Cinquefrondi is just one village in a long list that has become increasingly depopulated in Italy, but selling houses for one euro and being COVID-free is set to change things.
Tullio Pronestì
Tullio Pronestì

In our 2020 coronavirus world, many people have been changing their habits and new living needs are becoming a priority. With the boom of teleworking and a need for outdoor space and fresh air, many people are choosing to leave the city behind and start a new life in villages and in the countryside. This is exactly what Cinquefrondi wants, a small Italian village in the region of Calabria that is now offering houses for sale for one euro.

Cinquefrondi is just one village in a long list in Italy that has become increasingly depopulated over the years, but with this new offer of one-euro houses, the local mayor and council claims that interested buyers and new residents needn’t worry about infection and that the village is completely free of COVID-19.

The Mayor of the village, Michele Conia, calls the scheme ‘Operation Beauty’ and states that it was originally established in order to replace young residents who often move off to larger cities after finishing school and university. “Finding new owners for the many abandoned houses we have is a key part of Operation Beauty that I have launched to recover degraded, lost parts of the town,” Conia stated in a recent interview with CNN.

The mayor also spoke to idealista/news about the response that the 1 euro houses in Cinquefrondi have recieved: "Since the project was mentioned on CNN, we've had over 6,000 requests. In my opinion, there are two factors that have triggered so much interest: one is related to the coronavirus emergency, because our municipality is COVID-free, the other is related to the description of our territorial reality made by CNN. Cinquefrondi is 20 minutes away from two seas, right in between two coastlines, with the mountain behind it, a river and many other things. All this has attracted the interest of many people, some Italian, but mainly foreigners. English people and Americans are sending us many requests".

Conia also added that the village is doing its best to deal with all the enquiries that have been received. "When I launched the project in 2017 we didn't register much interest, but now we have received a lot of enquiries and we are getting ready to handle everything. Beyond the 1 euro houses, many people are contacting us to come and spend the holidays here and also to buy ready to live in houses. It has developed a whole new attention on our municipality".

The properties on offer in the Cinquefrondi real estate market, for the same price as a loaf of bread, are houses of between 40 and 50m2. As with similar schemes, Operation Beauty does come with some strings attached, though not as many as in some other villages that have run similar repopulation programmes where a deposit of 5,000 euros is often required. Those wishing to buy a house for 1 euro in the village are not required to pay a deposit, but will be obliged to renovate the property, something which could cost between 10 and 20 thousand euros in the area, along with an annual 250-euro policy insurance fee until the work is completed. If homeowners do not finish renovations within three years, they could be fined up to 20 thousand euros.

Tullio Pronestì
Tullio Pronestì
Tullio Pronestì
Tullio Pronestì