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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

#21

Post by larsiusprime »

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…

Maintenance of old crumbling European castles in inconvenient locations are also often famously bad deals for the owner.

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#22

Post by HPsquared »

arcticfox wrote: post #12
tossandthrow wrote: post #7

A core idea is that a house sells for a positive value. But that presumption is likely false. Houses at unattractive places in poor condition might actually represent a negative value. As such, even 1 EUR houses might be severely over-valued. It should be interesting as tax code could also take that into consideration.

It's interesting as a thought experiment. You can easily make any house $1 with the "right" tax code. So I'm definitely curious about the situation here.

Reminds me of the negative oil prices during lockdown.

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#23

Post by riedel »

tossandthrow wrote: post #7

A core idea is that a house sells for a positive value. But that presumption is likely false. Houses at unattractive places in poor condition might actually represent a negative value. As such, even 1 EUR houses might be severely over-valued. It should be interesting as tax code could also take that into consideration.

Why should immovable property differ from moveable property. How many things are sold for 1 EUR, just because everything else would be too difficult. Often those things have value that is only specific to the buyer and have negative value for the seller. The process for declaring something actually worthless and paying for waste removal is so much, but also gifting something to someone is often so much more difficult than selling for the lowest possible price that all stupid booking systems accept and that dictate what we may do.

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#24

Post by cptskippy »

We looked into purchasing a house on the Amalfi Coast about 10 years ago. To get anything done you need permits and in order to get permits you need to bribe everyone involved. The permits are time bound and expire so you have to be ready to go when approved but the small towns don't readily have access to construction materials so in order to get materials in the time bound window you end up having to bribe a whole new set of people.

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#25

Post by technothrasher »

larsiusprime wrote: post #17
tossandthrow wrote: post #7

A core idea is that a house sells for a positive value. But that presumption is likely false. Houses at unattractive places in poor condition might actually represent a negative value. As such, even 1 EUR houses might be severely over-valued. It should be interesting as tax code could also take that into consideration.

There are indeed many places where the land value is effectively zero and the building is also worthless. But offers like these often have other obligations so the 1 euro cost is not the all in price.

Most dramatic example of this I've seen is the US Navy selling off their decommissioned aircraft carriers for $0.01. But, as you say, the purchase price is not the real expense of buying one. For these ships, it's the millions of dollars it takes to tow it to your scrap yard and tear it apart.

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#26

Post by Gys »

An additional benefit might be that many of these small villages have a tax advantage, created also for attracting foreigners. It is a flat fee of 7%. I cannot remember the name of this rule, but this is a link for example that I found: https://magictowns.it/the-definitive-2025-list-of-italy-7-ta...

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#27

Post by neutronicus »

arthurcolle wrote: post #15
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.

Can I turn them into server farms?

Almost certainly not, $1 houses in Baltimore at this point (there were some good deals decades ago) are often ones requiring significant work just to be weather-tight, structurally sound, etc.

And of course it becomes clear that no one is there and they are full of valuable hardware some problems may result, as the other commenter points out.

Lastly, our electricity rates are almost certainly not cost-effective for this purpose.

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#28

Post by umeshunni »

larsiusprime wrote: post #21
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…

Maintenance of old crumbling European castles in inconvenient locations are also often famously bad deals for the owner.

Ha, yes. I found dozens of articles about castle renovations gone awry

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/no-way-back-1-15m-120000548....

https://www.csmonitor.com/1991/1212/12121.html

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#29

Post by lormayna »

Italian here. This is mostly a marketing initiative. If you buy those houses, you need to completely renew them using local companies and with a lot of regulation. You will probably spend 100k doing that. If you buy another house, in the same village, maybe you will pay 5k but you have more freedom in the renewal process and you will end spending less.

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#30

Post by akudha »

larsiusprime wrote: post #21
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…

Maintenance of old crumbling European castles in inconvenient locations are also often famously bad deals for the owner.

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?
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