Finding cheap housing is one thing, but there’s a region of Italy that will pay you to live there.
Molise, a mostly mountainous region of southern Italy, has been having issues with keeping residents around. According to the Italian National Institute of Statistics, more than 9,000 people have left since 2014.
Not one baby was born in any of its towns in 2018.
In an effort to repopulate the area and prevent it from dying out, the region’s government is offering 700 euros ($770) per month for three years to anyone willing to move there. That’s a total of around $27,000.
Sounds great. But — and you knew it — there’s a catch to the money.
To get the cash, you must move to a town with less than 2,000 people. And, you must agree to open a business.
“If we had offered funding, it would have been yet another charity gesture,” the president of Molise, Donato Toma, told The Guardian. “We wanted to do more; we wanted people to invest here. They can open any sort of activity: a bread shop, a stationery shop, a restaurant, anything. It’s a way to breathe life into our towns while also increasing the population.”
According to Italian tourist site Italia.it, Molise’s coast along the Adriatic Sea “boasts sandy beaches surrounded by Mediterranean vegetation.” It’s loaded with archaeological sites, abbeys, small towns and countless castles.
In addition to residents getting paid, the towns will also get some help.
Toma said each town with under 2,000 residents will get 10,000 euros ($11,050) to build infrastructure and push cultural activities.
“It’s not just a matter of increasing the population. People also need infrastructure and a reason to stay, otherwise we’ll end up back where we started in a few years,” he told The Guardian.
While we couldn’t find any official links to cash in on this deal, anyone interested might try starting with the Regional Council of Molise. Of course, they will likely prefer an email in Italian.
You also could try the region’s official tourist website.
This isn’t the first time that living in Italy has been more than affordable.
