What can €1 buy you? If you’re willing to swap your hometown for Sicily, it could get you onto the property ladder.
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That’s because Naro, a medieval town on the southwest of the Mediterranean island, is offering would-be homeowners the chance to snap up a property for the price of an espresso.
Joining a growing list of Italian destinations with home listings at low prices, Naro, which is within the Agrigento province, is looking to breathe new life into the historic town while giving buyers the chance to restore abandoned buildings, tackle depopulation and bolster local tourism.
This initiative has been given the green light by the Comune di Naro local government authority and is open to both Italian and foreign nationals, provided they meet local requirements for purchasing and maintaining a property.
Applications can be submitted via the online Case 1 Euro Naro platform, which is available in multiple languages and walks interested buyers through the process of potentially landing a property.
According to the platform, buyers should consider investing because Naro offers a “historic centre with a strong identity, Baroque architecture, the Chiaramontano Castle, inland landscapes of Agrigento, and connections to Agrigento and the southern coast”.
And now for the €1 questions: Is there a catch? Well, yes – several, actually.
Typically, you get what you pay for, and for the cost of a cup of coffee, it’s no surprise that you won’t find a plush villa waiting for you in their catalogue.
When Euronews Travel browsed the listings, all the properties were listed as “needing to be renovated”, with one three-bed home overlooking the historic urban area, requiring inspection.
Beyond the €1 price tag, buyers are responsible for covering all associated notary fees, registration and cadastral taxes.
There’s also the matter of fixing the place up. Buyers must also cover the costs for project design of the property and ensuring it is safety compliant, adheres to landscape regulations and has undergone urban planning. And, there’s likely to be a deadline for getting all the work done.
Whether you’ve a spare €1 to invest in a property or are looking to travel off Italy’s beaten path, Naro is a striking inland town steeped in history, architecture and Sicilian charm.
Following a 2005 landslide, young artists worked on the façades of some of the neighbourhood’s ruined buildings, creating the MAN open air museum which you can wander through.
Naro has also preserved its Golden Gate, known locally as Porta d’Oro, which has a history that goes as far back as the 13th century. The ancient structure, featuring a pointed arch and stone battlements, was once part of a network of seven access gates that surrounded the city during medieval times.
As with other parts of Sicily, in Naro you can naturally snack on delicacies, including the native cassata – a Sicilian dessert of fluffy sponge cake, ricotta cream, chocolate chips – and pasta reale, which is a local sweet paste of finely ground almonds flavoured with vanilla, all adorned with candied fruits. The sweet treat traces its history to Arab-Palermo, with its name deriving from an Arabic term for large bowl where cream cheese filling was mixed with sugar.
Street food favourites, such as arancina, a morsel filled with fried rice, and cannoli can also easily be found in Naro, however, there are local varieties special to the town that can’t be found elsewhere.