Welcome to a special International edition of the real estate minute. I’m your host Ivan Estrada with Ivan Estrada properties at Douglas Elliman. And I just got back from Europe. I can’t wait to tell you about my trip. I went to Amsterdam, Rome, and Barcelona and we’re going to be talking about the real estate, architecture, people, food and tons more. So, the real estate minute is going to work like this. There are three segments, one minute each, three minutes total. Let the real estate minute begin.
Amsterdam, which is located on the Northern portion of the Netherlands is home to beautiful 18th century Dutch architecture. Now if you want to buy a house by the canals, it’s going to cost you about $1,000 a square foot. So, on average about three million dollars, or you can buy a houseboat for about five hundred thousand dollars to about a million dollars. Now something that I really loved about Amsterdam were the people. They are the nicest, sweetest people.
About 10% of the population of the Netherlands is from outside of Europe which makes it the second most crowded city in all of Europe. Something that I noticed right away was that there weren’t many cars. There’s bicycles. That’s their number one way of transportation. So, if you want to get around, you’ve got to get a bike and something that I learned which I thought was really interesting was that they find 25,000 bicycles in the canals every single year. How do they get there? I’ll leave that to your imagination.
The real estate and architecture in Rome are insane. I stayed by the Spanish Steps and real estate there is about $1,400 a foot to about five hundred dollars a foot on the outskirts. And when you’re in Rome you have to see the architecture. The Pantheon, The Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain and of course the Vatican. The Vatican is actually the smallest country in the world with a population of 800 people and you can actually bring your passport and get it stampedattheVaticanifyoubringit.So,makesurethatyoudo.ThefoodinRomeisincredible: the calzone, pasta, pizza. It’s amazing. Anywhere you go the food is just delicious and you have to try the gelato. That’s a must-have when in Rome.
The last leg of my trip was Barcelona. I stayed in the gothic area which is built in the eighteen hundreds is the oldest part of Barcelona. If you want to buy a condo there for one bedroom, it’s about 500,000 dollars. Now the two must-sees in the city are the Church La Sagrada Familia, which is beautiful. It was started in construction back in 1882 and it’s still not completed yet. This is a must see the architecture is incredible inside and out. Also, the W Hotel. W Hotel in Barcelona has to be my favorite hotel in the entire world. Now the food in Barcelona is amazing: the paella, the seafood, the desserts, it’s all so delicious. Now something to keep in mind is that the Spanish don’t usually eat dinner until after 8 p.m. So, restaurants are closed between 4:00 and 8:00 p.m. This is something to keep in mind on your next trip to Barcelona.
Thank you so much for watching this special International edition of the real estate minute. I hope you got a couple tidbits for your next European trip. I will see you next month. Where we’ll be talking about home robots. I’m Ivan Estrada with Ivan Estrada properties at Douglas Elliman. Now don’t forget to follow me on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter and Ivan Estrada properties. I’ll see you next time.
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