Does Spain have €1 homes?
Italy and France have both made headlines in recent years for luring newcomers to underpopulated villages with the promise of homes which cost just €1. But does Spain have them as well?
Recent coverage by our colleagues at The Local France reported on a village offering homes for the bargain price of €1. Local authorities in the commune of Ambert, population 6,500, in the mountainous Puy-de-Dôme département, put the €1 house offers on the market in response to a genuine problem of depopulation.
But it's not just France. The idea originally came from Italy when the prospect of buying a house for less than the price of an espresso caused a sensation when it was introduced back in 2019.
News of one-euro home schemes made international headlines and resulted in a property stampede in towns across the south, particularly Sicily, where local mayors reported being overwhelmed with enquiries from the US and UK.
Now the marketing stunt appears to be making a comeback.
Many have therefore wondered if Spain also has houses available for a euro.
According to our research, there is no evidence of towns and villages in Spain putting properties on the market for a single euro.
However, Empty Spain is still full of villages which advertise free homes and jobs to suitable candidates. This is the case in Almadrones, a small municipality in Guadalajara that not only offers a free house but also a salary of up to €1,600 per month for those who decide to move there and start a new life.
The initiative aims to attract new residents willing to settle in the town, thereby helping to revive local activity and prevent the village from disappearing.
Often these offers include working in a small business such as the local bar. Take the offer made by the small municipality of El Pobo de Dueñas, in Castilla-La Mancha, for example. The village is offering a free house to a person or family that decides to run the village’s only bar. In a tiny village like El Pobo de Dueñas, with a population of roughly 80 people, the bar is often the central meeting point of the entire town so running the bar would be quite an important community role.
Another village in Barcelona is offering free housing and €15,000 if you take on a local business.
So, Spain doesn’t have any one-euro house offers (as far as we can see) but there are towns in inland Empty Spain that offer houses and sometimes even cash in return for work or taking on a local business.
However, note that it’s always important to check the details of any offer or even call up the town hall. Our research a few years ago proved that in some cases such claims were simply not true, or that the free-home-and-job offer had been quickly snapped up.
Many of the municipalities looking to find new inhabitants are located in what's known as La España Vaciada, which literally means ‘emptied Spain’ but is also sometimes translated as ‘empty Spain’.
This includes large swathes of Spain's interior which since the days of Franco's dictatorship have been depopulated as people moved to the city in search of more opportunities and jobs.
As a result, many of these 'ghost' villages have become poorly serviced and in desperate need of young families to prevent them from being completely abandoned.
Offering a property almost free of charge draws attention to certain neglected areas of the country but also requires the buyers to commit to serious renovations and a life in the town long-term.
READ ALSO: Foreigners give 'Empty Spain' a new lease of life
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