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“We knew we didn’t necessarily want to come back right away, but more as a long-term investment and maybe we could retire there,” Knighten tells CNBC Make It.

The couple lived in the UAE and had just under $40,000 in savings.

Knighten and Cordier worked with a real estate agent in the U.S. to research properties they saw online and also began looking for mortgage lenders.

Their budget was between $260,000 and $270,000 for a multi-family home in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood. In April 2024, home prices in North Lawndale rose 26.6% over last year, selling for a median price of $307K, according to Redfin.

In 2019, while their agent was working in Chicago, the couple traveled to Lago d’Iseo, Italy, which they had fallen in love with during a trip to Europe the previous year. Knighten says the two dreamed of what it would be like to live there.

“We’re starting to look at property costs to see if we could afford it in the future,” she says.

During that summer trip, the couple found a house they fell in love with. It was a two-bedroom that needed a new roof and upper floor, but was on the market for €25,000 or US$27,144.

“What we ended up seeing was that we could buy a house outright with the money we had saved for a down payment on a Chicago house,” Knighten says.

Meanwhile, getting a traditional US mortgage proved difficult for the couple because they were earning money overseas and did not receive traditional US-issued income tax documents.

They decided that their search for a house in Chicago was over and instead pursued the Italian property.

“It looked like a house you’d draw when you were a kid with the pitched roof, the door in the center and the two windows upstairs,” Knighten says. “It was really cute and just steps from the train, steps from the lake. It felt too good to be true.”

But the seller’s agent informed the two that there was already an offer and the house was off the market. Knighten says the news was devastating because they knew it was the “perfect house” for them.

“Two days later, the agent called us and told us the buyers had pulled out and asked if we still wanted to see it,” Knighten says. “We took a tour; we just loved it but knew it would need a lot of work. We weren’t scared of it because we knew we didn’t want to move right away.”

Knighten and Cordier’s offer of €23,000, or $24,973, was accepted by the seller, with the condition that the couple keep everything inside, but closing could not happen until summer 2020.

The seller wanted to wait in an attempt to avoid paying inheritance tax as he had received the house after his sister, the original owner, died. His sister used the property as a holiday home and it had been in their family for years.

The couple agreed to the deal, put down a good faith deposit of €500 and patiently waited to become the new owners of the house.

The COVID-19 pandemic prevented the couple from closing the deal in person, so they had a local friend in Italy act as their proxy and handle it for them.

When the couple finally travel to Italy again in July 2021, almost a full year after the closure, they find the house “Just like you left it when you left on your last vacation.”

“The beds were made, there were nightgowns still hanging in the wardrobe and pictures on the wall,” Knighten says. “In some ways it was kind of eerie because it felt like you were walking into someone’s house, but it was also really beautiful because we felt like we were connected to the house and the story.”

The couple salvaged as much of the previous owner’s belongings as possible and worked with the seller to send back everything they wanted to keep, including old black-and-white family photos.

Knighten and Cordier decided the first thing they needed to tackle was a new roof. The original estimate was just under $15,000, but that was in the summer of 2019. By the time the couple closed on the house, estimates for the roof had jumped to $40,000, which was over their budget.

The couple began renovating the home in March of this year and are currently living in a two-bedroom apartment a few blocks away for €700 a month, or $760, until the work is done.

“We kept saving until we could afford to do some of the work,” Knighten says.

In addition to the new roof, Knighten and Cordier also plan additional changes to the house, including moving the kitchen upstairs.

The two plan to have Cordier do as much of the work himself as possible and estimate the cost of repairs at around 100,000 euros, or $108,578.

Knighten and Cordier originally hoped their house would be ready by the time their apartment lease was up, which is a few weeks after this article was published, but Knighten says that won’t be the case.

“The worst case scenario in my head is that we move by Christmas. I hope it’s in September, but we’ll see what happens in the next few months and adjust our expectations.”

For now, the couple is hoping Cordier’s sister will close on an apartment she’s buying near their home in Italy so they can camp out there for a while.

“I feel good. Something will work out,” Knighten says. “All in all, it was worth taking the risk to do something that you think or know will make you really happy, even if you’re not sure how it will turn out in the end. It’s probably bad advice, but I’m SO happy we did this.”

The conversion to US dollars was made on May 22, 2024, using OANDA exchange rates of 1 euro to 1.08 US dollars. All amounts are rounded to the nearest dollar.

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