If you’ve always dreamed of leaving everything behind and moving to an idyllic Italian town – and paying more or less the price of a coffee for your new home, then there’s another place for you to consider. 

The town of Cinquefrondi, in the southern region of Calabria, has joined several other Italian towns in putting old and abandoned houses up for sale for the symbolic price of €1 in an effort to “favor the valorization, recovery and repopulation of the historic center” of the town, as it reads on the initiative’s official webpage. The town sits right between two seas and is in one of the regions with the fewest number of COVID-19 cases in the whole country.

Cinquefrondi is located in a perfect trifecta of natural beauty – in the middle of the Aspromonte National Park and not too far away from the Tyrrhenian and Ionian seas, both less than half an hour away by car. The whole area used to be Magna Graecia, and it still carries several traces of its ancient Greek past. Overall, not a bad place to settle down.

Everyone can put forward a request for one of the houses, whether they are Italian or not, but of course, there are some conditions that must be met. The house costs a symbolic €1, but buyers have to guarantee they’re going to start renovation works on their new homes within three months (and have them completed in the following three years). They must also have insurance on their house, and cover the fees of any bureaucratic paperwork needed to complete the transfer of property.

A view of the landscape in the Apromonte National Park
Cinquefrondi is located within the Aspromonte National Park, and right between the Tyrrhenian and Ionian seas © Antonio Aricó / EyeEm / Getty Images

All that’s needed to make a request is a form that’s easily downloadable from the municipality’s website, which is also where all the houses currently available are listed – along with their pictures, descriptions and locations within Cinquefrondi. If you’re interested, you can find all the information here.

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This gorgeous Italian city is offering homes for the price of €1
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