A town in Croatia is selling houses for 13 cents—but there’s a catch

Forget a penny for your thoughts; what about 13 cents for a house in Croatia?

Legrad, a town in northern Croatia, has been trying to get more people to settle in the area by offering houses for pennies. It’s an initiative they started in 2018.

The small town, with around 2,000 people, borders Hungary and has seen its population dwindle since the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918.

In January, government officials announced another batch of houses is ready for sale at just 13 cents.

To be eligible to buy one of the houses, applicants must be under 45 years old, in a marital or extramarital partnership, and have no criminal record.

Most notably, if you want to snag one of these low-cost homes, applicants can’t already own property — though officials don’t specify if that means in Croatia or anywhere else in the world.

Local Croatian media outlet HRT reported that since the program started in 2018, there are more children today than there were five years ago, and as a result, they’re even building a new daycare center.

“A total of five houses ready for occupancy have been sold. Three families have already moved in, and what delights us is that all three families welcomed a new member during their move-in. This has increased the number of children in the daycare center,” Ivan Sabolić, the mayor of Legrad, told HRT.

In 2021, Legrad put up 19 empty houses and abandoned construction sites for sale at the price of 1 kuna, Croatia’s currency at the time. Seventeen were sold, according to Reuters. The houses were in various states of disrepair, so to help out, the municipality said it would pay $25,000 kuna (about $3,558) for any necessary renovations.

For new residents who wanted to buy a privately owned home, the town offered to cover 20% of the price or up to 35,000 kuna (about $5,056). It’s unclear if the town will offer the same incentives this time around.

Croatia isn’t the first country to take this kind of approach to bringing new life to their shrinking populations. Mussomeli, a town in Sicily, went viral for selling off deteriorating homes for 1 euro.