‘Homes for €1’ draws crowds
● Bargain hunters from Argentina to China swooped on a €1 (R16) auction and snapped up 16 abandoned Sicilian homes in a foreign buying frenzy that was heralded on Thursday as a positive invasion of a dying hilltop town.
Selling homes for token sums has become a popular, last-ditch strategy for tumbledown towns in Italy’s south, many of which are fighting depopulation and decay.
The 16 stone homes in Sambuca were put on sale in January, each for the price of an espresso, sparking a stampede of would-be buyers hoping to buy a holiday lifestyle with loose pennies and pesos.
The town council announced the auction results on Wednesday and said the successful buyers had come from the US, China, France, Britain, Russia and Argentina.
“It was an invasion — but a positive one!” said Sambuca’s deputy mayor, Giuseppe Cacioppo.
The abandoned homes were all directly owned by the municipality, which set a starting price of à1 each — with the caveat that each buyer must stump up at least à15,000 to renovate within three years, as well as hand over a refundable security deposit of à5,000.
Images showed that some of the homes appeared short on windows and other basics, with cracked façades and wonky walls. But their appeal was clear — sleepy Sambuca is just 20 minutes from the sea and about an hour’s drive from the nearest airport, with Sicily a major tourist and foodie destination.
One of a string of Italian towns seeking to lure in new life as young residents flee to the city and older ones die, Sambuca is postcard-pretty but wears signs of its abandonment.
After the house auction was featured on CNN Travel in January, Sambuca’s town council said it was inundated with about 100,000 e-mails from prospective buyers.
“Within half an hour of the article going out, we started getting tens and then hundreds of e-mails,” Cacioppo said. “They’ve come from all over the world.” The properties eventually sold for prices of between just under à1,000 and à25,000.
A further 50 properties were sold on the private market, many to foreign buyers, to capitalise on the surge in outside interest, bringing in a combined total of nearly à1m.
Though most went to individuals, one was bought by the US Discovery Channel, which intends to film the renovations in a show presented by US actor Lorraine Bracco.
Situated on a hillside in the Belice Valley in the southwest of the island, Sambuca in 2016 won the “Borgo dei Borghi” award for the most beautiful village in Italy.
But the once thriving agricultural centre has seen its fortunes dwindle and now has fewer than 6,000 inhabitants.
Within half an hour of the article going out, we started getting tens and then hundreds of e-mails
Deputy mayor Giuseppe Cacioppo