We were drawn to Sicily's viral $1 homes. We ended up spending $30K for 2, but it was worth every penny.

• Tam and Gary Holm were drawn to Sicily by the one-euro home promotion.
• Auctions for the homes started at one euro, but the couple ended up spending a lot more.
• They told BI they fell in love with Sicily, leading them to buy two properties.

This as-told-to essay is based on an interview with Tam and Gary Holm, a Californian couple who bought homes in Sambuca di Sicilia, Italy.

It's been edited for length and clarity, and timed to be released with a YouTube documentary.

Tam: I remember reading an article online in 2019 about the one-euro homes when Gary worked in England, much closer to Sicily than our hometown, Los Angeles.

I wrote to the email address provided in the article and got a response from the actual mayor of Sambuca di Sicilia. He said there were tours of the town and the houses they were selling for one euro ($1.08).

Gary: She did the tour and saw the properties, but we definitely had some doubts, like, 'Are they really selling these houses for one euro?.'

It turned out that the auctions started at a euro. We ended up bidding €5,000 for one and lost.

But we knew this town was special. I instantly fell in love. So, instead, we opted for a private sale.

We looked at maybe 10 or 15 houses, and the one we went with was special.

Tam: If you were lucky enough to get one of the one-euro houses, they did most of the paperwork for you, but there were some stipulations. You had a time limit to renovate it, had to use certain contractors, and there was a lot of guidance.

I'm glad we weren't stuck with that. However, it meant we had to figure it out all alone.

It's not like the American real-estate market.

Tam: We'd bought a couple of houses in America before, and it's a little bit different in Italy.

Gary: The way they do real estate in Italy involves getting a notaio, or a notary, essentially a lawyer who draws up a legal contract with the owner.

Tam: The ownership goes by lineage, which requires the people listed on the deed to be present with the new people wanting to buy the property.

So, in our situation, a brother and a sister were listed. While the sister was here in Sambuca, the brother lived in America and hadn't been here for a decade.

So, we had to figure out to get him to Sambuca to sign the paperwork so we could buy his house.

Gary: There was a convoluted way we could have gotten him to an embassy in Washington, DC, but it would have been a whole thing.

Luckily, it turned out that he had wanted to visit his family, and the timing, thankfully, worked out. So we were able to all be here and sign at the same time.

Tam: Meeting a guy who hadn't been home in 10 years was super fun. We all hopped in cars together to Palermo, the next biggest city, to meet with a bilingual notaio.

Gary: The family has essentially adopted us now. They were selling their mother's home that they didn't live in; it hadn't been lived in for 20 years.

Now, every time we go to Sambuca, we have dinner with them. They're part of our family here now.

Unexpected costs

Tam: Our initial investment on the house was €19,000 ($20,581). We went in thinking we would just need to paint it nicely.

Gary: But it needed plumbing, some electrical work, etc. Then, we realized that the place right next door had just gone up for sale.

There is no land, and it's a house that shares three walls with other houses, so the only way to make the place bigger would be with one of the adjacent houses.

Tam: So, of course, we had to buy it. Then, we had to find those owners, fly back out here, and once again drive to Palermo.

Gary: That one cost us €8,000 ($8,666), so for the two we purchased, we spent €27,000 ($29,247).

It's not a ton of money, but it's not a euro or two euros.

Tam: Purchasing a property is a little different from American real estate because, instead of it being a percentage-based commission that the real-estate agent takes, they have a flat-rate fee for the notaio.

We had to do that twice — a big expense we weren't expecting.

Gary: Another big expense was that we thought we could just put a hole in the wall between the two houses.

But it turned out that one had a lower floor than the other, so the engineering side cost a lot of money.

Our whole costings were around $160,000 ($173,296).

Falling in love with Sicily

Gary: I think one of the things I fell in love with during all this was the people of Sambuca. Everyone has been super welcoming and friendly, and it's a small town that feels very international.

Tam: There are also people who have lived here for generations and generations, who are so nice, cool, and ready to make friends with people from around the world.

Gary: Everyone we have talked to in this town has had a great experience, so I think it tells you something about the people. They see the value in outsiders boosting the economy and tourism.

I think that the one-euro program was brilliant, in my opinion, because it gave some people a chance to get houses for very little money, and it brought us here.

You get to live this sort of dream; who doesn't want to have a house in Italy?

Tam: Before coming to Sambuca for the program, I'd never been to Sicily, and we knew nothing about Sicily. Absolutely nothing.

And it is so awesome. I'm kind of sad the secret is out.