News

An Entire Italian Village is For Sale on eBay

by Abby Johnston

The things that I have bought on eBay go as follows: A vintage dress, a pair of Chanel sunglasses, and a model car (it was for my dad, okay?). While I know there is a treasure trove of interesting items to be bought on the Internet's favorite online auction, I think this one may take the cake. For a mere $333,000, you can buy an entire Italian village. And unlike those Chanel sunglasses I bought, this is guaranteed to be authentic.

Borgata Calsazio is about 30 miles from the ski paradise of Turin. And with the "buy it now" option, the remote northwest Italian town can be yours! With your purchase of Borgata Calsazio you get 14 homes, which comes out to about 50 rooms. Plenty of room for you and all of your closest friends! The eBay ad describes the location as "strategic," right in the shadow of the Gran Paradiso National Park, and suggests that Borgata Calsazio could be cultivated into tourist accommodations or a restaurant.

Alright, let's do some math here. If you can find 50 friends (one room for each of you, yeah?), to split the cost of this alpine village, it'd cost each of you about $6,660 dollars. Then you own your own village. In the Italian Alps. WHY HASN'T ANYONE DONE THIS YET?

Well, make sure one of your 50 pals is a fixer, because while beautiful, a lot of the stone structures in Borgata Calsazio need a lot of renovation before they're, you know, livable.

This sounds like an HGTV project to me. Someone get David Bromstad on this.

I mean, come on. That's still a lot of bang for your buck, right? But be careful, if you're going to go in on the village you better be in it for the long haul. There are no refunds on Borgata Calsazio. So once you're buy your used mountain village, you're stuck with it, just like I was with those fake-ass Chanels.

Even if your grand renovations of Borgata Calsazio don't come out exactly like you hoped there are still plenty of things to be excited about when you own a village in northwest Italy. The slow-food movement, for one. Skiing. Proximity to Milan, Turin, and Genoa. The effing Italian Riviera! BRB, liquidating all of my assets (i.e. selling my car) and convincing my friends to do the same.

Photos: eBay/it2014.piemo