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How Tim Turned A Passion for Affordable Mediterranean Homes into a Thriving Business
From Personal Experience to Profitable Newsletter – The Journey Behind AffordiHome
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Happy Sunday. This week, we're talking with Tim, the founder of AffordiHome, a fast-growing property scouting newsletter that helps people find affordable homes in Mediterranean Europe. After successfully navigating the process of buying homes in Spain and Italy, Tim spotted a gap in the market and turned his experience into a thriving business that’s already helped thousands of subscribers take their first steps towards owning a dream home abroad.
In this interview, Tim shares:
How he turned a personal challenge into a newsletter business that quickly gained traction
The biggest lessons he’s learned about building an engaged audience and scaling a side hustle
His best advice for anyone looking to start a niche content business
Whether you’re dreaming of buying a home in the Mediterranean or looking to grow your own newsletter business, there’s plenty of insight and inspiration in this conversation.
Now, over to Tim!
AffordiHome
Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and your business?
I run AffordiHome, a property scouting service that helps people find affordable homes in Mediterranean Europe. After building and scaling an eCommerce platform for 8+ years, I spotted a massive opportunity in the European property market. See, most people think owning a home in Spain or Italy is just for the wealthy, but I’ve turned my experience of buying properties there into a newsletter business that helps others do the same. We’ve grown from zero to thousands of subscribers in just months by sharing curated property deals and practical guides on navigating foreign real estate markets.
What was your main inspiration for getting into this niche?
The business idea literally came from solving my own problem. After successfully buying properties in both Spain and Italy, I kept getting DMs from friends asking for advice. That's when I realised - there's this huge market of people who dream of owning a Mediterranean home but have no idea where to start. The existing property sites were either targeting luxury buyers or just overwhelming people with listings. I saw an opportunity to be the middle person who could actually guide people through the process, from finding affordable properties to dealing with local bureaucracy.
How do you define success in your side hustle?
At first, success was simply getting people to open and engage with the newsletter. Now, it’s evolved into something far more meaningful: helping subscribers turn their Mediterranean home dreams into reality.
We measure success in two key ways:
1. Growth metrics – subscriber count, open rates, and engagement.
2. Real-world impact – the number of people who’ve successfully purchased properties using our insights and guidance.
The most rewarding part is building a community of like-minded people who share the same goal and seeing them take action. Every time a subscriber emails us saying, “I just bought my dream home thanks to your newsletter,” that’s what success looks like.
If you were to start again from scratch, what would you do differently?
First, I'd start building the email list way earlier. When you're validating a business idea, an engaged email list is gold. I'd also have focused more on creating systems from day one - especially for property vetting and market research. At first, I was doing everything manually, checking local property sites daily and translating everything myself. Now we have a proper system and network of local contacts, which makes the whole process much more efficient. Running a newsletter business is all about consistent value delivery, and good systems make that possible.
What advice would you give to someone just starting out with a similar gig?
Find a problem you've personally solved, then build your expertise into a system others can follow. A lot of people told me the newsletter space was too crowded, but being super-specific about our niche - affordable Mediterranean properties, helped us stand out. Start small but be consistent. We began with just one newsletter per week, focusing purely on property finds. Once we saw what resonated with readers, we added more content types like bureaucracy guides and market analyses. The key is to just start and you can always refine your offering based on subscriber feedback.
Where can people find you?
The best way to see what we do is to check out our twice-weekly newsletter at affordihome.com. I'm also active on Twitter (@TimurNegru) where I share daily insights about European property markets and behind-the-scenes looks at building this business. For anyone interested in learning more about either buying property in Europe or building a newsletter-based business, these are the best places to connect!
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👇️ Now it’s your turn to answer a question:
How was this week's interview? |
If you’d like to read last week’s newsletter, an interview with James who runs a weekend side hustle doing power washing. Check it out here.
Thank you all,
See you next week! 👋