the estate agent took care of all our financial affairs while we were still in the Netherlands.
We finally knew what we wanted and our house is certainly not an investment object, because this market has completely stagnated in Epiros. But thanks to the good information and guidance from Elxis, we never had any doubts about making the choices and taking our steps. Many other people we came into contact with thanks to Elxis also had the same impression: a good product at a realistic price. Only, those houses were not located where we wanted to live.
Well done! Giorgos and Vangelis, because of the objective, pure information from you, combined with the good contacts on site, we were able to buy what we had wanted for years: a beautiful, inspiring place to start the next phase of our lives. From now on we will organise and accompany our walking tours in Greece (www.annahiking.nl) from our own permanent home in Epiros.
