Woman who bought a €1 home in Italy reveals how she transformed it

A woman who took a chance on buying a property in the €1 scheme in Italy ended up spending thousands to transform it into her €450,000 (£384,000) dream home.

Meredith Tabbone, 45, decided to bid on a one euro house on a ‘whim’, after her friend sent her an article about the scheme.

The European house scheme means people across the world can buy homes for a single euro (around 85p), which is a far cry from the £724,780 average sold price for a property in London according to Zoopla.

It’s not just the birthplace of pasta and pizza where the scheme is available; homes in France and Croatia have previously been put on the market for €1 or less.

However there’s a catch – the buildings are usually in desperate need of TLC and are never in a pristine condition.

Meredith, who is originally from Chicago, isn’t afraid of a project. Bids for the building in Sambuca di Sicilia, Sicily, started at just a euro when it went up for auction in January 2019, but she decided to throw in an offer of €5,100 (£4,400).

Originally built in the 1600s, the disused building had no electricity or running water and a roof thick with asbestos.

Originally built in the 1600s, the disused building had no electricity or running water and a roof thick with asbestos.

(The home was the definition of a fixer-upper.Picture: Meredith Tabbone / SWNS)

‘The house was in very bad condition – but in many ways, it was everything I expected it to be and more.

(The building had no electricity or running water, and the roof was thick with asbestos Picture: Meredith Tabbone / SWNS)

Before finding her dream home, Meredith started researching how to get Italian citizenship in 2016.

Three years later, she heard councils in rural Sicily were auctioning off abandoned houses with a €1 starting bid in a bid to regenerate the village.

(Meredith bought one of Italy’s infamous €1 homes.Picture: Meredith Tabbone / SWNS)

After being told she got the €1 home in May 2019, she also bought the house next door for €31,700 (£27,000) in a private sale and knocked through to create a four bedroom, five bathroom home in August 2020.

She then spent €450,000 (£384,000) over the next five years creating her dream holiday home.

After five years of hard work, Meredith’s holiday home was finally completed in April 2024 and she plans to spend four months a year in Italy.

(One of the bedrooms in Meredith’s holiday home (Picture: Meredith Tabbone / SWNS)

( The outside dinner area of Meredith’s Sicily holiday home (Picture: Meredith Tabbone / SWNS)

(The kitchen area has been transformed (Picture: Meredith Tabbone / SWNS)

Ref: Woman who bought a €1 home in Italy reveals how she transformed it (metro)

Photo Credit- Meredith Tabbone/SWNS