Meet the buyers who bought €1 homes in Italy: 'I could never do it in London'

The scheme to sell houses for 1 euro in Italy is a dream come true. Introduced in 2008, it was conceived to combat urbanization in rural towns by revitalizing them with new residents. Abandoned private homes, of which there are about 2 million, according to Maurizio Berti, owner of the Case a 1 Euro consultancy website, are sold for the symbolic price of 1 euro, with buyers often obliged to restore the property and encouraged to move to Italy.

How the scheme started

According to Berti, the scheme began attracting significant interest in early 2019 when CNN published an article about the launch in Ollolai, Sardinia. That same day, the number of users on Berti's website increased 1,000-fold, causing the server to crash for two consecutive days. In the first two weeks of February 2019, he received 5,000 emails from stakeholders.

Of course, the scheme is still popular, with more than 60 towns now offering €1 homes across Italy, from mountain villages in the north to sunny Sicily in the south, which has the biggest share. Berti estimates that around 1,000 homes have been sold so far, although an exact count is difficult to make and he emphasizes that this is not the best way to gauge the success of the project. "A house for 1 euro is not a real estate project. It's a cultural project that aims to show the culture of abandoned villages in the Italian hinterland. It's not just selling houses."

TV shows and timelines

Most of the buyers are foreigners who see some romance in their efforts. In January, the BBC revealed an eight-part documentary show in which Amanda Holden and Alan Carr teamed up to renovate two dilapidated houses for €1 in Salemi, Sicily. The show shows shots of the glistening coastline, daily aperitivo and traditional Sicilian cuisine, their house (now on the market for €145,000) fulfills the fantasy of the €1 house. And, thanks to a BBC film crew, the ambitious renovation is completed in just one short summer.

"I can tell you now: it's absolutely impossible. You can't even get permission to do it at a time like this," says Sam Wilson, owner of Smart Move Italy, a company that helps English-speaking buyers move to Italy. "In fact, it takes a long time - well over a year if you have the money to do it."

So is the €1 house scheme too good to be true? And does it still work after 15 years? We contacted UK buyers to find out.

"The €1 house scheme brought me to this city"Danny McCubbin, 58, bought his €1 house in 2019. Originally from Australia, he lived in London and worked with Jamie Oliver for 17 years. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he planned to follow a slower lifestyle. When he saw an ad for a scheme in Mussomeli, Sicily, it was the catalyst he needed.

McCubbin bought a ticket and looked around at a few run-down houses before he was shown an old farmhouse on the outskirts of town. Although it had been abandoned for 15 years, it was in better condition and, most importantly, had an adjoining stable that he was going to turn into a community kitchen.

McCubbin paid €1 for the house, plus €500 to his estate agency and €3,000 to a notary. While waiting for a two-month renovation to reinforce the floors, remodeling, replacing wiring and installing a new kitchen and bathroom, McCubbin organized a fundraiser for the community kitchen, raising more than £24,000.

Intending to move in February 2020, the pandemic delayed McCubbin until December of that year. When he finally arrived in Mussomeli, builders were in short supply, doing €1 home renovations and eco-friendly property customizations encouraged by a government incentive program.

McCubbin was offered to rent an old store space for €150 a month in the town's main square, and in July 2021 he opened The Good Kitchen, providing food for those in need from products rescued from local supermarkets. Ultimately, he decided it was the best home for the initiative.

"It was better that we were in the town square as we had a lot more interaction. My €1 house was on the edge of the city and not visible from the street, and I wondered if it was even worth renovating, given that we had already launched a project in the town square," says McCubbin.

"We decided not to go ahead with the renovations because it was better for the charity."

McCubbin sold his house for €1 back to the agency, who in turn sold it again. He originally bought the house next door for €8,000 (plus a €5,000 renovation budget) and has since decided to split his time between a small apartment in Mussomeli, which he bought at a discounted price from a local family, and a farm on the coast. McCubbin now has Italian accommodation and The Good Kitchen cooks for around 50 people a week, providing over 3,000 meals in its first year.

"The value of the house has gone up. It's a different situation now."Alex Stubbs found herself in a similar situation after the pandemic. Like Holden and Carr, she bought two neighboring houses in Mussomeli for €1 in 2019, intending to turn them into one large house. However, after the pandemic and Italy's environmental promotion program, it would cost "much more" to build than she originally thought and she had to put her plans on hold - for now.

"When I came back last year, it was absolutely impossible for me to find anyone to take on my renovation. You were beating your head against the wall," Stubbs says. "I decided to put it off and wait until the green incentive program was over. But in the years since my purchase, the global material costs have increased, so the estimate I got for that day doesn't even come close to the actual costs. It's a very different situation."

However, Stubbs still plans to continue her renovation. Living in Norfolk, she intends to create a social enterprise in Mussomeli and share the space with others, rather than using it as a private home. "I liked this pair of houses because I had a vision of what they could become," she says. "I'll have to decide when I go back and reconsider everything."

The reality of the scheme for buyers

As Stubbs and McCubbin's experience shows, buying and restoring a house for 1 euro is not a quick process. "Like everything in Sicily, you have to be very patient," says McCubbin.

"There was a bit of a gold rush after the pandemic when people wanted to buy a cheap house and open a B&B or Airbnb and make money from it. People were looking for bargains, but they're not there anymore.... I think people have become more serious about what they buy." - he says.

The €1 house scheme is not designed for quick profits, Berti argues - it's for people who want to move to Italy and discover the local culture. "My idea is a long-term project. I'm not interested in people buying lots of houses, restoring them and selling them. "The right way is to attract people who are interested in coming to Italy to live here - on vacation, in retirement; they want to stay in Italy and finish their lives here."

For Wilson, who meets a lot of hopeful foreigners, it's important to manage expectations. "Romance definitely drives people forward," she says. "There are a lot of dreamers of a €1 house. Most people come for the scheme because that's their budget."

Wilson meets buyers with low budgets (less than €30,000) as well as those with a bit more money (between €50,000 and €100,000). "I think when people realize that the cost of some properties in Italy is so incredibly affordable compared to where they live, it's pretty hard to turn down," Wilson says. "But there's a reason why these properties are worth what they're worth."

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