Road in the Sicilian village of Sambuca. Photo: Shutterstock
A family from London bought a house for only 3 euros in the Sicilian town of Sambuca and plans to settle there and work remotely, reports the news agency ANSA, taken by Agerpres.
Sambuca is the latest “ghost town” in southern Italy to do everything it can to attract new residents, starting with offers of houses for one euro.
In the third round of sales, this time the properties of the municipality were put up for auction, with prices starting from only 3 euros, one of which was purchased by the British couple Lindsey Fitzgerald – Robert Mosley.
Lindsay, 36, is a program manager and her husband Robert, 44, works in advertising. The two have two children together, Mark and Maisy, aged four and seven respectively.
“Today I fulfilled a dream,” said Fitzgerald, originally from Northern Ireland, on Friday after signing the preliminary contract and
“We already like Sambuca. We’ve been on the streets since yesterday. We bought some snail souvenirs and tasted an excellent local wine. The museums are excellent. What a place! We consider ourselves really lucky. When I read the ad with houses for 3 euros in a London newspaper, I thought it was a joke,” said Firzgerald, according to quotidiano.net.
He received the keys to the property of two floors of 60 square meters from the mayor of Sambuca, Giuseppe Cacioppo.
He explained that “221 houses were mostly bought by foreigners who moved here in recent years”, after Sambuca was named the most beautiful village in Italy in 2016.
In recent decades, small Italian towns like Sambuca have been hit by the phenomenon of depopulation due to phenomena such as urbanization and the reduction of job opportunities for young people, who are forced to move either to study or to find a stable job. In the countries, the population is getting older, what affects the businesses here and the standard of living.
Hence the project of “1 Euro Houses” and “3 Euro Houses”, which attracts more and more tourists from all over the world, who then become home buyers.
