The $1 property scheme attracted people from all over to buy old homes in dying Italian towns. But did it work? And how much did they really spend?
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00:00 Imagine paying as little as one euro for a home like this.
00:04 That's what happened in Italy a few years ago.
00:08 In parts of Italy they are practically giving houses away.
00:12 The plan was to inject life and money back into dying towns.
00:16 But for many foreign buyers, it wasn't smooth sailing.
00:21 We met Tamara and Gary Holm in 2019, when they had just bought their home in Sicily.
00:27 Words are failing me.
00:29 The couple had their work cut out for them.
00:31 It seemed the house had gone untouched since the 1960s.
00:37 We went back to Sicily to see the transformation and find out exactly how much they spent on
00:42 it.
00:43 Okay, let's talk money because that's what everybody wants to know.
00:46 How much did this really cost?
00:48 So did the euro home scheme work?
00:50 So a lot of my friends were saying to me, look, it seems like a scam and it's probably
00:55 too good to be true.
00:56 But beyond the one euro price, how much did buyers actually end up spending?
01:01 We're here.
01:03 Ready?
01:04 Via Delfino.
01:05 We made it.
01:06 We got the keys.
01:09 This was Tamara and Gary Holm in 2019.
01:11 The lock works.
01:14 They began their search for a Sicilian home like many others after seeing the media hype
01:18 surrounding the scheme.
01:21 We heard about it through the CNN article.
01:24 So I think we definitely had some doubts of like, are they really selling houses for a
01:28 dollar?
01:29 The couple narrowed their search to the town of Sambuca in central Sicily.
01:34 Like hundreds of towns across Italy, its population had been shrinking for decades as younger
01:40 generations left the countryside for bigger cities in search of work.
01:44 Originally, the local government put up 16 homes in Sambuca on sale for one euro.
01:49 Most sold for that amount, but some in better condition went to auction.
01:53 That's what happened in Tam and Gary's case.
01:55 Yeah, mighiacci.
01:56 They bid 5,000 euros for a house and lost.
02:01 What they ended up buying was this.
02:03 I kind of knew that what we ended up buying was the one just in my gut.
02:07 A more than 600-year-old townhouse with two bedrooms and a roof terrace with views over
02:13 the town.
02:14 Wow.
02:15 Instead of one euro, it cost them 19,000.
02:20 At first, the couple thought they'd just spruce it up.
02:22 Simple, I think.
02:23 And have a place livable in a few months.
02:26 We went in thinking, "We're just going to paint it nice."
02:28 Yeah, just some new furniture, some new appliances, bada-bing.
02:32 But they soon realized they'd have to spend a lot more money than planned.
02:35 Yeah, because it needed plumbing, it needed some electrical work, so there was definite
02:38 work that needed to be done.
02:40 On things like repairing a leaking roof that had caused mold throughout the house and moving
02:45 walls to create a more modern living space.
02:49 On top of the 19,000 euros for the house, they paid 4,000 euros for the agent's fee.
02:55 Then a one-bedroom house next door came up for sale at 8,000 euros.
02:59 So then we had to buy that, of course.
03:01 Which added another 4,000 euros agent's fee.
03:04 To join the two properties, they needed to tear down a three-foot stone wall.
03:09 The central staircase needed re-engineering.
03:10 So then we had to go from that lower point below here, up into this room, and up into
03:16 this room.
03:17 And they put new support beams in place.
03:19 You gotta make sure the place doesn't fall down.
03:21 It's been there forever, you know?
03:23 And so that restructuring definitely was a bigger expense than we had anticipated.
03:28 After four years, this is how it's been transformed.
03:32 Refinished walls, new tile in the bathrooms, and a refurbished rooftop terrace that will
03:40 eventually hold an outdoor kitchen.
03:44 As for the total cost of the renovation, we'll let Tam and Gary do the math later.
03:50 It wasn't just young people moving into the cities that emptied out towns like Sambuca.
03:55 An earthquake shook Sicily in 1968, reducing thousands of properties to rubble and leaving
04:01 many more too unsafe to live in.
04:05 Devastation in Sicily, where earthquakes have obliterated whole towns and villages south
04:10 of Palermo, the capital.
04:12 Now more deaths and injuries have brought about a mass exodus to the Italian mainland.
04:17 Some homes remained untouched for years.
04:21 New settlements were built outside, but the old town centers were neglected.
04:26 Italy was also hit hard by the global economic crisis in 2008.
04:30 Many residents left the country altogether.
04:33 We need to improve our town so the more people come, the better we are.
04:37 There's not much work here right now.
04:40 Sicily's first one-year-a-home scheme started in Selemi, a town in western Sicily, in 2008.
04:46 The town had around 4,000 old, crumbling homes at the time.
04:50 Many owners couldn't afford the cost of renovations or the tax they had to pay on a second property,
04:54 so they simply handed them over to the city to sell.
04:59 The scheme spread across Sicily and to the mainland.
05:02 And by 2019, headlines were attracting buyers from around the world.
05:08 But as quickly as news spread about the one-year-a-homes,
05:11 Soted reports that the scheme might be too good to be true.
05:14 On top of the purchase price, homebuyers face added costs like legal expenses and agent fees
05:20 that can range from 2,000 to 5,000 euros.
05:24 To make sure buyers actually stick around and invest in the property,
05:27 some schemes also ask for a deposit of several thousand euros,
05:31 which will be returned if the renovation work on the facade is completed within three years.
05:37 But there was also the state of these homes.
05:43 While some homes could be restored and made livable for between 15,000 and 30,000 euros,
05:49 some buyers spent as much as 100,000 euros fixing them up.
05:59 Danny McGubbin bought a one-year-a-house in the Sicilian town of Musa Melli in January 2020.
06:06 I wanted to live somewhere that was quiet and tranquil.
06:10 I guess the antithesis of London because I'd been there for 23 years.
06:15 Danny spent several months looking at more than two dozen homes before settling on this one,
06:19 which he bought for one euro.
06:21 But then the pandemic struck.
06:23 Danny was stuck in London and the property suffered.
06:25 And then when I returned to Musa Melli, there was a lot of extra damage that had been done to the house.
06:30 A leaky roof in the house next door caused a massive amount of water damage in Danny's home.
06:35 The costs to renovate it were doubled.
06:38 So this was the original one-euro house that I bought.
06:42 You can see, though, because it hasn't been looked after, it's just continuing to crumble.
06:49 Danny sold the house back to the agency for one euro.
06:52 So even though you might find one that's a one euro, you've got to be really careful to look at,
06:58 you know, what are the houses next door, what conditions are they in?
07:01 This would be a money pit for sure.
07:04 (MUSIC)
07:11 What he eventually found was this house.
07:13 I got this house for under 10 grand.
07:16 It's in good condition.
07:18 You know, I still need to do quite a bit of work on it.
07:21 The bathroom needs to be totally renovated.
07:26 It's a really old bathroom.
07:32 The house was also furnished, which is amazing.
07:36 And then we go up another level.
07:40 The main things for me and what you need to look out for is, are the foundations good?
07:45 Is the roof good?
07:46 The houses next door, are they in good condition?
07:48 Are there people living in the houses next door?
07:50 And this house, to me, it seemed to be fine.
07:54 And perhaps the best part of the house, the stunning view over the Sicilian countryside.
08:01 Before buyers like Dani started snatching up homes in Mussomeli,
08:05 the population had fallen to about 10,000.
08:09 But if you counted all the empty homes, there was enough space for 40,000.
08:14 This is Totti Negrelli, the deputy mayor of Mussomeli.
08:19 He helped set up the One Euro Scheme here in 2017.
08:25 The whole town was empty, so we want to repopulate that part of the town.
08:32 The plan was a success from the start.
08:36 In the first five years, the town sold 300 houses.
08:39 Now we can see a lot of people from all parts of the world
08:42 that speak English, speak French, speak Spanish.
08:46 Unlike Sambuca, Mussomeli doesn't sell homes at auction.
08:49 Their Euro homes all sell for the one-euro ticket price.
08:53 But what are called premium homes can be bought anywhere from 5,000 to 60,000 euros.
08:59 Consider that at one euro, we have sold maybe 95% houses.
09:07 The influx of foreign buyers has brought a boost for local shops and tradespeople.
09:11 The deputy mayor says 10 times more tourists are visiting them before the scheme started.
09:17 The boost from new buyers, on top of the money from the EU and Italian government,
09:21 is allowing them to invest 70 million euros into the town.
09:24 Plans include new roads and a more than one million euro remodeling of the town's central square,
09:30 Piazza Umberto.
09:31 We want to invest in the whole town of Mussomeli
09:34 because we want to give more services to foreign people that invest here.
09:40 We want to give more energy to this part of the town.
09:44 And Dani is already bringing energy back to Mussomeli.
09:48 He opened the Good Kitchen in July 2021
09:51 with the mission to provide free meals for the town's most vulnerable populations,
09:55 like the elderly and the poor.
09:57 I wanted to start a project which would give me the inroads into life in this town.
10:04 He rents what was an abandoned store in the town's main square for only 150 euros a month.
10:11 It's grown into this beautiful hub in the town where we have cooking classes for kids.
10:16 It's finished. That's enough.
10:17 We do a Sunday lunch where sometimes we have up to 50 people come and eat
10:21 and sit down and share a meal together.
10:24 Dani collects surplus food from the surrounding area
10:26 and delivers meals and produce to families in need every week.
10:30 My friend there, Angelo, I meet with him every Thursday.
10:33 He collects a lot of surplus produce from that market.
10:38 When we visited Dani, the Good Kitchen was celebrating two years of serving the community.
10:43 It feels like the first year. Lots of people here.
10:46 Lots of pasta.
10:48 Everyone here with a good intention and full of love.
10:54 Aww.
10:56 Give me your hand.
10:59 Back in Sambuca,
11:01 Tam and Gary are slowly making friends.
11:03 - What's my child? - Eddie.
11:06 Big girl.
11:08 The couple lives in Los Angeles most of the time,
11:10 but they try to visit a couple times a year.
11:14 Whoa, whoa, what's this?
11:16 Today, they're visiting their local winery.
11:20 Not only is the town beautiful, they say,
11:23 the people are equally warm and inviting.
11:26 I think one of the things that I really fell in love with in Sambuca was the people.
11:31 Everyone has been super welcoming.
11:35 Thanks to the One Euro scheme, the town is home to a large international community.
11:40 People that already lived here for generations and generations
11:43 are so nice and so cool with that and ready to make friends with people from around the world.
11:48 I think they see the value in outsiders coming in to sort of
11:53 rejuge the economy and tourism.
11:57 I think it's definitely a boom for the town.
12:01 But the Holmes say potential buyers need to do their homework before taking the plunge.
12:05 And they should visit as many times as possible.
12:08 Most One Euro schemes will only allow people to invest
12:11 if they're there to collect the keys in person.
12:13 Make the adventure, you gotta hit the road and see if you connect with the town.
12:20 You don't just want to buy and not even know anything or no feel for the town.
12:23 You gotta get up in there.
12:26 It's not an experience for everyone.
12:28 Learning the language is key, especially when dealing with contractors and local bureaucracy,
12:33 which can be a lengthy and costly process.
12:36 For Danny, he spent about 10,000 euros for a home that was move-in ready.
12:41 As for Tam and Gary...
12:43 Our whole reno budget was around 120,000 euro.
12:46 So 30 for the houses, 120, 8,000 in fees.
12:51 So around 160,000 all in is what it looks like.
12:55 And I think we're pretty close to that.
12:57 I have some math to do, but I think we're there.
13:02 After renovations, the couple was left with a four-bed, four-and-a-half bathroom house.
13:07 The average price for a home this size in their native LA would be over a million dollars.
13:13 But it brought us here.
13:14 It brought over a hundred people, apparently, into this town
13:18 to see what you can get for not a lot of money
13:22 and just get this sort of dream.
13:24 You know, who doesn't want to have a house in Italy?
13:26 [MUSIC]