You’ve heard of houses for sale in southern Europe for the price of a cup of coffee. Now a country in northern Europe is implementing a similar scheme: selling plots of land for just a few cents.
Götene, a small town located 200 miles southwest of Stockholm, is selling 29 plots with prices starting at just 1 krona, or 9 United States (U.S.) cents, per square meter.
However, this is not just any land. It is the land on which lucky buyers can build their dream home – for living or as a holiday home, as the rules currently say.
So if the heatwave is making southern Europe less attractive every day, this could be a hit.
Götene, a rural area with five thousand inhabitants living in the central part and 13 thousand of them in the wider municipality, is rural Sweden at its best. It is located on the shores of Lake Vänern, not only the largest lake in Sweden, but also the largest in Scandinavia and the entire European Union (EU), about 10 times larger than Lake Constance. Only Russia has larger lakes on the European continent.
For hikers, Götene also has a small mountain nearby – Kinnekulle. There are also two UNESCO sites: the Platabergens Geopark and Lake Vänern Archipelago and the Kinnekulle Mountain Biosphere.
So why would such an idyllic town have to organize such a sale of its land?
‘It became a sensation’
Mayor Johan Mansson says it’s a combination of the current economic crisis and the shrinking rural population.
“The housing market is currently very slow in our region and in Sweden in general due to high interest rates and a bit of a recession, so we wanted to inject the market,” he told CNN.
“We are also witnessing a low birth rate and an aging population, so we have to do something, bring more people here,” he adds.
The only condition of the city is that the construction of the house begins within two years of the purchase of the plot, N1 writes.
E.Dz.
