The door into Manduria.
We are two manduriani who came home after twenty-eight years abroad, bought ten houses in the old town, and are restoring them by hand. If you are thinking of moving to Salento, Puglia, we are the people who already did it. We are still on the scaffolding.
Curious what we promise the town itself? Read the Italian page, written for our neighbours.
Make a list of what you would not give up. Then count the towns that survive it.
Since April 2026, Italy's 7% flat tax for foreign pensioners applies only to southern towns of up to 30,000 inhabitants. That one condition rules out every city. What is left is mostly villages, and a village asks you to give something up: the hospital, the airport, a bar open in February. Manduria does not.
And read the map the way people actually live it. Nobody’s life stops at the town boundary. Within thirty-five kilometres of Piazza Garibaldi there are thirty-nine towns and 434,000 people, and Taranto, a city of 186,000, sits just beyond that. You are not moving to a town of 29,528. You are moving to the middle of all that, and paying what a town of 29,528 costs.
Every distance, measured from Piazza Garibaldi →
The second radius is a bicycle, because the land here is flat. Half an hour of easy pedalling from Piazza Garibaldi reaches the Messapian walls, the Pliny spring and the next town. An hour reaches the sea at San Pietro in Bevagna. Those are Sunday distances, not errands you need a car for.
- Under 30,000, so the 7% applies.
29,528 residents on 1 January 2026, comfortably inside the threshold and more comfortably every year. Once you register, your ten years at seven per cent are yours, settled, whatever happens afterwards.
- A surface metro, nine minutes from the piazza.
The railway through Manduria is being rebuilt as the Metropolitana di superficie Martina-Lecce-Gagliano, a surface metro running the length of Salento, Puglia, with 180 million euros of public funding: new track, electrification, new electric trains with air conditioning. Manduria station, 650 metres from Piazza Garibaldi and nine minutes on foot, becomes one of the three intermodal hubs on its section, where the train, the bus to the coast and the bicycle parking meet in the same square. Get on there and the trulli of Martina Franca are in one direction, the baroque of Lecce and the fast trains to Rome and Milan in the other. Completion is set for 2027. Picture a Saturday: you wheel your own bicycle out of your door in Manduria, lift it onto the train, and you ride it off the platform in Lecce and under Porta Napoli, the triumphal arch the city raised for Charles V in 1548, straight into the baroque. Very few towns under 30,000 will have a metro stop in walking distance of their main square. Between the flat streets, the bicycle and the metro, a car here is a convenience rather than a condition. What the metro means for a day without the car.
- A hospital in town.
Emergency department, cardiology, general surgery, internal medicine, nephrology, orthopaedics, obstetrics and paediatrics, ten minutes from the old town. Taranto's larger hospital is forty minutes away. Most towns on the 7% list have a pharmacy and a prayer.
- An economy that does not depend on you.
This is the heart of Primitivo di Manduria wine country. Wine, olives and greenhouses run through the winter, the market runs every week, and the town's income comes from the land, not from visitors. Which is why the coffee costs what it costs the neighbours, in August too.
- Alive all year, never overrun.
The piazza is used in February. The festa fills it in summer. What you will not find is a tourist season with tourist prices, queues at the bakery and a town that closes in November. The tour buses go to Lecce and Ostuni. They do not come here, and we would like to keep it that way.
- The sea close, not under your windows.
Fifteen minutes by car, ten miles of coast, and the Blue Flag at San Pietro in Bevagna in 2024, 2025 and 2026. In August the marina fills and the old town stays quiet. That is the arrangement most people actually want.
- An international airport within the hour.
Brindisi, 46 kilometres, about forty-five minutes door to door. Bari is ninety minutes. Rome is a direct fast train from Brindisi.
- A centre you cross on foot.
Market, station, a piazza that is still used, and neighbours who stop you in the lane to ask how the works are going. Many historic centres have emptied into museums or scenography. This one still works as a town.
- You arrive as a neighbour, not as a tourist.
A hundred and thirty-six people from other countries already live in Manduria, so a foreign accent in the bar is ordinary rather than an event. The town has no resort economy, which means nobody here is selling you anything: you are simply the person who moved into number 14. In a place this size that is enough. Within a month the barista knows how you take your coffee, and sooner or later someone leaves tomatoes at your door that you never asked for.
- Houses you can still buy.
Traditional terra-cielo houses and old noble palazzi in the old town, with star-vaulted ceilings, a courtyard or a terrace, untouched for decades and ready for exactly the restoration you have been designing in your head for years. Not one or two: streets of them. In the towns summer tourism already took, the same house costs several times as much, when it comes up at all.
- People who were born here and came back.
That is us. We bought ten houses on this list, we live on it, and we are not going anywhere.
Not only our word for it.
Magic Towns is an independent platform that profiles 7,896 Italian comuni for people deciding where to live in Italy. Nobody here asked them anything. This is how they score Manduria.
They class the bathing water at our beach Excellent on the EU scale, they list Manduria among the comuni eligible for the 7% flat tax, and they note that the town is popular with western residents and still growing. On our side of the sum: the official register of property values kept by the Italian revenue agency puts a normal 100 m² house in the streets around Piazza Garibaldi at €58,000 to €87,000. That is where you start, before you restore it.
Expats in Manduria: the group where the ones who arrived before you answer the questions you are about to ask.
Run that list against a map of southern Italy and see how short it gets. We are not saying Manduria is the best town in Salento, Puglia. We are saying the list is short, and that we bet our own money on it.
The best ten years to arrive in Manduria have just started.
Three things came together in 2026. Any one of them would be worth a look. Together they are the reason we stopped looking and started buying.
Seven per cent. Flat. For ten years. Since April 2026 Manduria sits inside Italy’s tax regime for incoming pensioners: move your residence here and your entire foreign pension is taxed at seven per cent, the year you arrive and the nine that follow. The clock starts the day you register, so they are ten years you own outright.
The historic centre is the last address in the area still priced in the hundreds. The official register of property values kept by the Italian revenue agency puts the streets around Piazza Garibaldi at €725 per square metre, and that is the figure for a house already in habitable condition. The unrestored ones, which are what most people arrive here looking for, change hands below it. Vaulted ceilings, stone courtyards, carved balconies, two minutes from the main square, and hundreds of them standing there waiting for someone to want them. You will not be bidding against a crowd: you can see ten of them, take the time you need, and choose the one you actually fall for.
The coast has already done what the old town is about to do. In 2015 that same official register valued a house on Piazza Garibaldi and a house on Manduria’s own coast at the identical figure: €775 per square metre. Today the coast is €1,375. The old town is €725. Same comune, same town hall, twelve kilometres apart. The sea was re-rated first. We think the town is next, and we backed that opinion with ten houses instead of one.
You would not be the first. You would be early. We counted the western residents of the twenty-two towns of the Alto Salento, year by year, from the official population register: 1,283 across that area, 136 of them here in Manduria. Inside a straight 35 km of Piazza Garibaldi, a narrower circle of 39 towns, the count is 1,081. Manduria’s curve turned up later than its neighbours’, which is exactly what the start of something looks like from the inside.
Who actually lives here, with the numbers →Nothing went wrong here. The fashion changed.
A town that looks underpriced usually has something wrong with it. This one does not, and the explanation is worth five minutes, because it is also the reason you are on this page.
Forty years ago the centre was where you wanted to live, because the shops, the schools and the offices were there. Then the schools moved to the edge of town. So did the public offices, the supermarkets and the parking. And so did the young families of Manduria, quite sensibly: a small house with a garage, the children in the car at eight, the weekly shop with a trolley.
For them the old town is genuinely impractical. A flight of worn stone steps, with a pushchair in one hand and the shopping in the other and ten minutes to get dinner on the table, is not charming. It is a problem. Nobody left because the centre stopped working. They left because their life needed a car.
And that is the whole opportunity. What a working Manduria family needs to sell is, almost item by item, what you came here to buy. The stairs they cannot manage are the reason you will still be climbing them at eighty. The ten-minute walk they have no time for is the walk you are moving here to take. The butcher they cannot stop and talk to has time for you.
And the houses that have been restored were restored for a Manduria family. Practical, tiled, bright, exactly right for the people who paid for the work, and rarely what someone arriving from Hamburg or Rotterdam had in mind. So the houses that suit you best are the ones nobody has touched, sold by owners who do not have the time, the appetite or the capital to take them on. Those are also the ones nobody is competing for, and the ones you get to finish to your own taste rather than somebody else’s.
The ground floors never emptied. They are full of bars, small restaurants, wine places and gyms, the rooms where people actually see each other. The centre is not short of life. It is short of residents with the time to enjoy it, and that is a shortage you fix simply by arriving.
The historic centre is for living slowly. The edge of town is for the people who still have to run. We bought ten houses and two shopfronts on exactly that distinction.
Find. Restore. Live.
We are not an estate agency and we are not a relocation desk in a city far away. We are the only relocation partner in Salento, Puglia with a construction site of its own, and we take no commission from anyone.
Before any of it, an address. Almost everything rests on one thing people rarely think about until they are already here: a registered lease of twelve to eighteen months. Without an address on a registered contract there is no registration at the comune, and without that there is no residency, no doctor, no 7% regime, and no time to choose a house instead of rushing at one. Long leases are genuinely scarce in Manduria, because owners have tended to prefer the summer. Finding them, and persuading the owners of empty houses in the old town that someone moving here for good is a better tenant than three months of suitcases, is one of the things we spend the most time on. It is also the first thing we will ask you about.
Then three things, in the order you will need them.
Find the house
We walk the old town with you, street by street, and we know which houses are for sale before they are listed, because we are neighbours. The purchase itself goes through a licensed local agency and the notary, in your language. Our job is to make sure you understand what you are buying, and what it will really need.
Restore it
We have a site of our own, a house architect, and a crew that has been cutting this stone for generations. We will tell you what restoration really costs per square metre in Manduria's old town, because we are paying it now, and our site diary is public. Used doors, used furniture, local tradition or great European design, nothing fake. The professionals we introduce are the ones we use ourselves.
Live here
Tax code, residency, utilities, a doctor, the first month. Then the part nobody sells and everybody needs: people. A community of neighbours, local and international, that meets for aperitivo, Sunday lunch and the things this land knows how to teach.
If your grandparents left from here.
Half of Manduria lives somewhere else: Milan, Turin, Germany, Switzerland, Argentina, Australia. If your family left from these streets and you have thought about coming back, even for part of the year, you are the person this town most wants to see.
The 7% regime applies to you too, if your pension is foreign. The house may still be in the family. And your surname will open more doors here than ours ever will.
Tell us your family's street →
You will not be the only foreigner in town. You will not be a tourist either.
From 2027 we host a monthly rhythm in the old town: an aperitivo where locals and newcomers meet, a Sunday lunch at the long table of the noble kitchen at Via Verdi 15, and one course a month in the things this land knows how to teach. Bread and pasta by hand. The pruning of an olive tree. How tufo is cut. The Primitivo harvest. Taught by manduriani, in Italian with a translator at the table.
Small, on purpose. The point of a town of thirty thousand is not to be anonymous in it. The point is to be known.
The group is where dates are announced first. It is open to people already here and to people still deciding.
Not on Facebook, or not yet ready to say hello? Leave an address instead. We write once a month or less: when a house in the old town comes up, and when we update our figures on who lives here.
One address, nothing else. We never share it, and you can leave at any time. How we handle it.
Three rules, no exceptions.
- We listen before we build.
A forgotten building is not torn down: it is listened to. The door of number 13 was restored and put back exactly where it has always been. The patterned cement tiles found under the dust stay where they are.
- We build by hand, with local hands.
The two arches of the courtyard took five months, a wooden centring and tufo blocks cut on site, the way the courtyard was built the first time. Buying them ready-made would have been faster and cheaper. Local masons, local stone, local pace.
- One house at a time.
Every house that finds its family funds the restoration of the next one. No shortcuts, no scale for its own sake. The town grows back at the pace of the people who join it.
What people ask us before they come.
Why are houses in Manduria’s historic centre still affordable?
Because the town’s own families moved to the edge, following the schools, the supermarkets and the parking. A centre of stone stairs and no garage does not suit a household with young children and two jobs, so they sold. The buildings were not left to rot: the ground floors are full of bars, restaurants, wine places and gyms, and the piazza is used all year. What the centre is short of is residents with the time to enjoy it. The official register of property values kept by the Italian revenue agency (OMI) puts the streets around Piazza Garibaldi at 580 to 870 euro per square metre for a home in habitable condition, against roughly double that on Manduria’s own coast twelve kilometres away. An unrestored house changes hands below that band. We do not publish the price of individual houses, because they move and because a house is not a number: we would rather show you round.
Can a foreigner buy a house in Manduria?
Yes. Citizens of the European Union, and of countries with a reciprocity agreement with Italy, which include the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia and most others, can buy property in Italy with no special permit. You need an Italian tax code, a notary, and in practice an Italian bank account. We coordinate all three.
Can I rent in Manduria before I buy?
Yes, and for most people it is the right way to start. A registered lease of twelve to eighteen months gives you the address you need to register at the comune, and that registration is what everything else rests on: residency, a doctor, the 7% regime, and the time to choose a house rather than hurry at one. Citizens of the European Union register at the anagrafe; citizens of other countries need the same proof of address for their residence permit file, and should check their own position with a professional. Long leases are scarce here because owners have tended to prefer short summer lets, so finding them is one of the things we work on hardest, together with persuading the owners of empty houses in the old town that a resident who stays all year is worth more than three months of suitcases.
How does the 7% flat tax work in Manduria?
Holders of a foreign pension who transfer their tax residence to a southern Italian town of up to 30,000 inhabitants pay a 7% substitute tax on all foreign-source income for the year of the move and the nine tax years after it (art. 24-ter TUIR, as amended by Law 34/2026). Manduria qualifies. Whether you qualify depends on your situation: ask a tax advisor, and we can introduce you to one who has done it before.
What does a house in the old town of Manduria cost?
Less than you think, and it varies street by street. Abandoned terra-cielo houses of 60 to 120 square metres with vaulted ceilings still come up regularly, and now and then a palazzo. We do not publish prices, because they move and because a house is not a number: come and see it with us, and we will talk face to face.
What does restoration cost in Manduria’s historic centre?
It depends on how much you keep and how much you change. Our own site at Via Verdi 15 is the reference we use, with real invoices, and its diary is public. Ask us for the number per square metre before you buy, not after.
Is ManduriaShire an estate agency?
No. We buy and restore houses for ourselves, and we help people who want to do the same. The transaction goes through a licensed local agency and a notary, as Italian law requires. We take no commission from either side, which is exactly why you can trust what we tell you about a house.
Do I need to speak Italian to move to Manduria?
No, to buy. Yes, to be happy here. We help with both, and the aperitivo is where most people learn.
What about healthcare in Manduria?
Manduria has its own hospital, with an emergency department and the main specialties, ten minutes from the old town. Residents are entitled to the Italian national health service. A family doctor is one of the first things we sort out with you.
How many foreigners and international residents live in Manduria?
At 1 January 2025 Manduria had 1,013 foreign residents from 67 countries, 3.4% of the population. Of these, 136 held the citizenship of a western European country, the United States, Canada, Australia or New Zealand. The largest group is German (93), ahead of Swiss (18) and French (10); there are only two British citizens, which makes Manduria unusual in Salento, where the British are normally the largest western group. Within 35 kilometres of Piazza Garibaldi, across 39 towns, there are 1,081 western residents. Source: Istat, resident population by citizenship.
How many people live within reach of Manduria?
Manduria itself has 29,528 residents at 1 January 2026. Within 35 kilometres of Piazza Garibaldi there are 39 towns and 433,875 people, and Taranto, a city of 186,011, sits just beyond that radius. The nearest stretch of coast is about 10 kilometres away and Brindisi airport about 46. Within half an hour on a bicycle, on flat ground, are the Messapian walls, the Pliny spring and the neighbouring town of Sava; the sea at San Pietro in Bevagna is about an hour by bicycle.
Is Manduria a good place to live or retire?
Magic Towns, an independent platform that profiles 7,896 Italian comuni for people choosing where to live, scores Manduria 81 out of 100 for quality of life and 85 for walkability, classing it Very Walkable. It rates the town 95 out of 100 for low exposure to flood, landslide and earthquake, records average broadband of 129 Mbps, and notes that 68% of waste is recycled, above the national 65% target. The bathing water at the town’s beach is classed Excellent on the EU scale. Manduria qualifies for Italy’s 7% flat tax for foreign pensioners.
