“We fell in love with it immediately. We looked at each other and said, “This is our house.”
Sara Bertagnolli and Luca Sguazzini are talking about the moment they first set their sights on their dream home.
Their beautiful three-bedroom house with beautiful sea views in the picturesque Sicily village of Motta d’Affermo is everything they have been looking for.
The best part? It costs them only one euro (84p).
But they didn’t use it ItalyPopular euro housing plans. While the tempting plan attracted a lot of foreign buyers, Sara and Luca said there were a lot of hidden fees and explained to MailOnline Travel how they actually paid for the money they wanted to secure their dream property.
“Some of some euro houses are really bad. You need to invest more than we have on budget. Even if you own an euro house, you need to pay for all the documents and notaries.”
Although the plan depends on the village, buyers usually have to commit to spending a certain amount to renovate their 1 euro property, which could extend hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Luca said: “We have seen people have to pay €250,000/€208,890 to renovate one of their euro residences. They even had to rebuild the ceiling.
Italian couple Sara Bertagnolli and Luca Sguazzini bought their dream house for one euro
Two people own beautiful three-bedroom house in Sicily village Motta d’Affermo
The scenery of the couple’s house
Luca said that besides renovations, buyers may even end up paying more than the ad euros to ensure the property’s preservation.
He explained: “The plan is so popular. People bid and offer higher offers. They say the house is one euro, but then you get an American, a British or a German and he said they will pay 5,000 euros – 10,000 euros – 10,000 euros / £4,178-£8,356. So the price has exceeded your expectations.”
So how did Luca and Sara manage to rate their dream property without using the program?
The couple had spent time traveling and staying in campervans before and said they always dreamed of buying olive trees with sea views.
They found the land outside Motta d’Affermo and then lived in their van for a month in search of a permanent home.
“The village is really small, so everyone knows us. A lady stopped us while we were walking in the stroller with our daughter,” Sarah said.
The woman told them that her relatives wanted to get rid of their possessions. Sara explained: “If you own a house in Italy, you pay property tax every year. They don’t want to pay that tax again.”
Luca and Sara agreed to see the house. Sara revealed: “This place has great potential. It was abandoned for 20 years. So the windows were broken. The water, birds and mice were damaged. The house was a mess. But you know what they were talking about, you went into a place and you could feel it was yours. Anyway, this is our house.
The couple has undergone renovations and has done a lot of work
Bathroom before renovation (left)
Sara and Luca say they are looking for “quietness and peace” in the new village is what they are looking for
While the original owner just wanted to get rid of the house, the shared owners of the property live around the world.
As part of the deal, Luca and Sara agreed to ride the owner and pay a notarization fee. But they said they had spent less than €15,000/£12,500 to renovate the property.
Luca said homes under an euro plan often require a wider renovation, explaining that he had to “repair some small leaks on the roof of the couple’s home” rather than “demolition and rebuild the roof.”
They also have no pressure to renovate their property, and a euro plan buyer will usually have a fixed schedule.
Sara added: “There are many villages in Sicily offering houses like ours, even if they are not part of the official euro plan.”
But the couple explained that the process was not for everyone.
“You need to fall in love with this house because if you pay this low, there’s a reason. In these villages, most of the time everyone leaves because they don’t have a job,” Sara said. Still, Sara said the journey the couple shared on YouTube inspired many new families to move to the area.
Luca said potential buyers also need to be happy to live in remote areas.
Living room before and after decoration
He added: “We are lucky because we can bring cars to our home. In many of these villages, the roads were built before cars existed and they were used for donkeys. The roads were really narrow.
Purchasing outside of an Euro plan also requires a certain level of trust. “We told the owner that we would buy a house, but we didn’t know when we could make the deed because of all the relatives [that owned it] All over the world.
“So we started to renovate the house before we own it and then our house. In the end it worked, but [we were] A little stressed.
Despite the challenges, the couple was very pleased with their bargaining. They said: “Quietness and peace are what we really want. The concept of time is also completely different here. You go for coffee and end up chatting for two hours.
Follow them on YouTube @leaw Watch the renovation journey.