Essentially, nobody knows until they buy a one-euro house what it will ultimately cost.
And, while major news outlets are having a field day promoting the one-euro home programs, the reality is that this may not be such a great deal for foreigners looking to live la dolce vita, unless they have ties to a particular town which is offering great grandpa’s childhood home for sale for example.
These long-abandoned properties are actually more expensive to restore than simply buying an apartment or villa that is already habitable in a place which still has thriving trattoria, artisanal shops and cultural attractions. And I will demonstrate that by choosing a random town participating in the program. Also, the reality is that many of these one-euro towns are one (coffee) bar towns on the verge of becoming ghost towns.
Is that where you really want to spend your golden years? 
One euro home programs are usually offered by the local mayor to spur economic development in depopulated towns — using foreigners’ dollars, pounds, and yen. The fundamental problem, however, is that the former Italian residents of these towns emigrated for places like Milan and Turin or even to the USA and Australia (and more recently to the UK and Germany) because they could not find jobs which paid decent wages in their small Italian hometowns.
While one or two Italian towns have had a small measure of success offloading abandoned properties and adding Americans and other foreigners to their tax rolls (e.g., Sambuca and Mussomeli, both in Sicily), the other Italian towns that have jumped on the 1-euro bandwagon are land-locked with small populations and not much to offer. It is unlikely they will be able to sell enough property to trigger significant economic growth. In fact, I have not seen any concrete data illustrating that any of the programs have created measurable economic growth or created x number of jobs.
So, let’s look more closely at one town which has a one Euro property program called Zungoli, for example, which is a town in the province of Avellino. Avellino proper has a population of about 50,000 people and is located some 50 km to the East of Naples, which is the largest, closest city to Zungoli with an international airport. Avellino is noted for its wines, tobacco, and other agricultural production. It is not going to be high on any tourists’ to-visit list, mainly because it does not have the volume and diversity of well known attractions that Napoli, Roma or Firenze do.
Avellino has a much more provincial feel and you may have some difficulty integrating into the town’s social fabric. On the positive side, the cost of living is much lower in Avellino and its surrounding towns than in Napoli (which is priced about like Paris per square meter), but let’s see what you would actually get if you were to buy a one euro home in Zungoli; a town located in the province of Avellino that has its own one euro program.
As of July 2023, the town of Zungoli had 14 one euro houses for sale.
Let’s take a look at one of the 1 Euro homes in Zungoli shall we?
Our featured house is on Via Porta di Basso and measures almost 100 square meters, but remember that Italians count the walls as part of the square footage and these walls may be up to a meter thick. Therefore, a good rule of thumb is to decrease the size by about 10%. So, the house for sale is really about 90 square meters, which, for those of you who think in feet is less than 1,000 square feet.
Not quite a tiny house, but still quite cozy.
Now, note the condition of the roof and its overall structure. There is just a shell of a structure remaining really that needs electrical, heat/cooling and water pipes; in addition to the masonry and roof.
A good rule of thumb is that you will spend at least $1,000 – $2,000 euro per square meter to restore property.
So, it will probably cost a minimum of 90.000 euro to restore this one-euro home. Note too, that this house is not easily accessible by construction vehicles. Similarly, many of the houses for sale are in historic town centers with narrow roads and a lot of steps to arrive at the property.
And the time needed to obtain the necessary permits to restore, and minimum build time would be anywhere from 6-9 months depending upon availability of local contractors. We discuss the construction process in a separate article. So, you are not going to be able to live in your new one-euro home for probably at least one year.
Instead, let’s see what 90.000 Euro would buy us in Zungoli were we interested to buy an already restored property there.
As it turns out, we can purchase a 140 sq. meter house which is already habitable for just 30.000 Euro: moving in fairly quickly (probably in a matter of a month or 2 if paying cash). This particular property appears to already have been recently built or renovated, but you may also want to do customized upgrades and therefore could spend another $15,000 – $20,000. And, still, it would be significantly less expensive (and much larger) than the one-euro home options.
Again, that is, were you really interested to live in Zungoli.
Zungoli has less than 1,000 people, with close to 30% of the population over age 65. It also may have more stray cats than shops, wine or coffee bars and restaurants. (For a nice video of the town see this YouTube video but note the lack of residents in the streets.)
Whatever your interests or needs, we are happy to provide you with assistance finding your Italian dream house.
