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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

#51

Post by guywithahat »

jonstewart wrote: post #43
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…

The history of Baltimore is a far more complex story than "regulation and unions" results in "and the city collapsed."

I would argue it really isn't. Massachusetts still has some of the strongest union protections, is one of the most unionized states, and Baltimore has worked hard to maintain an incompetent government for decades. Given the outrageous rents in nearby states and cities Baltimore should have kept growing but has instead shrunk to a half million.

The rust belt as a whole was primarily just companies escaping unions. Cheaper labor may have been an incentive but it fundamentally started with companies who were forced to move production, and US regulation which prevented them from benefiting from local supply chains once they became unionized.

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#52

Post by foobarian »

lormayna wrote: post #29

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.

Even 5k for a house and some land seems like a pretty decent deal. What are the strings attached? Is there local mob extorting you if you move there?

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#53

Post by thefz »

akudha wrote: post #30
larsiusprime wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#54

Post by ASalazarMX »

akudha wrote: post #30
larsiusprime wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

"I couldn't afford to live in the city, so I bought a castle".

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#55

Post by readthenotes1 »

I found the author's commentary on their goals the most interesting part of the article:

"We’d spent our careers working in schools and nonprofits with young immigrants, and, ..., we had no intention of leaving a life of service behind. Above all, though, what we wanted was an environment in which we could spend a lot of time writing and afford to do it. But Ben had another non-negotiable of his own: proximity to surfing. ...but I supposed it was reasonable enough to design a dream life according to one’s actual dreams."

They wanted to go to a different country for the adventure, to write in leisure and luxury, to surf, and to spread the good news of their superior insights and upbringing to uplift the natives.

Reminds me of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_savior

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#57

Post by jonstewart »

guywithahat wrote: post #51
jonstewart wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The history of Baltimore is a far more complex story than "regulation and unions" results in "and the city collapsed."

I would argue it really isn't. Massachusetts still has some of the strongest union protections, is one of the most unionized states, and Baltimore has worked hard to maintain an incompetent government for decades. Given the outrageous rents in nearby states and cities Baltimore should have kept growing but has instead shrunk to a half million. The rust belt as a whole was primarily just companies escaping unions. Che…

chat, what would David Simon say in reply to this

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#58

Post by ridgewell »

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.

>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.

This reminds me of an incident in Vancouver, where the city sought to expropriate single room occupancy (SRO) hotels (read: slums). They felt that each property was worth negative value, but they estimated the value as $1 because:

> We are unaware of any instances of property being transferred with a negative value. Therefore, a value of $1.00 is concluded for the subject property with the knowledge that a purchaser would be required to assume the financial obligations with either holding or demolishing and redeveloping the property.

[1] https://council.vancouver.ca/20191106/documents/cfsc2.pdf

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#59

Post by asplake »

riedel wrote: post #23
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…

As they say here in the UK: Location, location, location. Or there’s Mark Twain: Buy land, they're not making it anymore.

Re: The Italian towns selling houses for €1

#60

Post by bpt3 »

guywithahat wrote: post #51
jonstewart wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The history of Baltimore is a far more complex story than "regulation and unions" results in "and the city collapsed."

I would argue it really isn't. Massachusetts still has some of the strongest union protections, is one of the most unionized states, and Baltimore has worked hard to maintain an incompetent government for decades. Given the outrageous rents in nearby states and cities Baltimore should have kept growing but has instead shrunk to a half million. The rust belt as a whole was primarily just companies escaping unions. Che…

I'm far from a union sympathizer, but you've already moved from your initial, absurdly simplistic description of the issue to a major symptom (decades of ineffective government, ranging from benign incompetence to intentional malice).

Also, the rents in nearby areas to the north are far from outrageous (hint: there are no major cities for a couple hours), and the Baltimore metro area continues to grow because the area is desirable, even though the city is completely mismanaged.

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