(Not) Such a Bargain

The persistent, perplexing infatuation with €1 houses

No, it’s not a €1 house, but you get the idea. Photo mine.

Cari amici,

It’s been going on since 2019, this scheme of €1 houses for sale in Italy, and the romantic fascination, the temptation to buy “la dolce vita” at a price so cheap, persists, as evidenced by a recent article in Perugia Today. And frankly, I don’t understand it.

The motive for selling houses for €1 apiece, in communities in Abruzzo, Basilicata, Liguria, Le Marche, Molise, Piemonte, Puglia, Sicilia, Toscana, and Valle d’Aosta, is well intentioned and understandable—these communities are suffering the dire effects of depopulation. Some of them, perhaps, are approaching ghost-town status. But lift the veil of romanticism and thrift and you’ll find that the houses for sale aren’t quite the bargain they seem.

I’m not talking about cost, because in some cases these homes can be made habitable, comfortable, even luxurious for a decent price. Though it’s baffling why anyone would want to take on the risk and nearly certain compromises (we’ll get to those in a minute) of renovating what is, in some cases, nearly rubble, when for the same end price a house could be purchased in a town that isn’t on its last legs.

For the most part, it’s not Italians who are interested in these houses; instead, as evidenced by several articles I’ve read and by the many social media posts I’ve seen on this topic, the people salivating at the prospect are Americans and other non-Italians. So let me, as I love to do, play devil’s advocate here. I don’t want to destroy anyone’s dream of living in Italy; I just think that the €1 house program isn’t the way to achieve it.

Don’t get me wrong—I’d love to see these towns and villages come back to life. But I’d also like them to remain Italian. Which brings me to point number 1, which I think is important enough to stand alone in an argument against foreign influx into these places.

1. Living in not-Italy

These houses are located in dying towns. Because many of the buyers tend to be foreigners, anyone who makes such a purchase because they want to live in Italy will have made a very big mistake. They’ll be living in Little America, or Little England, or Little Melting Pot of Non-Italians. Because a town populated by mostly foreigners is not Italian. It won’t have the character and customs, the traditions and habits, the language and attitudes that are found in Italian communities.

One such Little America is the town of Sambuca di Sicilia, in the province of Agrigento, where, according to an NPR article, at least 26 houses were offered at €1 or €2 each. American actor Lorraine Bracco, of The Sopranos fame, purchased one of the houses and made a reality show about the renovation, no doubt giving many viewers a false sense of possibility. (Somehow I doubt money was an object in this case.)

(Can I be snide? Because when I read that article I laughed, nastily, when Bracco said, “The people who built this house—God bless them—they were incredible artists, they did everything by hand. There was no sheetrock.” Excuse me—sheetrock? Had she never been to Italy?)

Bracco does say in the article that the town has shops, specifically cheese, hardware, and grocery stores (see no. 2, below), so I guess it still has a pulse. Even so, the Perugia Today story says it’s “rather easy to come across a foreign accent” there, so I stand by my opinion that such towns don’t give you a true Italian experience. It’d be like living in Piazza Navona in Roma, but instead of tourists it’s the residents who don’t speak Italian or have a clue what the Giorno di San Stefano is all about.

2. No bar, no post office, no nothing

Because these are dying towns, they tend to lack services. Okay, maybe there’s a bar, but even some living small towns I’ve been in don’t have much more than that. I know people who have to drive 20 minutes to find a pasticceria, an alimentari (small grocery store), a ferramenta (hardware store), and so on. And if you think it’d be easy to hop a bus to do so, think again. It’s not unusual to find places where there’s one inconveniently timed bus a day, with limited or no options for a return trip.

I’m not saying living in such small places is bad. These towns and villages have charm, access to nature, maybe even peace and quiet. I get it. My point is that you’ll need to add the purchase of a car to your €1 price tag, along with the personal cost of inconvenience and oodles of time spent doing something that, in many, many towns and cities, can be done with a 10-minute walk or bus ride.

Don’t forget to think about the availability (or lack thereof) of vital services such as doctors, clinics, and hospitals, not to mention notaries and other business-y types. And if your life depends on high-speed internet service, a remote mountainside town probably isn’t the best choice for you.

3. Time bomb

Most, if not all, of these deals come with a time limit, typically three years, in which the renovations must be completed. If you’re thinking, “Three years? No problem,” you’ve never lived in Italy. Because if you’ve ever tried to hire someone here—anyone, to do anything—you know your project is almost certain to take far longer than you’d hoped. I live in a decent-size city of around 160,000, and it can take a week to get a contractor or service provider to return a call. My neighbor’s planned bathroom renovation, in the works for about a year, still hasn’t happened and as far as I know there’s no fixed start date. In many cases, this is aggravating but not the end of the world. But with the €1 houses, such delays can be a death knell. What happens if you fail to meet the terms of the agreement? Maybe there’s a fine, or maybe you’d have to postpone your planned move to bella Italia, I don’t know. But such delays are rarely inconsequential.

A complicating factor for buyers without EU citizenship or a visa allowing them to stay in Italy long-term is that they will either have to try to schedule the work to be done during the 90-day periods they’re allowed to be in Italy (good luck with that) or hire someone to supervise the work in their absence. Imagine making decisions long-distance, or even having to give someone the authority to make them in your absence.

4. Hidden expenses

Buying and renovating a house means paying for more than a contractor and materials (and probably an architect); it also means ponying up for a notary, taxes, fines for existing structures or features done without permits, and (according to the Perugia Today article) a policy to guarantee purchase of the property, usually starting at €5,000. Also according to the Perugia Today article, you can expect all this to cost you at least €20,000.

Then there are any unpleasant and often costly surprises found during the course of the work, which are almost a given. Did you know you can buy a small place, possibly a renovated one, in an actual community, for less than what you’d have to fork out to fix up your fixer-upper? But hey, I understand the appeal of taking a wreck and making it into the home of your dreams.

5. You’re not alone, and that’s not a good thing

You might think that if these houses are so decrepit and in such isolated areas they’ll be yours for the asking. Not necessarily. Typically the sales are first come, first served, but if other interested parties show up within 30 days of your offer to buy, then bingo! You have competition. According to Bracco, for the initial 16 houses offered in Sambuca di Sicilia, 100,000 people from around the world sent email inquiries. Trust me, there are plenty of other eager-to-sell (but for more than €1) homeowners all over Italy who would be glad to take your money.

Am I biased? Yes.

Call me weird, but my idea of living in Italy includes having Italian neighbors and friends and needing to speak Italian in my community. And though I still fantasize about renovating a house, it’s not too likely that I’d have found the lifestyle I wanted if I’d jumped at a €1 house. (A priority for me is being able to get to Italy’s big artistic centers relatively easily.) Because, according to the Perugia Today article, even where local governments offer incentives to battle depopulation—perks like free kindergarten, access to home loans, or grants for renovating a home or starting a business—they don’t sway Italians. Italians want to live where they can find work, where there are schools and doctors and other essential services.

But for foreigners who want to retire “in Italy” [rolling my eyes] and don’t care whether their neighbors are Italian, or who don’t care if a house is in Little America because they don’t plan to live there and instead seek an investment opportunity like a B&B or a trendy albergo diffuso, the €1 houses are tempting.

I say be careful what you wish for.

Tante belle cose. Alla prossima—

Cheryl

P.S. My book! Which you can buy here or on the usual sites, or, better yet, order it from your local bookstore. Another fab option is to ask your library to stock it. If you read it and like it, please tell your friends and/or leave a few lines of praise on any bookish site. You’d be surprised how much a rating or review helps authors. Baci!