Buy a house in Italy for 1 Euro - bellissima!

photo credit: AloneInThe House

How do you define a house price crash? If prices fall 20 per cent? Or if nothing costs more than £80,000? Well in one Italian town you can pick up a villa for one Euro. That’s $1.44 or 81 English pence.

You see, in the Sicilian town of Salemi, Italy, they are struggling to give them away. Forget foreclosures, a mortgage squeeze or over-development. Here around 3,700 homes are owned by the council and not looking terribly ‘bellissimo’ thanks to an earthquake decades back.

Historic centre under threat

Many families have since moved out, prompting fears the town’s historic centre will crumble and be forgotten. So mayor Vittorio Sgarbi dreamt up the one Euro slice of extreme Italian generosity.

Buy it, get plastering, not plastered

The only problem is, anyone buying one is more likely to get handed a trowel than a set of keys. All of the homes have to be renovated in keeping with their traditional style inside two years. Something likely to involve “significant cost”, according to the BBC.

This hasn’t stopped the rich and famous from signing on the dotted line. Chairman of top Italian football side Inter Milan, Massimo Moratti, has already got one and former Genesis star Peter Gabriel is said to be interested.

Mr Sgarbi is not just an unusually open-minded local councillor either. He’s previously served in high positions in the Italian government and has a host of high-profile connections. Check out his website, www.vittoriosgarbi.it – when the man in charge has a haircut and hand gestures like that, it can’t go wrong. I’m sure there’s a Euro in the house somewhere…

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