Woman buys six Italian homes for £5 in beautiful town and has big plans for them
Rubia Daniels, 51, paid just one euro for each of her six homes in Mussomeli, Sicily, in April 2019 and has been renovating the properties ever since. Now she is hoping to move there.
A woman snapped up six Italian homes for just £5 each and is now planning to move her family there.
Rubia Daniels scored a real estate hat-trick in Mussomeli, Sicily by taking advantage of a local council initiative encouraging the refurbishment of derelict houses, securing three properties for herself, one for her daughter, and another two earmarked for her aunties' golden years.
"Buy your dream for €1 in the fabulous town of the Sicilian hinterland, just a few kilometers from the enchanting beaches and the historic temples of Agrigento," the initiative's website reads.
"In Mussomeli you will live the ancient Sicily, the real Sicily. Mussomeli is the city of the Manfredi's Castle and traditions. In Sicily you will not only buy a house, but you will have the chance to experience our culture, our traditions, the slow and relaxed life of one of the most peaceful and safe lands in the world. Already 100 people have bought a house, what are you waiting for?"
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While initial costs were a mere euro per house, adding admin fees, agency charges, and property deeds bumped the price to 4,000 euros (£3,400) each, totalling a neat 24,000 euros (£20,500). Some of these fixer-uppers came with fully caved-in roofs and were lacking essentials like water and electricity—nothing that Rubia, a seasoned planning consultant with 16 years under her belt in construction, couldn't tackle.
After tearing down walls and executing renovations, several of her bargain buys are nearing completion, ready to welcome family and pals to join her in establishing roots in Mussomeli. Eager to capitalise on the scheme, Rubia was among the first to leap at the opportunity, juggling the paperwork to sign off on three abodes for herself and process acquisitions for her adopted offspring and two aunts.
Her aunts, Marilu Ferreira, age 70, and Marua Fatima, age 82, have their sights set on spending their retirement days blissfully in their very own Sicilian havens. Rubia, originally hailing from Brazil but calling San Francisco home since 1996, reminisced: "We bought all six in April 2019. In June, I did all the paperwork and then got the deeds later that summer.
"I packed six suitcases of all my tools and a generator, and then me, my husband and my brother-in-law, who was in Brazil, flew out to get the keys. The house was fully collapsed, but now it's fully renovated and has a beautiful marble bedroom.
"Once the roof was fixed and water tight, the rest of it sort of fell into place from there. It's been my passion and I just have so much feeling for these houses and the community as a whole."
Rubia is confident that her profession equips her well for the challenge of transforming a dilapidated property into a stunning Italian abode. She said: "I'm very comfortable with the idea of transforming things and breaking walls. When I see something fully collapsed, I can already see what's going to look like, which is not for everybody.
"For example, my husband panics when he sees me eyeing up projects like this, but for me it's just a combination of excitement and joy. But you have to see beyond the way a place looks at the start, and imagine how it's going to be in the end. And my 'one euro' home is exactly the way I imagined it, and I'm proud because it was a small investment."
Rubia invested a total of 60,000 euros in renovating her first acquisition in Mussomeli, with the aim that she won't need to undertake any further work 'for 50 years'. However, she hopes to refurbish each of the remaining properties within this budget.
"My daughter's one is almost done, we did a full remodel. I have a few changes still to make to mine, but it's my aunts which are the ones we're trying to move along the most now," she continued.
The reaction from her social circle was one of disbelief initially: "When I first told my friends and family about it, they couldn't believe it. They thought I was kidding when I said I was going to buy six. It can be intimidating, but you're getting the house basically for free and you can turn that into whatever you desire and it's just a really fun project – especially when your husband and entire family help out with the manual labour."
For Rubia, keeping things as local as possible has been key. "We sourced all the furniture locally, everything is from that little town – the kitchen, the flooring, the mirrors, the bath and sink. But we wanted to do it with the community in mind. We love it here – it's much nicer than California," she said.
"People actually mean it when they ask you how you are, and it's this social aspect which really attracted me to the area. Nobody is rushing around, everything is affordable. You can eat really well with very little money – a coffee and a croissant costs €1.50. In California, it's a very stressful environment and everything is so superficial."
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