Baltimore, MD has $1 houses as well. They expect you to a certain number of upgrades on it within a specific time. Some say it is actually more expensive in the overall analysis than buying a regular house.
> What was the catch? It seemed most municipalities required you to renovate the house within a couple of years of its purchase, and due to high levels of interest, the houses often went to auction, ultimately selling for much more than a single euro.
After that it seems there has been quite lot of uptake. But idea was always the same price is token payment, and there is requirement to repair these very old and very dilatated houses.
I come from a small rural place in Norway, at the lowest point the municipalities started selling old houses for next to nothing, as in equivalent to $100. No strings attached.
But of course, the person living there would have to pay (equivalent to) $1000-$1500 / year on fees related to water, waste management, cleaning of chimney, etc. And you'd probably like to have the house insured.
And these weren't nice new houses. Mostly shacks built right after ww2, some not having been lived in for 10-15-20 years. Complete renovation projects.
What would happen is that some people from out of town would buy a house, plan to renovate it, but then mostly do nothing. Then many would forget to pay the municipality fees, often times for years. Eventually the unpaid bills would be sent to collection agency, and then a forced sale on behalf of the creditors. But now the houses were in even worse shape, so no one would purchase them at all.
We looked into purchasing a house on the Amalfi Coast about 10 years ago. To get anything done you need permits and in order to get permits you need to bribe everyone involved. The permits are time bound and expire so you have to be ready to go when approved but the small towns don't readily have access to construction materials so in order to get materials in the time bound window you end up having to bribe a whole new set of people.
An additional benefit might be that many of these small villages have a tax advantage, created also for attracting foreigners. It is a flat fee of 7%. I cannot remember the name of this rule, but this is a link for example that I found: https://magictowns.it/the-definitive-2025-list-of-italy-7-ta...
Italian here.
This is mostly a marketing initiative.
If you buy those houses, you need to completely renew them using local companies and with a lot of regulation. You will probably spend 100k doing that.
If you buy another house, in the same village, maybe you will pay 5k but you have more freedom in the renewal process and you will end spending less.
Summary, they only sold 6 and 20 remain unsold. Most people are not serious about it because they learn they have to build a house and live in it within 2 years of the purchase (if I remember correctly).
I believe Australia also has done this for ages to try and avoid country towns dying, with mixed success.
A lot of people feel a deep-seated unsease in their life. We're a couple of generations in to advertising and consumerism taking over the world and when people are presented with a problem, they often can't imagine any way to solve it except to buy a thing.
Modern society has trained people to limit their sense of agency down to only purchasing decisions. Then people are surprised when yanking the "buy" lever over and over doesn't make them happy.
I found the author's commentary on their goals the most interesting part of the article:
"We’d spent our careers working in schools and nonprofits with young immigrants, and, ..., we had no intention of leaving a life of service behind. Above all, though, what we wanted was an environment in which we could spend a lot of time writing and afford to do it. But Ben had another non-negotiable of his own: proximity to surfing. ...but I supposed it was reasonable enough to design a dream life according to one’s actual dreams."
They wanted to go to a different country for the adventure, to write in leisure and luxury, to surf, and to spread the good news of their superior insights and upbringing to uplift the natives.
i guess this could somewhat? help homeless people. They can not be accused of loitering if they own that land... Better than getting a fine for sleeping on the street?
Having an address to your name helps a lot to get a job (classism is very harsh and bad, society is very cruel to homeless people)
> The €1 house project seems to have been the brainchild of Vittorio Sgarbi, the Italian art critic and TV personality turned mayor of the small, rapidly depopulating town of Salemi, Sicily.
Not coincidentally, that's the same guy and same town that acquired the massive film collection from legendary NYC chain Kim's Video [1], ostensibly to create a cultural hub in Salemi, but instead they let the collection rot.
There's a documentary about it [2], but it's a bit insufferable at times, and you can basically get the gist from some articles [3].
A long time ago I did some IT work for a real estate agent in the US that dealt in international properties. I was stoked on a listing he had up for a beautiful French chateau for $40k. He told me to forget it. “It’ll need completely new electrical, all new plumbing. And that might not sound so bad, but just wait till you actually try to get the work done by locals on time and on budget. It won’t happen.”
21 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 39.5 ms ] threadEdit: thanks everybody!
I bought one of Sicily's famous $1 homes and spent $446K renovating it - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42371806 - Dec 2024 (2 comments)
Italian town is struggling to sell off its empty homes for one euro - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39812671 - March 2024 (28 comments)
Old towns eager for new blood sell Italy homes for $1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29058053 - Oct 2021 (124 comments)
1-Euro Houses - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24195000 - Aug 2020 (190 comments)
We bought a $1 house in Italy. Here's what happened next - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21552701 - Nov 2019 (3 comments)
Houses at unattractive places in poor condition might actually represent a negative value.
As such, even 1 EUR houses might be severely over-valued.
It should be interesting as tax code could also take that into consideration.
> What was the catch? It seemed most municipalities required you to renovate the house within a couple of years of its purchase, and due to high levels of interest, the houses often went to auction, ultimately selling for much more than a single euro.
After that it seems there has been quite lot of uptake. But idea was always the same price is token payment, and there is requirement to repair these very old and very dilatated houses.
But of course, the person living there would have to pay (equivalent to) $1000-$1500 / year on fees related to water, waste management, cleaning of chimney, etc. And you'd probably like to have the house insured.
And these weren't nice new houses. Mostly shacks built right after ww2, some not having been lived in for 10-15-20 years. Complete renovation projects.
What would happen is that some people from out of town would buy a house, plan to renovate it, but then mostly do nothing. Then many would forget to pay the municipality fees, often times for years. Eventually the unpaid bills would be sent to collection agency, and then a forced sale on behalf of the creditors. But now the houses were in even worse shape, so no one would purchase them at all.
Eventually they'd be torn down.
It's such a huge social problem that people choose not to accept the inheritance if it involves old properties in rural areas.
Summary, they only sold 6 and 20 remain unsold. Most people are not serious about it because they learn they have to build a house and live in it within 2 years of the purchase (if I remember correctly).
I believe Australia also has done this for ages to try and avoid country towns dying, with mixed success.
A lot of people feel a deep-seated unsease in their life. We're a couple of generations in to advertising and consumerism taking over the world and when people are presented with a problem, they often can't imagine any way to solve it except to buy a thing.
Modern society has trained people to limit their sense of agency down to only purchasing decisions. Then people are surprised when yanking the "buy" lever over and over doesn't make them happy.
"We’d spent our careers working in schools and nonprofits with young immigrants, and, ..., we had no intention of leaving a life of service behind. Above all, though, what we wanted was an environment in which we could spend a lot of time writing and afford to do it. But Ben had another non-negotiable of his own: proximity to surfing. ...but I supposed it was reasonable enough to design a dream life according to one’s actual dreams."
They wanted to go to a different country for the adventure, to write in leisure and luxury, to surf, and to spread the good news of their superior insights and upbringing to uplift the natives.
Reminds me of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_savior
Having an address to your name helps a lot to get a job (classism is very harsh and bad, society is very cruel to homeless people)
Not coincidentally, that's the same guy and same town that acquired the massive film collection from legendary NYC chain Kim's Video [1], ostensibly to create a cultural hub in Salemi, but instead they let the collection rot.
There's a documentary about it [2], but it's a bit insufferable at times, and you can basically get the gist from some articles [3].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim%27s_Video_and_Music
[2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt24132144/
[3] https://news.artnet.com/art-world/kims-video-documentary-246...
I took his advice.