An Italian city has become the first to sell homes for just €1 after rural villages started similar schemes in a bod to get people to move to the area.
Taranto has become the first large-scale area to offer run-down houses cheaply in the hope of breathing new life into the hollowed out conurbation.
The remote port city in southern Italy has seen its population dwindle over the years and local authorities are hoping to boost the ailing area, including its historic centre.
The council set a target of bringing 25,000 inhabitants back to the old city by selling cheap homes.
During the 19th century the historic old town had a population of 40,000, but that has shrunk to just 3,000. The total population of the city today is around 200,000 residents.
Plans made by local authorities will see five homes initially offered for sale at the symbolic price of €1 - which is around 85p - with the hope of listing more properties if first batch sell successfully.
The idea of the €1 homes first pioneered by the town of Gangi in Sicily in 2011, when more than 150 buildings have since been restored and newcomers have revived the Sicilian town on the edge of Palermo.
Sicilian villages of Bivona, Sambuca and Mussomeli also offered homes for a euro last year.
Locana in the north west of Italy even offered to pay up to €9,000 over three years for new residents to make Locana their home and start a family in the town.
Borgomezzavalle on the Italian/Swiss border also offered abandoned cottages, barns and stables for just €1 with the stipulation that the crumbling buildings are refurbished within two years.
These new homeowners in Taranto will also have to pay for extensive renovations that could cost hundreds of thousands of euros.
They will also have to live in the properties in order to stop property developers selling them on for a profit.
It comes as Taranto was earmarked today as the destination for some 400 migrants pulled from the Mediterranean sea after being rescued by a charity ship.
The Ocean Viking ship, which is run by SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders, picked up the migrants in five separate operations over the past four days.
An Italian interior ministry source said Germany and France would take in some of the 403 migrants, with Ireland and Luxembourg also expected to offer help.
Francesca Viggiano, council official, said authorities had already received inquiries about their new €1 home scheme from New York, Milan and Rome.
She told Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera: 'We are aiming to take measures which will result in the repopulation and development of the old city.'
Residents were said to have begun leaving the city when its buildings and narrow streets started to fall into disrepair.
In 1975 a building in the old town collapsed, killing an entire family, according to local media reports.
The town's polluting Ilva steel plant has also made the city a less attractive prospect for potential new homeowners.
Local authorities in Taranto plan to make the plant more environmentally friendly by 2024.
The Italian government has recently awarded Taranto €90 million for improvements to the historic centre, including the reconstruction of the dilapidated waterfront.
