‘I bought a crumbling $1.60 home in Italy and turned it into my dream house’
A woman has revealed how she snapped up a property for under $2 and the huge twist that came after the purchase.
A US woman has revealed how she snapped up a property in Italy for the bargain price and transformed it into her dream home.
Meredith Tabbone, 44, from Chicago, was researching her Italian family history in 2019, when she stumbled across an abandoned home being auctioned off with a starting bid of 1 euro ($A1.60), in the quaint Sicilian village of Sambuca di Sicilia.
The Financial adviser told CNBC that she took it as a sign to place a bid, even though it sounded “too good to be true.” She bought the property sight unseen.
“From the moment that I sent in the bid, and checked my email every day, and found out that I won, all the way through this process, there have been 4 million moments of frustration, exhaustion, and contemplation of how to move forward, ” she explained in a YouTube video.
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According to Realtor, a number of European villages have gone viral for offering abandoned homes for as little as $1.
The aim is to get foreign investors to buy the crumbling homes, renovate them, and increase local population numbers along with the tourist trade.
Ms Tabbone is just one of many who have snapped up one of these deals. She threw in a random offer of $US6,200.
“The condition of this property when I first saw it was dire at best,” she revealed.
“There was no electricity, there was no running water, every single room had a different level of flooring, there was an asbestos roof, and there was probably 2 feet of pigeon poop on the floor.”
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Four-and-a-half years and about $US500,000 ($A806,000) later, she says she doesn’t regret spending a single dime.
“I never felt like this wasn’t the right place for me to be, and that this wasn’t the right project for me to work on or community to live in,” she said.
A year later, Ms Tabbone purchased the house next door for $US23,000.
“The reason that I did that was because the 1 euro home was pretty small [about 620 square feet], which I initially didn’t mind, because I was thinking of it as just an apartment to visit infrequently,” she explained.
“But once I started to fall in love with Sambuca and knew I wanted to spend time here, I thought it might be nice to have more room.”
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With two homes, her renovation budget skyrocketed. Ms Tabbone originally intended to spend about $US40,000 to make her freshly purchased home comfy and liveable, but she ended up spending $US446,000 and three years renovating them both.
The home now has four bedrooms and 4.5 baths in 2,700 square feet.
“I had never done a renovation like this in my life and did not do any of the renovation work on my own,” she said.
“I hired a renovation team to do 100% of the renovation. The only thing I did spend a lot of time on was the design.”
Ms Tabbone said she was inspired by her father, who was an architect and died when she was 15. She now calls the home Casa dell’Architetto in his honour.
She also made many trips between Chicago and Sambuca during the three years it took to renovate.
“It can be expensive to fly back and forth,” she said.
“It definitely was the second biggest expense that I had. My contractor was the most expensive thing.”
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And because the renovation took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, there were a number of delays — but that turned out to be advantageous.
“I was fortunate that I did not have to pull from savings,” she said.
A few of the more complicated and memorable renovations involved levelling all the floors. The combined homes have two stories and 18 rooms, and every floor was at a different height.
Adding electricity and plumbing was also complicated, as was adding more windows and French doors to bring in more natural light.
For the kitchen, the renovation team was able to retain one of the original arches and combine two rooms into one. Steel beams were added to protect against earthquakes.
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Ms Tabbone also bought the garage next door — to create a guesthouse for families — as well as the house across the street, which she renovated to use as a gallery.
Now that all those renovations are complete, Ms Tabbone is so in love with the home and the town that she wants to try to spend four months of the year there.
“If I could do anything over again in the buying or renovation process, I think I would have learned to have more patience in the beginning,” she said.
“I wanted it all to be done pretty quickly, and think I didn’t enjoy the process enough in the beginning.”
Parts of this story first appeared in Realtor and were republished with permission.
Originally published as ‘I bought a crumbling $1.60 home in Italy and turned it into my dream house’
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