Bargain hunters from Argentina to China swooped on a €1 auction and snapped up 16 abandoned Sicilian homes in a foreign buying frenzy that was heralded on Thursday as a positive invasion of a dying hilltop town.
Selling homes for token sums has become a popular, last-ditch strategy for tumbledown towns in Italy's south, many of which are fighting de-population and decay.
The 16 stone homes were put on sale in January, each for the price of an espresso, sparking a stampede of would-be buyers hoping to buy a holiday lifestyle with loose pennies and pesos.