‘Urbanite’ owners put entire Spanish village for sale for €260,000

OVIEDO, Spain

A Spanish village near the border with Portugal was put up for sale last week for €260,000 ($260,000).

For the same price as the average 130-meter apartment in Spain, the village comes with 44 apartments and houses, a bar, a church, a school, a police barracks, a swimming pool and a sports area, according to its listing on the Idealista website.

The village, Salto de Castro, also has striking views of the Douro River and is just over a three-hour drive from Madrid.

Its current owners are a family that bought it from Spanish utility company Iberdrola in the aughts.

Salto de Castro’s history has been linked to the river, as it was built in the 1950s alongside a hydroelectricity plant that tapped the water’s powerful flow.

However, the hydroelectricity plant closed in 1989, and like many Spanish villages, Salto de Castro gradually lost all its residents.

Its current owners snapped up the abandoned village to turn it into a tourist destination. But the financial crisis hit, and the plans became financially inviable.

Today, the family has given up the dream entirely, and the listing posted by Romuald Rodriguez says he is selling it because he is “an urbanite.”

Reviving the village from its decades of abandonment is also expected to be far more costly than the original purchase price. According to a study by the current owners, a €2 million investment is needed to make the village operative for tourists.

Even so, the owners told Spanish daily NIUS on Monday that the interest has been overwhelming. Since putting the village up for sale last week, they have received between 40 and 50 calls daily and one serious offer.

While the buzz around Salto de Castro is palpable, its story is not unique.

Spain’s rural exodus in recent decades has left an estimated 3,000 abandoned towns and many more with a dwindling number of residents.

Now, areas including the strip bordering Portugal where Salto de Castro is located, have population densities comparable, in Europe, only to areas in the far north like Finland’s Lapland.

Bringing life back into these areas is a key challenge for Spanish politicians.

Spain’s current government has passed dozens of measures like business subsidies and improving internet connectivity, although many local politicians and residents in the area say they still fall short.