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The Italian towns selling houses for €1

theguardian.com

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Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#111

Post by amluto »

thefz wrote: post #53
akudha wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might still be appealing to young people, especially those who do not like the noise/pollution of big cities and can't afford them?

Do you have any idea of the thermal inertia of a castle? How are you going to heat it to an acceptable living temperature?

Thermal inertia can be a benefit: while it largely prevents you from benefiting from turning off the heat when you’re not home, it smooths out diurnal fluctuations and lets your control just the average temperature. So your windows can provide lots of solar gain, for example, without overheating you during the daytime.

The real problems are that stone is a terrible insulator, that single-pane windows are even worse, and that air leakage in old structures is incredibly wasteful.

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#112

Post by robocat »

illiac786 wrote: post #100
robocat wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It is well established that high-power microwave radiation can induce cataracts via its thermal effects"

But the previous comment said “low power”?

The point is that if you are feeling actual thermal effects then you're probably in the danger zone of high power. They implied the effect was thermal "to make rooms feel much warmer", "like stepping into sunlight"; without clarification from them then my assumption is good that they were not talking about milliwatts.

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#114

Post by segmondy »

chirau wrote: post #11

Baltimore, MD has $1 houses as well. They expect you to a certain number of upgrades on it within a specific time. Some say it is actually more expensive in the overall analysis than buying a regular house.

Yup, you have to look at the total cost, and also consider things like safety.

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#115

Post by mikestew »

al_borland wrote: post #72
guywithahat wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an irony in that there is often a regulatory issue with the local government, not just some "shortage of humans". The same thing happened in one of the most populated regions in the US. The area between Boston/NYC and DC, containing Baltimore, was once a city of a million people. It contains an underground subway and was once referred to as the Paris of America, however through regulation and unions it became…

> was once referred to as the Paris of America Interesting. I heard that Detroit was known as the Paris of the West. Looking it up, it seems this was a fairly common phrase applied to many cities over the years. [0] Detroit also has had $1 homes, but as with everywhere else, that isn’t the end of the story. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_of_the_West

Looking it up, it seems this was a fairly common phrase applied to many cities over the years.

It’s not like there was a “Paris of the…” certification process. If Detroit was, it was well before my first visit 50 years ago. As another commenter alluded to, it is an aspirational marketing phrase. Like how Redmond, WA claims to be the “bicycle capital of the Northwest” without having a single protected bike lane.

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#116

Post by guywithahat »

al_borland wrote: post #72
guywithahat wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an irony in that there is often a regulatory issue with the local government, not just some "shortage of humans". The same thing happened in one of the most populated regions in the US. The area between Boston/NYC and DC, containing Baltimore, was once a city of a million people. It contains an underground subway and was once referred to as the Paris of America, however through regulation and unions it became…

> was once referred to as the Paris of America Interesting. I heard that Detroit was known as the Paris of the West. Looking it up, it seems this was a fairly common phrase applied to many cities over the years. [0] Detroit also has had $1 homes, but as with everywhere else, that isn’t the end of the story. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_of_the_West

I would argue unions in particular destroyed Detroit, it's arguably even less complicated than Baltimore.

I think there was ~13 major auto factories in Detroit at one point, and what would happen is when the UAW would protest, they'd leave one factory and go to another, more important factory (often wherever they were producing engines) to apply pressure. The result is auto makers were forced to build new factories outside of Detroit, first in other MI cities and eventually in other states and countries. Now I think there's only ~three factories in Detroit, including for products that aren't really that exciting like spark plugs.

I didn't realize so many cities were referred to as an american Paris though, that is interesting. It was, certainly however, a beautiful city at one point.

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#117

Post by Nasrudith »

lifestyleguru wrote: post #95
skrlet13 wrote: post #71

i guess this could somewhat? help homeless people. They can not be accused of loitering if they own that land... Better than getting a fine for sleeping on the street? Having an address to your name helps a lot to get a job (classism is very harsh and bad, society is very cruel to homeless people)

There are absolutely no jobs nearby or even within 6 hours commute to these "€1 houses". Probably no running water in summer as well.

There is an irony about cheap real estate. If you aren't independently wealthy chances are that you probably can't afford it anyway as the whole reason it could get so depressed is a lack of available nearby income streams.

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#118

Post by xg15 »

khazhoux wrote: post #88
munificent wrote: post #48

There's a subtext here that I think is telling. A lot of people feel a deep-seated unsease in their life. We're a couple of generations in to advertising and consumerism taking over the world and when people are presented with a problem, they often can't imagine any way to solve it except to buy a thing . Modern society has trained people to limit their sense of agency down to only purchasing decisions. Then people a…

I think you started on right track but reached a very wrong conclusion. * Deep-seated unease: Yes * No way to solve it except "buy a thing": No Living in an Italian town is obviously a romantic escapist fantasy. No more Teams meetings. Instead you just pick up your daily loaf of bread from the baker down the twisty walkway. All your mundane troubles are gone.

The irony is that the Teams meetings will follow you, but with some luck, you can at least do them from antique balcony with an espresso in hand.

Maybe that hints that the sense of unease is coming from the working culture? If your job feels draining and stressful, neither feels like it advances you, nor society, nor has any kind of endgame, it makes sense that it will lead to increasing unhappiness and escapist fantasies.

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#119

Post by ewoodrich »

magicalhippo wrote: post #108
devilbunny wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One very interesting idea I read about long ago was the use of low-power microwave emitters to make rooms feel much warmer - the author of the piece described the feeling as "like stepping into sunlight" when the emitters turned on. Makes the 2.4 GHz spectrum pretty unusable, though.

I read about how they tried this in the 60s. They quickly found out it doesn't work well. Microwaves heats up liquid water so the people got nice and warm, but not any of the furniture and such. So the floor would be cold to walk on, the sofa would be cold to sit down in and so on.

Not the same effect exactly but I live in an 70s era apartment with heated ceilings in a couple rooms (which I didn’t even know was a thing).

It was a similar experience where initially it seemed great in the winter how quickly a room felt “warm”. But quickly you notice the air itself isn’t as warm which isn’t very pleasant and wait, I’m not feeling “warm” anymore I’m feeling “very hot”.

I basically gave up using them after the first winter except turned up sub-perceptually at like 25% just to add a bit of heat input to reduce the days where I need a space heater.

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#120

Post by ta12653421 »

cloudbonsai wrote: post #107
TrackerFF wrote: post #19

I come from a small rural place in Norway, at the lowest point the municipalities started selling old houses for next to nothing, as in equivalent to $100. No strings attached. But of course, the person living there would have to pay (equivalent to) $1000-$1500 / year on fees related to water, waste management, cleaning of chimney, etc. And you'd probably like to have the house insured. And these weren't nice new hou…

In Japan, we have a special term for real estate that has become a financial burden on their owners: "負動産" (fudosan, negative real assets). It's such a huge social problem that people choose not to accept the inheritance if it involves old properties in rural areas.

May i ask, is there also a dedicated term for "positive real asset" in Japanese?
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