A home for one euro? Sounds too good to be true

For sale: crumbling townhouse in a charming old Italian village. Yours, for one euro! In this week’s story, we check it out.

For sale: crumbling townhouse on cobbled alley in ancient Italian village, a stone’s throw from enchanting beaches hugged by fields of citrus and olives. Yours, for one euro! Who hasn’t seen these stories of homes offered up for a pittance in a last-ditch attempt to reverse rural decline in parts of Italy and wondered: could we do it? What’s the catch?

Journalist Tim Moore visited the hill town of Mussomeli in central Sicily where 50 €1 houses have been sold to foreigners, with a further 100 awaiting new owners. There he found a couple of Aussies making a go of things in an archetypal town where “loveliness lies round every tight corner”. The catch? Well, there are a few. Take this hint from an Adelaide electrician: “After this long in Sicily, my patience is rock solid.”