A Town Just Over an Hour from Rome Is Selling €1 Homes
Incredibly cheap houses, priced at $1 or €1, have been a big trend in recent year in several countries in Europe and especially in Italy. It often sounds like a great deal, but one of the main downsides is the location.
Most of the small towns that offer these houses for almost free, are away from big cities and hours away from a major airport. However, a tiny town just over an hour away from Rome has jumped in on the dollar home trend.
Maenza has become the first town in Rome’s Latium region to begin selling homes for just €1. It is located high up on the wild Lepini hills south of the capital. Dozens of abandoned stone dwellings are available for sale.
The Rome city center and Fiumicino International Airport are within a 90 minutes drive from Maenza. The nearest beach is about 30 minutes away. Some of Latium’s most stunning seaside locations are a stone’s throw away, including Terracina, Sabaudia, Sperlonga and Gaeta.
“We’re taking it one step at a time. As original families get in touch and hand over to us their old houses, we place these on the market through specific public notices on our website to make it all very transparent,” Sperduti tells CNN. he says that his town, unlike others, isn’t offering €1 homes to halt dwindling population numbers. Instead it’s a move to block realtors and speculators from grabbing the old houses to flip them at a profit.
Those who manage to buy a €1 house in Maenza must commit to renovating it within three years and deposit guarantee of about $5,800 which will be returned once works are completed.
Most houses on sale date back to the 1700s. The town has narrow streets and alleyways that are filled with history. There’s a tiny piazza as well where residents come together. There are two castles, a hotel, coffee shop, restaurants, bakery, supermarket, post office and some other government buildings.
And as you would expect, there’s good food. Local delicacies include cherry jams, syrups, liqueurs, honey and crespelle, a local delicacy. These are fried crispy golden dough strips covered in sugar and flavored with cinnamon, lemon, raisins and pine seeds.
So who’s moving there?
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Those “homes” are collapsing wrecks and it will cost a person quite literally thousands of Euros to rebuild and certify and electrify, etc. They are not currently livable.
I don’t quite understand how this blocks “realtors and speculators from grabbing the old houses to flip them at a profit”…