In early 2019, a piece of news threw daydreaming Americans into a frenzy. A small and dilapidated Sicilian town, Sambuca, was hoping to address its dwindling population and flagging tourist economy. As an experiment, it would begin selling off a number of abandoned homes for the titillating price of one euro.

There was a catch, of course: to purchase one of the homes, buyers had to put down an additional five-thousand-euro deposit, and promise to spend at least fifteen thousand euros renovating the property over a period of three years. If the renovations didn’t happen, they would lose their deposits—and the houses. Still, it seemed like a reasonable price to start afresh in Old World Italy. Within weeks, Sambuca’s municipal department had received more than a hundred thousand e-mails inquiring about the homes.