An Entire Abandoned Spanish Village Is For Sale For €260,000

It’s no secret that housing prices in major cities are through the roof. An average studio in Manhattan sells for $553,734, while the average Los Angeles house goes for $922,000. You could buy lots of other things with that money — including, I don’t know, an entire abandoned Spanish village.

Yep, you read that right. Located about three hours from Madrid in northwestern Spain, the village of Salto de Castro is up for sale for the much more reasonable price of €260,000 ($276,000). You get plenty of bang for your buck, too. Sitting on a picturesque hilltop overlooking the Arribes del Duero natural park, Salto de Castro features 44 houses, an inn, a bar, a church, a public swimming pool, and even some old barracks.

The village was initially built in the early 1950s to house the families of workers who built the local reservoir. However, once that project was finished, villagers moved away. By the 1980s, it was a complete ghost town. The surrounding rural area has become known as “emptied Spain.”

Salto de Castro was purchased by a private owner in the 2000s in hopes of turning it into a tourist resort, but the project was eventually shelved.

“The owner had the dream of having a hotel here but it was all put on hold,” Ronnie Rodríguez of Royal Invest, the company representing the owner, told BBC. “He would still like the project to come true.”

On Salto de Castro’s official property listing page, the owner, who is now in his 80s, adds: “I am selling because I am an urban-dweller and cannot maintain the upkeep.”

It seems like the owner’s hotel dreams could be coming soon in the near future. According to Rodríguez, 300 people have already expressed interest in buying the village as of November 10, including prospective buyers from the UK, Belgium, France, and Russia.