Italian Village of Ollolai Entices New Residents With $1 Homes

Looking to get away from it all? For just €1 (about $1.20), you can score a Mediterranean country home in Sardinia's mountainous Barbagia region. Ollolai, the region's former capital, is selling hundreds of empty homes for next to nothing, CNN reports. Officials want to boost a shrinking local population and preserve the town's heritage, and they're hoping that the region's charm and low cost of living will attract new blood.

Many residents have left Ollolai for bigger cities, leaving the village filled with abandoned houses. So mayor Efisio Arbau decided to acquire the abodes, contacting former inhabitants and asking them to sign their properties over to town authorities. The government obtained a special decree to sell the homes on the cheap, and sales began in 2017.

Ollolai is a mountain paradise, with fresh air, quaint cobblestone alleys, lively folk traditions, and fine local crafts and food. But like most too-good-to-be-true offers, the town's real estate bargain comes with a catch: Its empty stone homes are in poor condition, and new homeowners are required to refurbish them within three years—at a cost of about $25,000, according to one estimate.

This conditional offer hasn't deterred potential purchasers, Arbau told CNN. Several homes have already been sold, and more than 100 offers have poured in from as far away as Russia and Australia.

"We boast prehistoric origins," Arbau told CNN. "My crusade is to rescue our unique traditions from falling into oblivion."