Foreign Buyers Revive Italian Villages with Low-Cost Home Purchases

Polish author Leszek Talko bought a house in the small Tuscan village of Gioviano, about 25 km from Lucca. The property, ready to move in, cost roughly €70,000 without a garden and over €120,000 with one. Talko noted that the popular “one‑euro house” programmes often involve dilapidated ruins and strict renovation deadlines, making the process more complex than advertised.

A Czech student named Jakub purchased a 400‑year‑old stone house in the Abruzzo region for €8,200. After paying a €2,500 deposit and completing notarised paperwork, he began renovating the ruin into a holiday home, documenting the work on Instagram. Jakub warned that buyers must meet renovation deadlines and cover additional taxes and fees, underscoring the challenges of Italy’s cheap‑house schemes that aim to repopulate abandoned villages across more than 70 regions.