You Might Be Eligible To Buy A House In Croatia For 13 Cents

A town in northern Croatia is trying to get more families and first-time homebuyers to move there by offering houses for sale for just a few cents.

What To Know: According to a CNBC report, government officials in Legrad, Croatia just announced the town’s latest round of houses for sale for under a dollar.

The small town currently has about 2,000 residents and the total number of people has been trending down since the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918.

In order to help boost the population, Legrad launched an initiative in 2018 in which it began offering houses for less than a dollar. The latest round of houses available are priced at 13 cents.

In the past, the government has also offered to provide funds for some of the required renovations. In 2021, Legrad offered 19 houses for sale in the program for 1 kuna. The houses were sold in various conditions and the government offered up to 25,000 kuna (roughly $3,560) for repairs.

The government also offered to cover 20% of the cost of a new home for new residents in the area. It’s not clear if the same incentives are being offered this time around, but the report indicates that a new group of houses were made available in the program earlier this month.

In order to qualify to buy one of the houses, applicants must be 45 years of age or younger, in a marital or extramarital partnership and have a clear criminal record. Potentially the most important requirement is that applicants cannot already own property, although it doesn’t specify if that is just in Croatia or globally.

Croatia is not the first to use this tactic to attract people to an area. A town in Italy went viral for its homes for one euro program in 2022 and multiple French towns have used the same approach, according to TheMayor.eu.

Read Next: Real Estate In Italy Is An Investor’s Dream: This California Resident Bought A 6-Bedroom House With 2 Kitchens For $62K

This story is part of a new series of features on the subject of success, Benzinga Inspire.

Photo: Neil Morrell from Pixabay.