Four Aussie mates have taken their Australian property dream overseas after selling everything and quitting their jobs to take on a dilapidated Italian home.
Riley, Jack, Ricky and Miles are behind The One Euro Dream, a project documenting their attempt to find out whether the much-hyped €1 ($1.60) Italian homes really could offer an alternative to Australia’s expensive property market.
With Australian home prices climbing to beyond $1 million on average, the four mates decided to take on the well-publicised 1 Euro House scheme and film their progress.
The scheme comes with certain conditions, including putting down a renovation deposit of about $5000 and committing to complete the renovation within three years.
The estimated renovation costs for the average abandoned Italian villa are up to about $200,000.
University of Melbourne senior lecturer and Italian expert Matt Absalom told Yahoo News that the decision to take on the Italian project reflects a growing desire among some young Australians to look beyond the local property market.
“The Great Australian Dream has gone global. For many, the quarter-acre suburban block is no longer achievable or culturally compelling,” he said.
“The new dream is about autonomy, lifestyle mobility, and creating a meaningful life.
“It is an exit strategy from the Australian housing treadmill. In Australia, shelter has become a high-stakes financial gamble that requires decades of debt.”
Absalom said the four mates’ decision showed young Australians had not necessarily given up on owning a home — they were increasingly questioning whether Australia was the only place they could achieve it.
“Young Australians haven’t abandoned the desire to own a home; they’ve abandoned the Australian market,” he said.
The Aussie boys are renovating a home in Salemi, Sicily. Source: Instagram/theoneeurodream
From Australian house prices to a €1 dream
The friends jumped on a plane and began searching for their Italian home, travelling through Sicily and the mainland while buying scooters, a Piaggio and hiring a car to get around.
The group inspected a number of properties, but many were severely damaged and would require too much work.
Eventually, they fell in love with the village of Salemi in Sicily, where Riley signed the papers and the four mates secured their property.
Some of the mates are tradies, while others have less renovation experience, leaving the group with the daunting task of transforming the property themselves.
Absalom said the ambitious project highlighted the contrast between the Australian approach to DIY and the realities of renovating in Italy.
“It highlights a classic Australian ‘can-do’ urgency meeting an ancient administrative pace,” he said.
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Matt Absalom (right) says young Australians are looking overseas for an “exit strategy” from the housing treadmill. Source: Getty Images/Supplied
The reality behind the One Euro Dream
While the idea of buying a crumbling Italian home can sound romantic, Absalom said Australians can underestimate the reality of restoring one.
That includes bureaucracy, heritage protections, language barriers and the slower pace of rural trades.
“You aren’t just renovating a building; you are negotiating a 2,000-year-old social framework that operates on local relationships, not fast turnaround times,” he said.
Absalom added that restoring an old Italian property also offered a sense of ownership and creativity that a conventional Australian home might not provide.
“It transforms the act of buying a house into a story worth telling,” he said.
The boys’ three-month renovation deadline is also ambitious.
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The four mates have given themselves three months to renovate the Italian home. Source: Instagram/theoneeurodream
Absalom said Italian municipalities typically provide buyers with significantly longer to complete renovations under €1 property schemes, meaning the mates’ tight timeframe does not appear to be a standard requirement of the scheme.
He suggested the three-month deadline could potentially relate to Australia’s 90-day Schengen limit, although the reason for the boys’ specific deadline has not been confirmed.
For the four mates, the challenge appears to be part of the appeal as they gamble on a very different version of the Australian dream.
Yahoo News has contacted The One Euro Dream for comment.
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