This Croatian Town Is Selling Houses For 13 Cents—What’s The Catch?

17.01.2024 - 11:47 / forbes.com

Italy’s €1 ($1.10) house sales created an international media frenzy and inspired hundreds of Americans to relocate their lives to stunning hilltop villages and seaside towns.

Now, another European country is going a step further and it could be the perfect change to take the plunge and move abroad.

A town in Croatia is selling off houses for the symbolic but specific price of 13 cents ($0.15). Like Italy’s cheap property program, the community has launched the scheme to bolster its desperate demographic deficit.

So who is eligible to invest and how can you purchase a house?

Legrad is a rural, pocket-sized town in Croatia lying on the snaking Drava River which forms the border with Hungary. The town has lots of green space and access to nature, and riverside beaches to laze on in summer.

With the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire a century ago, redefined borders left the once thriving town on the peripheries. The minute community now has just 2,000 inhabitants, and would like to boost that number. A few days ago, the council launched a scheme with the aim of luring young families to make Legrad their home.

Authorities announced the plan to give away houses in the town almost for free—or rather for the symbolic price of 13 cents. Legrad has already tried this tactic to gain media attention and potential new residents. In 2021, the town began selling off uninhabited houses for 1 kuna ($0.14).

"We turned into a border town with few transport connections to other places. Since then the population has been gradually falling," the town's mayor, Ivan Sabolic, told Reuters at the time.

Since the council’s recent announcement, they’ve already had interest in the scheme.

A total of five houses ready for occupancy have been sold. Three families have already moved in, and what delights us is that all three families welcomed a new member during their move-in. This has increased the number of children in the daycare centre,” said Ivan Sabolić, quoted by HRT.

So why the precise sum of 13 cents for the houses? The price was chosen because, since Croatia moved to using the euro as currency, 1 kuna—the nominal amount chosen last time for the cheap housing scheme—is now roughly equivalent to 13 cents.

There are, of course, some conditions for prospective new residents of Legrad. Applicants must be under 45 years old, be in a marital or extramarital partnership, must not have a criminal record and must not own any other property.