Selling Houses for €1 Is Not Enough
The Example of Irsina
Disclaimer: This is the English translation of the original Italian article published by VITA magazine, available at this link.
Translated and republished here with the kind permission of VITA magazine.
In the inland area of Basilicata, there’s a small town that has started to grow again, while all around it the demographic hemorrhage continues. The secret? An association that helps Americans, New Zealanders, South Africans—not only to buy a house, but also to understand and adapt to the rhythm of local life.
Irsina
“If you choose to come live in Irsina, you shouldn’t complain if the pizzeria doesn’t open before 8:30 p.m., or if at the beginning of the month you have to wait two hours at the post office—that’s the old folks’ social time, and you have to respect it. If you don’t like to wait, go when the elderly are home eating. You’re the one who must adapt, because you’re choosing to live in a community, not in a hotel.”
That’s how Becky Riches describes the success of Lucania Living, which since 2006 has tried to make the dream of owning property in Italy accessible to everyone—even those who aren’t wealthy.
This formula has transformed the small Lucanian village and now aims to expand to other small towns.
“We take care of everything—from notarial documents to utilities. We maintain the property when our clients are away from Irsina and make sure their fridge is full when they return. But most importantly, we help them immerse themselves in Irsina life, to feel part of the community.”
A Property Is Not Enough
In the 1960s, Irsina had 11,500 residents. Today, there are fewer than 4,500. In 2004, the small town in the inland area of Matera had 5,500 inhabitants, and that was the year when Keith, a Scottish financial manager, visited Irsina on vacation with his wife Sandy, a writer from San Diego. They fell in love with the place and decided to buy an old stone house with antique furniture and majolica floors. They moved here from London in 2012, true pioneers in a choice that many others later followed.
Twenty years later, more than 100 abandoned homes in the small village have been bought and renovated by Americans, South Africans, Northern Europeans, and New Zealanders. The estimated total expenditure for purchasing and restoring these houses exceeds three million euros. The numbers grow year by year: in 2019 the foreign resident population was 300; today it has almost doubled. And in the last three years, for the first time, the demographic trend is on the rise—albeit by just a few dozen people per year.
A Significant Data Point in Basilicata
This is significant in a region like Basilicata, which has invested several million euros in tourist attractions and major events—from the zip line that lets you fly at 120 km/h between the Lucanian Dolomites, to record-breaking Tibetan bridges. Those towns have certainly seen an increase in tourism flows, but they continue to lose residents. Even the city of Matera, which still remembers the investments from its year as European Capital of Culture, is losing population—while Irsina, though slowly, has begun to grow again.
The “Irsina-Factor”
“We don’t want what happened in Matera to happen in Irsina. Think about it: who lives in the Sassi today? There are very few left,” says Becky Riches, commenting on the demographic data of Basilicata.
She continues: “Foreigners who decide to invest in Irsina don’t do it just because the houses are beautiful, but because they recognize a different way of life here—the life of a community to dive into. That’s the Irsina-Factor! That’s what we call it. If Irsina became a beautiful monument to look at, but empty—or worse, inhabited only by foreigners—no one would come back a second time. Let’s be clear: buying an abandoned house in Irsina is not a bargain. Even if the purchase price was just one euro, you’d hardly recover the cost of restoring it.”
“Today, buying a house in a small village is not a bargain. That’s why we don’t sell a financial investment: we sell a lifestyle, the chance to become part of an authentic community.”
— Becky Riches, Lucania Living
Walking through the alleys of Irsina today, you can hear many different languages and accents. Some try to blend in with the locals; others prefer to buy homes near their fellow nationals—like the small Belgian community, around twenty people, enough to lead locals to rename the street “the Belgian road.”
“Just the other day, a construction worker from Irsina told me: ‘Look, for me—someone who has never traveled much—working has become wonderful. I can stay in Irsina and step into the homes of Norwegians, Canadians, South Americans. It feels like I’m traveling the world every time,’” says Riches.
“Even some local youth, seeing people from all over the world coming to live here, begin to understand that leaving isn’t the only option—that the future could be right on their doorstep.”
Becky Riches, Lucania Living
Half English, half Irish—how did you end up in Irsina?
I met my husband, who is from Irsina, when I went to Modena on Erasmus in 1995. At first, we lived in London, but then we decided to try this experience in Basilicata. We immediately sensed there was an opportunity in tourism, and I began working in inbound tourism.
Is that how Lucania Living was born?
Yes, together with Domenica Gurrado, accountant, and Rocchina Natale, architect—both from Irsina and co-founders of Lucania Living. We created a model that includes a “tutor” to act as a cultural bridge and help first-time foreign buyers purchase a home without stress. We take care of everything—from the purchase to home renovations, up to utility hookups—with the one rule that labor must be local, to support the town.
We also offer an annual service package to make owning a home in Southern Italy simple and stress-free.
We started as individuals in 2007, going to fairs in the UK. In four years, we sold around sixty homes, mainly to Brits. The youngest client was 26 and came from Belfast. Then we had buyers from the Czech Republic, California, South Africa, and even New Zealand.
How do you encourage integration with the local community?
I think of Ann and Jan, she a former journalist and he a programmer—a couple from Iceland who came to live in Irsina. They decided to contribute to the community by teaching coding to children, to raise awareness about future professional paths and counteract depopulation of inland areas. They organized the first CoderDojo Day in Irsina.
“People who buy a home here are interested in helping the town grow. They’re not like tourists who spend, consume, and leave.”
— Becky Riches, Lucania Living
But that’s just one example. Many new residents of Irsina organize art, language, and cooking classes for locals. And they also help bring in far more visitors from their countries of origin. So much so that now their word-of-mouth is much more powerful than any of our marketing efforts. That’s why we believe the project in Irsina is now mature.
What do you mean by a “mature project”?
We’ve set a maximum number of homes to sell in Irsina to maintain the right balance between locals and newcomers—so as not to distort the spirit of the local community and, at the same time, ensure the project’s sustainability.
Now, our model can be replicated, but it must be a public-private hybrid—with the public sector gaining visibility and the private side receiving practical support for regulation and mapping of vacant properties.
Buon giorno e complimenti per i suoi articoli, puntuali e basati su ragionamenti reali. Proprio per questo è perché la ritengo una persona preparata, vorrei che prendesse in considerazione la città di camerino nelle marche, che per molti versi ha gli stessi problemi dei paesi che lei ha nominato e secondo me ha intrapreso il cammino per diventare come quelle località.. vorrei capire se mi sto sbagliando su questa analisi e se no, cosa sarebbe ancora possibile fare per far rinascere questa cittadina martoriata dal terremoto.