The UK was too expensive so I bought a 84p house in Italy - here's what it's really like
George Laing bought a €1 (84p) property in Italy after finding London too expensive, but was the experience all it's cracked up to be?
Like many young professionals in the UK, 29-year-old George Laing wanted to get on the property ladder but couldn’t see a good innings in the expensive capital.
With the average cost of a house in London amounting to a whopping £528,000, it’s no wonder he found himself looking elsewhere.
After looking online he came across one of Italy’s first €1 homes.
George said: “People sometimes think you need hundreds of thousands to get on the property ladder, but here that’s not true.
Like many of those living in London, George Laing was finding the cost extremely difficult. He said: “I was living in London with more than 30 percent of my paycheck going on rent so when I decided I wanted to invest in property, I had no way of saving for the deposit.
“If I wanted to buy a house, my credit rating wouldn’t have been high enough to get a mortgage.”
Even though he only had a small budget of €5,000 (£4,200), Italy’s housing market was so affordable that he got one of the famous Italian one-euro homes.
George told Euronews: “I have no real connection to Sicily. I went there on a school trip when I was about 14 and didn’t really remember any of it.
“I just really wanted to own my own house and there aren’t many places in the world where you can do that for just a few grand.”
But buying one of these homes is quite different from putting down a mortgage in London.
George said: “There wasn’t a huge amount of thought that went into my decision because you didn’t see any of the properties beforehand.
“When you turn up on the day, you are with 10 other people and a woman who takes you around the town with a bunch of over 100 keys and it’s just potluck which houses she decides to show you.”
Thankfully the property George eventually chose was in relatively good condition, and what’s more, the initial cost was a mere €1.
He said: “The roof wasn’t falling in and it seemed pretty sound. Plus my lucky number is 11 and that’s the number of the house.
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“When you’re paying around €5,000 in total [including fees] for a house, you can’t be too picky.
“You wouldn’t even get a shed in London for that. I was paying over €1,000 for my rent so this house only cost me five months rent.”
With such competitive prices, it’s no surprise George had to move quickly with his purchase.
When purchasing the house, he signed up for the scheme which meant he was required to renovate both the roof and the exterior of the property within three years.
But is the scheme all it’s cracked up to be?
Amazingly, George has only spent €300 (£253) on renovation materials for the property so far and is aiming to do the bulk of the work himself.
On top of this, there are the travel costs, which are estimated to have cost around €1,500 (£1,266) so far. By the end of it all, he’s hoping he won’t have spent much more than €15,000 (£12,600).
The experience has been so positive that George is hoping to have purchased 10 properties in Italy by the time he’s 35.
“I would highly encourage anyone else interested to take the journey as well,” he says.
“People sometimes think you need hundreds of thousands to get on the property ladder, but here that’s not true.”
While the phrase ‘€1 house’ might not be entirely accurate by the time you’ve purchased and renovated the property, it’s still a fraction of the cost of buying a home in London.
He added: “You don’t have to stay trapped in where you are. I now have more chance of being able to afford a flat in London having renovated this property. Just take the risk.”
