Expat Essentials

Expat Essentials: 1 euro deals on homes are attracting people back to Europe’s abandoned villages (updated)

(Editor’s note: Selling houses for a symbolic amount – 1 euro – to counter population decline in rural towns and villages is a trend that started in Italy in 2008. Sixteen years later, in an era of aging demographics and declining rural populations, the trend of selling abandoned houses for a nominal fee is spreading around the world. Villages in Switzerland, Spain, Croatia and even Japan are joining in, but the emphasis is shifting. For example, In Italy, the 1 euro house marketing is increasingly aimed at attracting digital nomads.)

Since 2018, major news sites such as CNN have had endless headlines exclaiming “You can still buy $1 homes all over Italy!” And you can if you have the time and resources to fix up a ruin in a remote, abandoned village in Italy, France or Spain.

The trend has even inspired television series.

About four years ago, American actor Lorraine Bracco (“Goodfellas,” “The Sopranos”) bought a 200-year-old 1-euro house in Sambuca, Sicily – one of the most popular of the cities pioneering this 21st century Italian renaissance – with HGTV building a whole series around her project.

“My Big Italian Adventure” was the result, and the Wrap has the most detailed post about the show.

In June, 2022, BBC executives announced they’re getting in on the bandwagon with “The Italian Job.” In this series on BBC1, British celebs Alan Carr and Amanda Holden buy and restore a house in Salemi, Sicily. And show runners promised the glam duo would do all the rough-and-ready work themselves.

So how did it turn out? The images above are from the real estate listing. The asking price is 145,000 euros, so a nice potential return for 1 euro.

While some media present buying the 1 euro house as a new opportunity, this trend has been going on since at least 2015, when entire Spanish villages started going on the market for less than the cost of a 1-bedroom apartment in London. And the reason is simple: While a lot of outsiders can afford the luxury of living in an idyllic village in rural Italy, locals can’t.

“A lot of people move to the city from the countryside to work,” Maurizio Berti with Case A 1 Euro told us. “It’s a cultural phenomenon, not just a business phenomenon.”

(Full disclosure: You can throw a dart at a map of Italy and pretty much anywhere it lands, there’s a 1-euro house “initiative.” Some are ad hoc, with houses coming and going, and mayors and officials making up the rules, then changing them on a whim. You can see the full list here of all the villages in Italy offering 1 euro homes.)

The details

We can say without fear of contradiction that people rarely give anything of value away for free or even for 1 euro. And that’s at the heart of this proposition as working-age people leave small towns and villages in rural Europe, they leave behind houses that don’t appeal to conventional buyers.

Now, getting one of the fabled 1 euro deal for a house might seem like a gimmick, but it’s not. Some houses – typically those in poor shape – really do change hands for 1 euro. But they’ll revert right back to municipalities if buyers don’t hold up their end of the bargain – spending serious money to bring the buildings up to code in a fixed amount of time, usually three years.

It’s worth noting that a lot of people set out to buy one of the 1 euro homes, but end up buying a move-in property at market rate, which is still a huge bargain compared to big cities.

France, Spain, Croatia, Japan and other countries are only now getting on the bandwagon, so this is becoming a global phenomenon. Investigative Europe has an eye-opening look at how abandoned houses are a Europe-wide phenomenon. Financial Times has a detailed post about how the 1 euro phenom has transformed Sicily, which has suddenly become the 1 euro hotspot.

Croatia

By far, Italy has the most villages and towns using the 1 euro scheme to restore and repopulate, and there are dozens of active campaigns to attract investors from north to south as well as on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia. But Italy has also had the greatest success with this program, and some areas are running out of houses to restore. So if you find a village you think would work for you, double-check to see it they still have any inventory. That said, many areas are only now joining the 1-euro craze, especially in northern Italy, and have plenty of properties from which to choose.

A village in northern Croatia on the border with Hungary is now selling abandoned houses for 1 kuna, or about 16 cents American. As of mid-2021, Legrad had put 19 on the market, out of which 17 have sold, according to Reuters. Not a bad batting average. The rules for getting one of these deals includes being under 40 years old and financially solvent. Oh, and you have to commit to staying 15 years. The Reuters post doesn’t say that you have to live in bucolic rural Croatia for 15 years, just that you have to keep the property. Oh, Legrad’s mayor, Ivan Sabolic, says the town will cover 20 percent of renovation up to 35,000 kunas, or about 5,000 euros.

Here’s the contact page (in Croatian) for Legrad.

France

France is late into the 1 euro house game, but it’s off to a notable start with a house for sale in Saint-Amand-Montrond smack-dab in the middle of this huge country, about 300 kilometers south of Paris. Is it the beginning of a trend? Who knows. What we know is that a pretty good sized house – about 1,000 square feet – is up for sale for the symbolic price of 1 euro.

Just as in Italy, this program is about luring people back into villages where most of the people have left for opportunities in urban areas. In Saint-Amand-Montrond, you have to actually live in the house … you can’t buy this for a rental or Airbnb. And you have to start renovations within 6 months, with a plan to finish in two years.

You can see more details here on The Mayor.eu.

The municipality has posted the details online here, but they’re in French.

See more about affordable houses – though not 1 euro houses – in reviving French villages on page 2 of this post.

Ireland

The Republic of Ireland has been in the news recently with its ambitious scheme to repopulate its rural wind-swept islands. “Ireland will pay you (pounds, dollars, euros) to move to a remote islands” and “Ireland offers grants to move to rural islands.”

And invariably, the headline includes the words, “… but there’s a catch.”

This is real, but the reason Ireland is willing to pay about 80,000 euros for you to move is that no one wants to live in such wild, remote and cut off places, with iffy connections to the mainland contingent on tides and weather.

The project, “Our Living Islands,” is a 10-year effort to repopulate about 30 islands. It was announced in June 2023 and nearly every major media outlet has posted about it. The funding is pretty amazing, and includes up to 84,000 euros if you buy a derelict, unoccupied old property on one of these remote islands and restore it.

Now, another catch … if you’re not a citizen of the republic, you have to apply for long-term residency under Irish immigration laws. Of course you do.

You can see all the details here.

Italy

A not-so-fun fact: Italy’s overall population shrank by 384,000 in 2020, the most in over 100 years. There are thousands of houses available from north to south and on Sicily, said Maurizio at Case A 1 Euro. Most are in poor condition, and the municipalities sell for a symbolic price of 1 euro, though auction prices tend to be higher.

Buyers have to make a significant investment in rehabbing the houses. There are also fees for real estate agents, taxes and the costs of hooking back up to local utilities. By the time the house is done, it’s not unusual for the new owners to have spent 30,000 euros on homes that generally only have about 700 square feet of space. In fact, the process of finding the right house for a comparatively small amount of money, then finding the local contractors to do the restoration, is so nuanced that Maurizio says it’s imperative for shoppers to come to Italy.

Before the pandemic, he took people from all over the world on tours to the villages and introduced them to the local mayors and familiarized them with how the process works, because it’s complicated.

First, the south is far different from the north, Maurizio said. A small village in the north might have 300 residents where a “small” village in south might have 20,000 inhabitants.

Second, many of the houses in the south including Campania, the poorest region, were built for migrant workers who traveled from region to region, working on estates. Those houses are quite small, perhaps 60m2 on three floors. “So, if you want a big house, sometimes you have find three close to each other and turn them into one house,” Maurizio said.

You can call Maurizio at: country code 39 – 349-664-0136 or email him at: [email protected].

So, let’s go shopping.

Albugnano

Albugnano is one of several hilltop towns/villages in northern Italy trying to change its fortunes by bringing in outsiders to upgrade neglected properties. The approach of local civic leaders is to match abandoned houses to people who would invest both in the real estate and the long-term economic health of the area, which is a celebrated both for its wine and its panoramic views of the Alps to the north.

Eligible parties include young couples and disadvantaged families. Albugnano is also hoping people in the tourism industry, and those looking for second homes, will join in the initiative. In fact, the information is quite detailed, and you can see it all here.

Here’s the official homepage of the municipality, which your browser should pull up in English. And finally, here’s all the official information about the 1 euro home program.

This a relatively new effort in a spectacular location, so we’re guessing properties will get snapped up quickly.

Biccari

A number of media outlets have posts about Biccari in Southern Italy, the latest (January 2021) entrant into the 1 euro home competition. Every village and town has a little different approach and Biccari’s is abandoned 1 euro homes and move-in ready small homes – 70 meters2 on two floors – starting about about 7,000 euros.

The selection is immense, with about 100 available buildings including 20 ready-to-occupy structures, according to CNN. The town requires a 3,000 euro good-faith renovation deposit on the 1 euro homes, and buyers get three years to restore their buildings … more if construction is moving forward.

Biccari is in southern Italy, about 130 kilometers northeast of Naples and the mayor touts the hilly region as the ideal place for slow tourism and adventure tourism, with lots of hiking and outdoor activities. And of course the local food is authentic including sausages made from baby wild boar.

You can see the Biccari municipal website here, but no homes are posted yet. You can contact the mayor Gianfilippo Mignogna at: [email protected].

Bisaccia

Bisaccia, in the Campania region, has 90 – yes, nine-zero – properties listed, each for 1 euro, according to CNN. But that post has an interesting twist … because all those properties are clustered together in the center of the city, Bisaccia’s strategy is to find buyers who’ll also bring their family and friends for a communal approach to reviving the village.

We couldn’t find a website or contact information for the 1 euro properties. But you can see market-priced homes here starting at about 11,000 euros.

Bisaccia is in the mountains about 130 kilometers east of Naples. The region is Puglia.

Borgomezzavallee

Borgomezzavallee is in the mountains of the northwestern Italy on the Swiss border, and about equidistant between Geneva and Milan. So, a prime location.

But not all that many people want to live in this remote valley, so the population has dwindled to about 300, leaving lots of empty homes. Borgomezzavallee has made the news recently both with a 1-euro house initiative and with an offer to pay couples to have children at rate of 1,000 euros per, and 2,000 euros to anyone willing to start a tax-generating business.

Check out the video above in which an Italian-speaking American expat drops in and gets the details. Also, a CNN post has lots of details.

Here’s the regional municipality website.

Calabria

This is regional effort that includes several nearly abandoned towns in impoverished, though scenic, southernmost Italy. Calabrian officials are offering up to 33,000 euros over three years to relocate to, then invest in, one of a dozen villages including Albidona, Bova and Caccuri.

When we say “invest,” that means starting or reviving a business. There are lots of requirements including age restrictions (no one over 40 years old) and requirements that you have skills needed in the region. Again, this is a regional initiative that’s gotten a lot of pub on CNN and other outlets, but we don’t see much on the regional governmental website, which you can see here.

We also didn’t see any information on websites of the participating municipalities. But after an hour of searching, we did turn up the email for Mayor Coppola (yes, like the “Godfather” director) in Altomonte, which you can see here. Mayor Coppola is one of the architects of this effort that villages on the sea, as well as villages with Greek roots and even Slavic outposts. So, one of the most interesting of all the “move to a nearly abandoned village” programs.

Calatafimi Segesta

This hilltop village is in Sicily – about an hour’s drive west of the capital of Palermo – and the effort started in late 2022. For sale are 42 properties acquired by the municipality after the 1968 earthquake. So you know – earthquake, old houses – might be a bit of renovation involved.

Calatafimi Segesta officials have a lot of information on their official website, which you can see here. that said, all the official documents are in .pdf format, and Italian.

Cammarata

No town has ridden the train to international headlines like Cammarata. They did it by upping the ante … well, actually, by lowering the ante to zero. That’s right … the city fathers and mothers of Cammarata in the mountains of Sicily are giving away their houses for free to a good home like a litter of kittens.

Insider has the best of many, many posts about Cammarata. And of course, the standard rules apply … if buyers don’t restore the houses within a certain time, the city repossesses them.

Cantiano

This village toward more affluent Northern Italy is just south of San Marino. Two former farmsteads located in the rural surroundings have already sold, but a couple of historical buildings in the old village center are available, according to media reports.

Check out the municipality’s 1 euro home website here.

Carrega Ligure

This is the rare village in scenic Northern Italy, and its mayor has a different take on what to do with its unloved houses. Instead of shells to be renovated, Carrega Ligure is offering its houses in move-in condition … for a price. You can see what that price is on their website, but most start at about 10,000 euros … which is what you would spent on a 1 euro deal.

You can see all the houses for sale here.

A caveat – this is a mountain village far smaller than other villages/towns on this list. And it is in the middle of nowhere, up in the Apennine Mountains about 50 kilometer north of Genoa. In fact, when we Googled directions, Google responded, “Sorry, we could not calculate transit directions from “Genoa, Metropolitan City of Genoa, Italy” to “Carrega Ligure, 15060 Province of Alessandria, Italy.” So we don’t know … maybe ride a horse? If you like the quiet life, Carrega Ligure is for you.

You can see more details here on CNN.

Castiglioni di Sicilia

This is another town in Sicily to join the “whatever you’re looking for, we got” strategy. Out of 900 (that’s correct – nine hundred) houses for sale, half are ruins for 1 euro and half are ready to be renovated, selling for as much as 5,000 euros, according to multiple media reports.

When we first created this post back in 2019, the municipalities were less than sophisticated about making it easy for interested parties to get the details. But on the Castiglioni website, all the info on the houses is there. There’s also a tourist hotline in case you want to visit before you buy.

Tourist Information Office via Regina Margherita n. 77 tel. 0942980260 Toll- free
number 800010552

Okay, full disclosure. Castiglioni sits on the side of Mt. Etna, Europe’s largest active volcano. We’re not sure if the houses come with lava insurance. But this is – compared to some of the more remote villages – a very inviting destination, with a food & wine culture, a stunning setting, and lots of outdoor adventure options. The beach is close by because, well, Sicily is an island. Check out the vid above.

As usual, CNN has the best overview.

Castropignano

Castropignano Mayor Nicola Scapilati has come up with a different approach for this hilltop town – complete with castle – about 140 miles southeast of Rome and in the center of Italy.

Instead of merely selling dilapidated houses for 1 euro, Scapilati is playing matchmaker, trying to hook up potential owners with the most suitable dwellings. And he has 100 houses from which to choose. Also, unlike other vague efforts in Italy, Scapilati is the front person, with lots of contact info and facts and figures about what it’s going to take to get a house squared away in Castropignano. He calculates each house needs 30,000-to-40,000 euros in investment on top of that 1 euro.

The mayor is handling all this himself and you can email him directly at: [email protected]. And here’s the fact sheet Scapilati has sent out with all the stipulations including the 2,000 euro surety deposit and the requirement you renovations no more than two months after taking possession of the property.

Here’s all the contact info:

Mayor Nicola Scapilati’s email is: [email protected]

Municipality:
Via G. Marconi, 1 – 86010
Tel: 0039 0874.503132
Fax: 0039 0874.503522
e-mail: [email protected]

http://www.comune.castropignano.cb.it/hh/index.php

CNN has a detailed post about the mayor and his picturesque town and Scapilati has gotten a lot of publicity for his effort, so we wouldn’t wait too long if you’re interested.

Cinquefrondi

CNN has a post promoting the village as set in the “rugged Aspromonte National Park and overlooking both the Ionian and Tyrrhenian coasts,” but blighted by abandoned homes. Lots of abandoned homes.

Interestingly, Cinquefrondi has its own twist on selling its dozens of 1 euro houses. Most villages in Italy require buyers to put significant skin in the game early on, with deposits running 5,000 euros. CNN reports that Cinquefrondi only requires an annual 250 euro “insurance policy” until work is completed. Though if you buy, then do nothing, you’re looking at a 20,000 euro fine after three years.

This is “middle of nowhere” Itally, but the CNN post has a lot of great cultural and culinary details, along with an interesting look at local history. And they even have an email if you want to know more: [email protected]

Fabbriche di Vergemoli

This Tuscan mountain village between Florence and Milan is probably the American fantasy, shaped by books such as “Under the Tuscan Sun.” But the reality here is no different than anywhere else in Italy … it’s too far into the boonies to keep young people.

So, Fabbriche di Vergemoli and other nearby towns have abandoned houses on the market for as little as 1 euro.

Here’s the website for the municipality, and the 1 euro tab is at the very top of the landing page.

Gangi

Gangi near Palermo in Sicily has been selling houses at give-away prices since 2011. And like a lot of the towns on this list, it’s the sort of place people imagine when they dream of a quiet life in Italy. In fact, Gangi was voted the most beautiful village in Italy in 2014, according to its website.

You can check out their offerings here.

Irsina

Irsina is deep in the boot of Italy, kind of close to Naples (not really), out in the middle of nowhere. But somehow this dramatic hilltop village has attracted a non-Italian enclave of about 300 people from 12 different countries, according to CNN. Most of retirees and American expats. The whole phenomenon started not with a government incentive, but with the pioneering spirits of Sandy Webster, a 63-year-old writer from San Diego and her husband Keith, 69, a Scottish finance manager. The couple moved to Irsina in 2012, then refurbished a huge house. More expats followed, all of whom are ambassadors for the town, and they in turn spread the word among friends and family, helping new arrivals negotiate Italian red tape.

Full disclosure: There are no 1 euro homes, but the houses in Irsina are a bargain without a formal program. Well, they were. But several have been converted to rentals, so you can sample life in rural Italy while meeting the Americans, Canadians and other who have moved in.

Itala

This tiny hill country village in northeastern Sicily is near the sea and also near an area famous for thermal baths.

But full disclosure – the only thing it has going for it is, it’s a 40-minute drive from the port city of Messina and just off the coast. Oh, and it has 1 euro homes as Itala tried to revive its center market area.

Itala is a short drive from the main airport. So you can get there from here … and it might make a great place to summer. To sweeten the deal, the city is offering a 1,000 euro bounty for every child born in the village, so they’re serious about trying to restore the population.

You can see the official page of the municipality here. Bring your Italian-English dictionary.

One Euro Houses also has details including the email address you need to send your proposal.

Latronico

Latronico is part of an emerging trend of villages taking matters into their own hands as people leave, and townies stop coming back during the summers. Latronico has its own website, “Your House in Latronica,” listing bargain homes acquired by the municipality and now move-in ready. It also lists private homes for sales, as well as rentals so you can try before you buy.

From Deputy Mayor Vincenzo Castellano’s message on the website, which is really well done:

As Tourism Assessor, I have decided to develop this project in two ways: one by offering tourists the possibility to buy/rent a house, giving them all the information they need; the other by giving citizens of Latronico the possibility to use a means of communication, as the Internet, to highlighttheir own properties. This website aims to be a “virtual window” on the territory and to encourage people to invest in it, so that the positive economic impact arising will flow into the medium and small enterprises operating in Latronico.

Latronico has a lot going for it. It’s in the far south of Italy, about 200 kilometers southeast of Naples, and about 50 kilometers from the sea. The village of about 4,000 also has a lot of houses for sale from the low, low price of zero to about 80,000 euros.

Laurenzana

Multiple media outlets including CNN, Travel & Leisure and the New York Post have new items about Laurenzana in the Basilicata region in the arch of the Italian boot south of Naples. Every Italian village is looking for a competitive advantage in the 1 euro game, and Laurenzana is – no deposit, no return. Most villages require purchasers of abandoned housed to put up a hefty deposit to make sure they don’t walk away when the going gets tough … and it will get tough.

“We want to help newcomers purchase the house of their dreams without making it hard for them to follow tedious procedures and tight requirements,” Mayor Michele Ungaro told CNN.

That doesn’t mean village officials won’t be monitoring the progress, Ungaro added. They will … very closely. And he advised that the reality of the Laurenzana houses is that buyers should be ready to invest at least 20,000 euros to return them to their former glory. But they can put the money in a home rather than putting it on deposit with the municipality.

Laurenzana is a in a very rugged and remote – though extremely picturesque – area (check out the video), so this isn’t everyone. But CNN notes that Laurenzana has a medieval castle and is close to Matera, a UNESCO World Heritage site, as well as popular seaside locations such as Maratea, Praia a Mare, Scalea, Capo Palinuro and Marina di Camerota.

You can see more details about the 1 euro program here on the Laurenzana municipal website.

Luserna

The mountain village of Luserna in Italy’s Piedmont near the France/Italy border has a different take on accomplishing the same ends – reviving a small mountain city. Luserna officials are offering four unfurnished homes for four years to couples 18-to-40 years old. In other words, of prime child-producing years as they try to rebuild their population, which has dropped to 300 residents.

They also have a different take on the commitment to get that house, asking applicants if they’re willing to take an active part in the community in the form of collaborative living, helping raise kids and looking in on old folks.

From the website:

(The commune of Lucena) is offering young families the ideal conditions to become autonomous, build a couple life project and contribute to the development and life of a mountain area. Families will find valuable support and will be accompanied on their way by the experience and professionalism of the operators of the Franco Demarchi Foundation.

There are quite a few stipulations and unfortunately, all the documents are in Italian. But here’s the link to the municipality page with all the information. You might try calling or emailing ….

Maenza

If you want to be close to Rome and its cosmopolitan vibe, this is the place. Maenza is a hill town about 40 miles southeast of Italy’s capital and just a few miles off the Med. City leaders have targeted about 100 dilapidated houses that need to be renovated, according to CNN.

Having learned from towns and villages where absentee buyers were slow to get to work, Maenza officials are giving preference to families who want to settle in the town and who have the means and energy to get their projects completed quickly.

In the CNN post, the mayor notes that people are showing up to grab up the homes, so there isn’t a formal program listed on the municipal website, which you can see here for more details about Maenza.

Montierie

Montieri is in the the province of Grosseto, Tuscany. That’s right … Tuscany. So this isn’t so far from Florence (40 miles south) and in a desirable area. The good news is, Mayor Nicola Verruzzi has run a program to upgrade abandoned homes for years, so he knows what he’d doing. The even better news is, once you get your building restored, nice houses are going for 200,000 and up.

Here’s the link to the municipality website with officials’ phone numbers, but it’s in Italian.

Mussomeli

Mussomeli is another town in Sicily that, like Gangi, has gotten a lot of pub for their effort, sold a lot of homes and started to attract new residents. CNN has a great feature on a French couple who negotiated the process and ended up with a small home in this thriving Sicilian town, apparently without any real complications.

The Independent has a post about a British digital consultant who had a very positive experience in Mussomeli and encourages other to “go for it.” And CNN has a detailed post about the varied stories of Americans who have bought on Sicily.

Ollolai 

We saw this coming from a mile away. The village of Ollolai in a remote, mountainous part of central Sardinia has been in the 1 euro house game since 2018, with mixed results. Now, it’s leveraging Trump’s victory as a marketing tool. Following the 5 November presidential vote, officials launched a website aimed at aspiring American expats in the hope that those fleeing the madness will rush to snap up its abandoned properties.

“Of course, we can’t specifically mention the name of one US president who just got elected, but we all know that he’s the one from whom many Americans want to get away from now and leave the country,” Mayor Francesco Columbu told CNN.

Americans will have a fast-track procedure. Columbu has set up a special team to guide potential buyers “through every step of the purchase, from organizing tailored private tours of the available dwellings to finding contractors, builders and navigating required paperwork,” according to CNN. Houses range from 1 euro for abandoned properties to 100,000 euros for move-in ready.

That’s just the beginning. The mayor is also adding digital nomads to the mix with special rental deals. Here’s the contact site.

The entire island of Sardinia has a program to lure permanent residents to relocate there with a 15,000 euro stipend to move to a village with 3,000 or fewer residents. It’s generously funded by the Italian government, which is putting up 45 million euros to cover 3,000 grants. Here are the details in Italian.

Oyace

This alpine village in the far north of Italy is in the mountains (at 4,500 feet in altitude) near the border with Switzerland, about half way between Turin and Geneva. The good news is, Oyace (OH-yass) is late to the game and still has properties left. Those “disused” properties owned by local government and up for sale include a hotel. So, boom! You could have instant cash flow.

You can see the official municipality page here, which has lots of info in English.

 Patrica

 Patrica is a remote medieval village of 3,000 only about 70 kilometers south of Rome that – despite its idylic hillside location – is having little success in moving its abandoned homes. And it has quite a few … at least 40, according to a recent post on CNN.

As of March, 2024, the mayor’s 1 euro house program has moved only two units, according to the CNN post. The problem is, local law requires officials to have the permission of the owners when seizing the abandoned homes, which is a Catch-22 situation when the owners are long gone to Rome, the United States or Canada, or there are multiple claims on a property. Now the mayor, Lucio Fiordaliso, is actually trying to track owners down and negotiate either their return, or forfeiture.

Wanna take a shot at this?

Here’s all the contact information via the 1eurohouses.com website:

Mayor
Lucio Fiordaliso

Tel. 0775 80 78 21 Comune
Tel. 0775/807826 Ufficio del Sindaco
Email: [email protected]
Email secretary: [email protected]

Download the documentation to find out how to participate in the project 1 Euro Houses (Case a 1 Euro)

PATRICA-Expression of Interest-form B
PATRICA-Attachment to the expression of interest form
PATRICA – avviso pubblico CASE A UN EURO
PATRICA – ONE EURO HOUSES GUIDELINES

Pietramelara

The 1 euro house phenomenon has officially become a land rush. The medieval town of Pietramelara in Campania north of Naples has gotten 200 submissions for 10 houses since it began its program in February, 2021.

You can monitor the Pietramelara municipality website here for updates.

Pignone

Pignone stands out in the competition to attract fresh blood because of its location in the affluent northern province of L250 a Spezia, relatively close to Florence and Genoa. The over-touristed seaside town of Cinque Terre and its national park are nearby, so this entire area is one big travelogue. Still, the town/village has lost population over the past century and is down to about 500 residents. You could make it 501, but you must put down a substantial deposit to make sure you actually renovate your house.

Unlike some of the more remote villages in poorer areas, this will be a landrush. You can get all the details here.

Pizzone

This isolated mountain village – population about 270 – about 189 kilometers southeast of Rome has had a 1 euro program since 2019. The government even paid families 700 euros to help reimburse their rent and expenses in exchange for the relocation.

But, before you pack your bags, read this post on the Pulitzer Center website. “Will Paying People To Relocate Be Enough To Save Italy’s Smallest, Most Isolated Villages?” paints a picture of Pizzone as a struggling town in a scenic mountain setting … a place where locals are not particularly welcoming, and feud among themselves. Conditions aren’t great, and the infrastructure does not include gas for heating or reliable internet. But the people who have come including a young American have found what they’re looking for with or without the blessing of locals.

Pratola Peligna

In 2021, Pratola Peligna became the first town in the Abruzzo region to adopt the 1 euro method of revitalization. Even with a strategic location in the mountains, close to both Rome and the sea, Pratola Peligna’s population has dropped down to about 7,000 people from a peak of more than 13,000 back in the 1930s. Local political leaders have a plan to sell as many as 250 of the town’s 630 abandoned homes for 1 euro, according to CNN.

There’s no deposit, and Pratola Peligna officials give you six months to file a detailed renovation plan after you buy your house or face a fine.

The big selling point here is that Apennine ski resorts are close, the Adriatic an hour’s drive away and Med is about two hours away.

You can get all the 1 euro home details (in English) on the town website here.

Presicce-Acquarica

This is the latest Italian village to offer to pay you to move there, and naturally that got the attention of CNN, the BBC and every other outlet.

Presicce-Acquarica in the remote southern tip of Puglia is offering 30,000 euros. The full requirements haven’t been posted yet, so monitor the municipality website here. But from the various posts we read, the requirements include actually moving to Presicce-Acquarica, which is actually the municipality for two towns. You’d also have to buy an older home, built before 1991, according to Euronews.

Oh, and to combat the falling population, they authorities will give you 1,000 euros for each child born in Presicce-Acquarica. From everything we’ve read, this is quite a beautiful area near the sea. But, Presicce is literally the last significant village in the heel of the boot, at least an hour’s drive from any major city and five hours from Naples.

Sambuca

Sambuca is back in the headlines. This time, putting another batch of 12 houses on the market in early summer, 2024. But with inflation and the huge success of Sambuca’s initiatives, the starting price has skyrocketed to 3 euros, not 2.

This Sicilian town has probably sold more houses in the past years than any other in Italy – an estimated 250 buildings. The village has received 110,000 requests from foreigners interested in buying one of the first batch of 16 homes. So in light of that success, Sambuca moved to Phase III. Here’s the detailed CNN post.

Sambuca is just a few miles from the sea and the capital city of Palermo in one of the most spectacular parts of Sicily, with its own cuisine and quality wines. Which is what we’re all after, right?

Deputy Mayor  Giuseppe Cacioppo told local media the first effort attracted precisely the people Sambuca needs to be “interesting” including  journalists, writers, two actresses and a singer. Weirdly, most of the people who’ve arrived are from the U.S., creating a “Little America,” with most residents now speaking some English with a Sicilian accent, even the old folks, according to CNN.

The terms of the first round were pretty simple: Newcomers had to spend 15,000 to renovate each home, along with 5,000 euros on deposit until those renovations are complete. You can get more details here on the Sambuca de Sicilia city government website.

CTV News in Canada has a great post about Sambuca that illustrates how well these schemes can work, especially when you have a beautiful town in the Med.

San Giovanni Lipioni

This town with one of the oldest populations in Italy just made the New York Times with its effort to attract young people. With only 137 full-time residents, San Giovanni Lipioni’s administrators have unveiled a new effort to restore and sell old, abandoned houses.

That effort is on-going, and we counted 51 houses for sale … most empty, and most in need of restoration. Also, the NYTimes post isn’t the glowing advertisement you might expect, which is surprising for a town in the mountains of Abruzzo, and a short drive from the Adriatic. The bottom line is, the young Italians lured there by the program are not staying, giving up and moving off to Bologna, where the jobs are. Still, if you want solitude in a beautiful setting, this could be the place for you.

Santa Fiora

In a twist on the 1 euro home concept, a number of Italian villages will subsidize your rent for a few months if you move there as a remote worker. Though ultimately, the goal is to get you to buy and stay. The town of Santa Fiora in Tuscany – population 2,500 – has built a sophisticated website to tout its program, billed “Live in the Country.” The website shows some of the apartments available, which average about 70m2, or 750 square feet, with the rent subsidy of about 200 euros per month, up to six months. The tag line for the effort is, “Live in the village for a short time or forever!” adding that buying a house in Santa Flora is even smarter. So the strategy is to get you to come, then seduce you into staying.

The website features all of the services in the community as well as the fact that Santa Flora has broadband. By the way, you have to prove to Santa Flora officials that you have a job and will actually be working, not vacationing.

Sant’Elia a Pianisi

Sant’Elia a Pianisi in the region of Molise has put eight houses up for sale for 1 euro. This is middle-of-nowhere Italy, but it’s hilly and beautiful and not that far to Rome, about a 3-hour drive, and a 2-hour drive to Naples. So, central Italy.

Per the usual, there are a number of requirements to get one of these – let’s just say it – broken down structures. You have to put up a 5,000-euro deposit before work can start to make sure you finish. You’ll have to present a renovation plan to local officials, then the work must be finished in three years or you lose your deposit.

You can see the houses here on the Sant’Elia a Pianisi municipality website.

Santo Stefano di Sessanio

Is it just us, or is this turning into a bidding war for people to repopulate and rehabilitate Italian mountain villages? Take for example Santo Stefano di Sessanio, a walled medieval village in Abruzzo in east-central Italy about a two-hour drive from Rome. The town just announced a scheme (or a plan, in Euro-speak) to not just pay people to come and start a business, but to sweeten the pot by giving them a place to stay at a nominal fee to get them started. This is geared toward young families, with eligible adults 40 year old or younger willing to start a business relevant to the needs of the village, then stick around for five years.

Santo Stefano’s town council will pay eligible aspiring residents a monthly fee for three years, up to a maximum of 8,000 euros per year along with a seed investment up to 20,000 euros to start a business, according to CNN.

We’ve never quite figured out where the money comes from as these struggling areas and empty villages (Santo Stefano has about 70 permanent residents) compete for people. But this plan seems legit as media outlets from CNN to Vanity Fair have have scrutinized their proposal and about 1,500 people have applied since the scheme launched in 2020.

Taranto

In early 2020, Taranto got a lot of publicity from the U.S. to Australia as the first real city to jump on the 1-euro bandwagon. This industrial seaside commercial center near Brindisi on the bottom of the Italian boot is trying to reinvent itself. This includes boosting the population of its neglected Old City above the current 3,000 citizens. So city fathers/mothers are selling five properties in the center.

That was just the first round. Now Taranto has a far more ambitious offering – nine buildings with 50 units. Okay, most aren’t in great shape, but some do have sea views. And the city’s rules and requirements are reasonable, letting new owners live there only part-time, renting out their properties or using them as B&Bs.

You can see all the details here on the municipality’s website.

By the way, Taranto is getting a lot of funding that will update the steel plant that’s its main employer as well as rebuild sections of the city. You can see a .pdf of the plans here, which are in Italian. But you can see physically where the improvements will happen. This is quite an attractive city with a fortress and lots to do and see. So if joining the Village People has little appeal for you, the bright lights of the big-ish city are also an option.

Teora

In southern Italy’s Campania region near the Amalfi coast, the mountain village of Teora is offering to pickup most of the rent for families with children in a tax-free gambit to attract new residents. In the program, here are 100 houses available for 200 euros rent per month … but the city picks up 150 euros of you rent if you bring at least one child. If your family likes it, you can buy a house starting for as little as 20,000 euros, according to Forbes.

Trevinano

Trevinano is suddenly famous/infamous for the 20 million euro windfall bestowed on this village of 142 souls by the European Union Recovery Fund. About 150 kilometers north of Rome, this hamlet is the biggest beneficiary of about 1 billion in EU funding meant to revive 200 villages on the brink of becoming ghost towns, according to the Guardian. Part of the 20 million is earmarked for restoring houses for tourists. There’s no formal application process yet.

Troina

With so much competition for investors, it was inevitable that a mayor would decide to create a fund to help new residents renovate their 1 euro home. That mayor is Sebastiano Fabio Venezia and the town is Troina near Monaco, ranked as one of the loveliest villages in Italy.

You have to check out the Troina website for this, which also lists habitable houses for sales. This is the most complete website we’ve seen and written in flawless English. That’s because Venezia assembled a multi-lingual team for the effort including renovation consultants, according to CNN.

The drill is pretty standard up to a point – buyers put down a 5,000 euro deposit that gets refunded once renovations are complete. But, the city is willing to subsidize buyers with 15,000 euro renovation credits and another 10,000 if you add solar panels and other renewable energy options.

Of all these listings, we have to say Troina seems to have the best chance of attracting a critical mass of professionals and artists and breaking out as a tourist destination.

Tuscany

Yes, you read that right .. the whole region of Tuscany. Well, at least the higher elevations. A new scheme called “Residency in the Mountains 2024” offers to pay you between 10,000 euros and 30,000 euros to buy a house in an this scenic area where people pay serious money to vacation. The catch (and there’s always a catch when governments are paying you to do something) is that you have to move to a designated mountain town, of which there are 119 to choose from, according to media reports.

There are other clauses including the requirments that applicants have to be Italian citizens or citizens of another EU country, or non-EU citizens holding a residence permit lasting no less than 10 years. So, this is open to expats, theoretically.

You can apply here until 27 July, so don’t dilly-dally. The “Residency in the Mountains website is very well-done and contains a lot of info, so pour yourself a cup of coffee before diving in.

Zungoli

This village about 100 kilometers east of Naples in Southern Italy has a section of the city’s website dedicated to showcasing 1 euro deals on homes. Village officials have put together a volunteer committee to help out potential buyers. And there are more houses for sale in 2024.

Greece

With an aging population, it figures Greece would start offering programs to revitalize rural areas. But what’s going on in Antikythera is different. Local officials and the Greek Orthodox Church have come together to offer new residents about 500 euros per month to move to this remote island,  a two-hour ferry ride from Crete, and four hours from Laconia on the mainland.

Media reports differ on Antikythera, some reporting the majority of the handful of residents are researchers at a station monitoring global warming. Others say that most residents left because there’s literally nothing there except one store though there is apparently a Airbnb.

Here’s the Antikythera government website if you want to get in touch.

France

France, like Italy and Spain, has seen its population shift from rural to urban, leaving many areas in the center and west underpopulated.

So, like Italy and France, it’s launching initiatives to change that. For example the city of Saint-Amand Montrond due south of Paris is offering this 2-story, 828-square-foot house with two bedrooms for 1 euro. You can view it through 15 June, 2024.

BOURMONT

In France, affordable properties bring creative class to villages

Alice Verberne, a long-time expat from Louisiana in the United States, bought a house in the hilltop village of Bourmont in rural France years ago for a few thousand euros, a large house she’s restored as her weekend getaway and as a vacation rental.

Alice posted about a phenomenon unique to the less popular parts of France – heirs who prefer new homes surrendering unwanted old inherited properties to the local municipalities. Of course, the municipalities don’t have resources to maintain, much less restore, these old houses, and are more than willing to offload them onto bargain property hunters. Because newcomers can help revive foundering villages. Alice is working to revive Bourmont as a colony for creative types and craftspeople.

In the years since she bought her house, Alice has become a great resource for other expats looking for that dream house in a bucolic location. She has the trust of locals including the real estate agents, city officials and property owners who can get shoppers into homes that aren’t open to everyone, including properties owned by the municipality.

Just in the past two years, we’ve chatted with her repeatedly, and the overall impression we get is of a burgeoning trend – artists, successful entrepreneurs, expats and a few speculators from The Valley snapping up undervalued homes in her regions.

The majority of those buying in her village of Bourmont are Dutch professionals. They’re acquiring houses and fixing them up mostly as vacation homes in a scenic area two hours from Luxembourg and Basel and three hours from Paris, Geneva and Lyon.

Because there are no hotels for 50 miles, many of the homes are being repurposed into Airbnb properties, Alice said.

While there are no 1 euro deals as in Italy, houses in the Bourmont area range from “spectacular” chateaus for 100,000 euros to 5,000 euro dirt-floor shacks. Alice’s role is as a consultant who can bring in the local craftsmen to do the work. The French-speaking American can also introduce you to her local French friends, who all have the same goal – transforming the town.

“We want to get the houses in the hands of people who want them.”

That runs counter to some of the neighbors, who prefer to see other French people come down from Paris to buy. But Alice sees outsiders and their dreams of owning a piece of paradise as vital to the revival of this authentic corner of France Profonde.

And that’s what’s powering the revival of forgotten villages.

See more posts here about Bourmont from Dispatches’ archives.

Japan

Vice and other news outlets have posts about Japan, which has a rapidly shrinking population, trying to reverse the rural-to-urban exodus. There are an estimated 10 million akiya, or abandoned houses, across Japan. Outside mega-cities such as Tokyo and Yokohama, much of Japan is empty. So since 2018, Japanese policymakers have been offering properties for next to nothing in an attempt to revive villages. They’re making available millions in renovation grants, as well as relaxing zoning restrictions and sometimes even giving away old buildings for free.

Otherwise, homes are going for the yen equivalent of about 500 euros. Here’s the weird thing about Japan – the country has more architects than any other. Why? Because the Japanese don’t really value old houses. They tend to tear them down and build something new.

Okay … here’s where ugly reality rears its head. Hardly anyone in Japan speaks anything other than Japanese. We know. We’ve been there. Outside of Tokyo and the big cities, the street signs – all like five of them – are in Kanji. Each prefecture has its own rules and requirements to get in on this deal, with many favoring young families who’ll stick around. But, getting a long-stay visa is not impossible, depending on your country of origin. If you love Japanese culture like my daughter, this could be your shot at immersion.

You can see a list of free homes here.

Check out the vid above for a super-detailed account of acquiring an abandoned house, and this recent New York Times post about an Australian coupe who bought and restored a gorgeous home.

Here’s the vid:

Finally, CNN has a new post, “How easy is it to buy and restore an aging countryside home in Japan?” that details the efforts of some Japanese partners to locate and restore an affordable home in rural an hour outside Tokyo. (Spoiler: It wasn’t all that easy.)

– Terry Boyd

Portugal

Unlike Italy or Spain, Portugal doesn’t have formal programs to sell abandoned houses and rejuvenate its empty villages, which are mostly in the center of the country. That said, you can buy a house and property in rural Portugal for pennies on the euro for what you’d pay anywhere in the Netherlands or other countries where population pressures are pushing up housing costs.

The least expensive houses in Portugal are in the municipality of Fornos de Algodres, in Guarda, where the median prices in 2021 did not exceed 169 euros per meter square. Compare that to Lisbon at about 3,500 euros per meter square, the Netherlands’ average per square meter rate of 7,000 euros, or even the United Kingdom, at 21,000 euros per meter square.

The least expensive villages and towns in Portugal include:

Fornos de Algodres – 169 euros per meter2

• Sernancelhe – 190 euros per meter2

Vila Flor – 201 euros per meter2

Vila Flor actually has a programs to attract new residents, entrepreneurs and investments, so check out their website.

Spain

Spain is another European country with too few people living in too big a space. So, there are abandoned villages in multiple areas, some of which you can buy.

In the area around Burgos in north-central Spain are several villages for sale. A Dutch couple bought a village with 62 houses and a church for about 340,000 euros. That works out to more than 1 euro per house, but you get the idea.

There are apparently 50 more houses in the ghost towns in the surrounding area.

•••

The big news is that Spain is the National Network of Welcoming Villages, a network of about 30 villages trying to lure digital nomads with work spaces and high-speed Internet. And each village has a formal host for newbies. This is the first step in luring people to relocate permanently. This is a major non-profit initiative, so check out the details on the website. El Pais also has a good post about this.

In remote Spain, there are an estimated 3,000 abandoned villages, with an average of one village per week joining their ranks, according the BBC and other media outlets. British expat Mark Adkinson founded Galacian Country Homes, which lists affordable properties (which is sort of a relative concept) across northern Spain starting at about 30,000 euros and going to well above 1 million euros.

In Spain, the approach is different than in Italy, with the trend toward selling entire villages. A group of friends bought a village, which they’re restoring with plans to resell some of the properties.

• The New York Times has the best post – “Looking for a Place in the Sun? How About an Abandoned Spanish Village” – about the Spanish approach. And the options are unlimited.

From the NYTimes post:

The going rate for a ruined hamlet is now close to €100,000. If you’re feeling flush, an entire village of 75 homes, all abandoned during the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939, will set you back €425,000. For a couple of million, you could even purchase a medieval hilltop settlement with its own fortress.

That post includes references to both Galacian Country Homes and Aldeas Abandonadas Real Estate website, which has all sorts of listings ranging from broken-down hovels to fortresses.

• The abandoned village of Barcena de Bureba near Burgos in north-central Spain is on sale for 350,000 euros. The village has 50 properties – mostly stone houses – for a total of 25,000 meters2 (250,000 square feet). Oh, and you get a church. The Idealista real estate website has photos, and some of the houses appear to be repairable.

Salto de Castro, in north-western Spain came on the market in late 2022. For 260,000 euros, the price of a small apartment in our HQ city of Eindhoven, you can buy the entire village. That includes 44 homes, a hotel, a church, a school, a municipal swimming pool and an abandoned civil guard barracks, according to the BBC.

The catch? This – like so many give-away deals – is in the middle of nowhere. On the border with Portugal in the province of Zamora, Salto de Castro is a three-hour drive west of Madrid.

You can see the details here on Idealista.

MORE SPANISH VILLAGES OFFERING CASH TO MOVE THERE

In 2021, Spanish officials started buying into what their Italian counterparts’ approach of luring people to empty villages by, well, waving the possibility of euros in front of them.

• Ponga in remote and mountainous northwest Spain (not too far from the ocean and at least one stunning national park) offers families 3,000 euros to help with the transition. Those families could get another 3,000 euros for each baby born in the town. You can email here for more info: [email protected]

Idealista has a fairly comprehensive list of the Spanish villages with some sort of initiative to attract people, specifically young families with children.

• Rubiá is offering expats 150 euros per week to live there in Galacia, in remote northwestern Spain. Here are some contact numbers for the municipality.

Here’s a website that curates affordable properties across Spain.

Sweden

Boy, you know declining/aging populations are a problem when Sweden starts an initiative to basically pay you to move there. The Swedish city of Görtene is offering land for just a 1 krona (0.08 euros) per square meter. We figured Görtene would be up in the Arctic Circle, but it’s actually about 200 miles west of Stockholm. And get this … it’s a few miles from Lake Vänern, the largest lake in Europe, and close to the Norway border and Olso. UNESCO World Heritage sites are also nearby – the Platåbergens Geopark and the Mount Kinnekulle Biosphere, according to CNN. So this is prime real estate. It’s just that Swedes have all migrated to the cities, just like in every other European country. And the post-WWII population boom has long since faded.

The catch is, you have to build a house on your cheap land within 24 months of purchase, and in Sweden, that can be pretty expensive. And of course once you’re settled in, you get to pay Swedish taxes.

The first phase of this program has ended, but resumes on 7 August, 2024. You can see the very detailed program website here. And here’s the email for more info: [email protected]

Switzerland

Even the Swiss are getting in on this.

• Monti Sciaga, near the Italian border, is offering nine properties for 1 Swiss franc each. The good news … the buildings are all hooked to the town water supply, which isn’t always the case. And this mountain town has a lake view. The bad news? This is one of the most remote parts of Switzerland, which could also be the good news if you’re seeking peace and quiet.

• The remote village of Albinen is offering families the equivalent of 50,000 euros to move there, but you must be a Swiss citizen or married to one. And there are lots more caveats, which you can see here.

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Co-CEO of Dispatches Europe. A former military reporter, I'm a serial expat who has lived in France, Turkey, Germany and the Netherlands.

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