Tempted by the recent offer of an Italian home for just over a $1? Well, you might want to hold out for a better deal.Now an Italian town is offering foreigners $10,000 to move there. Another says it will even pay newcomers more than $1,000 per child to make babies.
The latest deal to beat them all comes from Giovanni Bruno Mattiet, the mayor of the tiny Alpine village of Locana, in Piedmont, the mountainous northwestern region of Italy that borders France and Switzerland.He’s willing to pay up to €9,000, or $10,200, over three years to families willing to move in and take up residency amid snowy peaks and flower-strewn pastures, as long as they have a child and a minimum annual salary of €6,000.
In Locana each year there are 40 deaths versus just 10 births. It’s a familiar picture across Italy where, in the last 30 years, one in four small communities have become ghost towns. There are now 139 villages with fewer than 150 residents.The town may be small but it’s wealthy, thanks to the clean hydroelectric energy.
With the money comes a great location. Locana’s territory spreads across 132 sq klm of the Gran Paradiso mountain reserve, offering outdoor activities like ice-skating fishing, trekking, climbing, swimming, soccer and tennis.
