Mom Buys Six Crumbling Italian Villas for £1 Each, Transforms Them Into Dream Homes

A woman who is a mother of three has dramatically refurbished six dilapidated Italian villas, which she purchased for merely £5 each, to enable her friends and family to reside there.

In April 2019, Rubia Daniels, aged 51, acquired six properties in Mussomeli, Sicily, at a price of only one euro per property by utilising a local council initiative. encourage people to renovate abandoned homes .

Admin costs, agency fees and the deeds took the cost of each property to 4,000 euros (£3,400), a total of 24,000 euros (£20,500).

Several of the properties were bought with fully collapsed roofs and infrastructural issues such as no water and no electricity.

But Rubia - a planning consultant by trade - used her 16 years of experience in the construction industry to break down the walls and renovate the properties.

Now, some of the six homes are reaching completion and she hopes her family and friends will move to the Mussomeli area to work and retire.

Rubia was keen to make the most of the council scheme and was one of the first to buy the homes - signing three for herself and carrying out the paperwork of one for her adopted daughter and two for her aunts.

Her two aunts, Marilu Ferreira, 70, and Marua Fatima, 82, plan to move into their homes in Mussomeli permanently for the rest of their retirement.

Rubia – who hails from Brazil but has been residing in San Francisco since 1996 – stated: "In April 2019, we purchased all six of them. Come June, I handled all the documentation and received the titles later that same summer."

'I packed six suitcases of all my tools and a generator, and then me, my husband and my brother-in-law, who was in Brazil, flew out to get the keys.

'The house was fully collapsed, but now it's fully renovated and has a beautiful marble bedroom.

'Once the roof was fixed and water tight, the rest of it sort of fell into place from there.

'It's been my passion and I just have so much feeling for these houses and the community as a whole.'

Rubia believes her job makes her adept to the task of converting a derelict property into a beautiful Italian home.

She said: 'I'm very comfortable with the idea of transforming things and breaking walls. When I see something fully collapsed, I can already see what's going to look like, which is not for everybody.

For instance, my spouse gets anxious whenever I consider taking on tasks like this, whereas for me, it brings together feelings of thrill and happiness.

But you must look beyond the initial appearance of a place and envision what it will become eventually.

And my 'one-euro' home is precisely as I envisioned it, and I feel a sense of pride because it required only a modest investment.

Rubia invested a total of €60,000 in refurbishing her initial acquisition in Mussomeli, aiming for it to be maintenance-free for the next half-century.

But she hopes she can do up each of the rest under this budget.

She said: 'I want to convert one of them into a wellness centre, where people can come and do yoga and meditation and the like - it would be nice to give back to the community this way.

My niece’s renovation is nearly complete; we’ve carried out a comprehensive overhaul. As for mine, I still need to make some adjustments, but our top priority right now is speeding up progress at my aunt’s place.

'I'm very happy I landed there and bought them early after reading an article about the project, because there are about 30 people looking at just one home now - they've increased a lot in popularity.

When I initially shared the news with my friends and relatives, they were quite incredulous... They assumed I was joking when I mentioned I planned to purchase six.

'It might seem daunting, but essentially you’re acquiring the house at no cost, which gives you the freedom to transform it however you wish. It’s truly an exciting venture—especially when your spouse and whole family pitch in with the physical work.'

We acquired all the furnishings locally; everything comes from that small town—the kitchen, floors, mirrors, bathtub, and sink.

'However, our intention was to approach this with the community at heart. We adore being here – it’s far more pleasant compared to California.'

'People actually mean it when they ask you how you are, and it's this social aspect which really attracted me to the area.

'Nobody is rushing around, everything is affordable. You can eat really well with very little money - a coffee and a croissant costs Euro 1.50.

'In California, it's a very stressful environment and everything is so superficial.'

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