Village for Sale

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Salto de Castro: Spanish village on sale for €260,000

For anyone dreaming of selling up and moving to the country, how about buying an entire village?

Salto de Castro, in north-western Spain, is up for sale and the asking price is €260,000 (£227,000; $259,000).

Located on the border with Portugal in the province of Zamora and a three-hour drive from Madrid, Salto de Castro has many of the buildings you would expect to find in a small Spanish town.

They include 44 homes, a hotel, a church, a school, a municipal swimming pool and even a barracks building that used to house the civil guard.

But what it does not have are inhabitants. Salto de Castro has been abandoned for more than three decades.

The owner bought the village at the beginning of the 2000s, with the intention of converting it into a tourist spot. However, the eurozone crisis prevented the plan from flourishing.

"The owner had the dream of having a hotel here but it was all put on hold," said Ronnie Rodríguez, of Royal Invest, the company representing the owner. "He would still like the project to come true."

On the Idealista website on which the property is listed, the owner, who is in his 80s, states that "I am selling because I am an urban-dweller and cannot maintain the upkeep" of the village.

It has attracted interest, with more than 50,000 visits since it was listed a week ago at this price.

Mr Rodríguez said that 300 people have expressed an interest in buying, with inquiries from Russia, France, Belgium and the UK. One potential buyer has already put money down to reserve it, he said.

Salto de Castro was built by the electricity generation company Iberduero to house families of the workers who built the reservoir next door, from the early 1950s.

But the inhabitants moved away after its completion and the village was totally abandoned in the late 1980s.

The area surrounding it is part of what has become known as "emptied Spain" - sparsely populated rural areas which lack many of the services found in towns and cities.

Salto de Castro has been put up for sale previously, for as much as €6.5m. However, with no buyers and many of the buildings vandalised, the price has plummeted.

The asking price of €260,000 is enough only for a one-bedroom apartment in well-heeled areas of Madrid or Barcelona.

But the eventual buyer of Salto de Castro could need deep pockets, at least in order to attract visitors.

According to Idealista: "The investment required in order to make the village 100% workable and to become profitable would not exceed €2m."

 
 
Vocabulary Practice

Find the words or expressions for the following definitions:
  1. growing or developing successfully
  2. with only a small number or amount of people or things
  3. happening or existing at the end of a process or period of time, especially after a lot of effort, problems, etc.
  4. to stop sth from happening now, although it may happen later
  5. to fall very quickly and suddenly
  6. an artificial or natural lake where water is stored so that it can be supplied to the houses in an area
  7. an official investigation or a question intended to get information about sb or sth
  8. the cost or process of keeping sth, such as a building, in good condition
  9. rich
  10. making more money from selling goods or services than the cost to produce or provide them
 
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Comments

Sir Joseph said…
Hi Graham,

Salto de Castro isn´t a village, but a lifeless, poor and unfortunate place. It´s a hill with edifices which is far away from the civilisation. It´s sad but it´s this way. There are a lot of villages without people in Spain and when you go across them you feel melancholy. Politicians have called "emptied Spain" these places but, as it´s tradition, they are not going to do anything for avoid it and without votes even less.

I think no one is going to buy this village because he would have to invest a lot of money. If anybody would want to spend so much money, in my opinion, he would invest in other places like urbanisations or places near towns, seas o rivers with services and supplies of electricity, gas and water which there are not in Salto de Castro. It seems that it would be worth more than this place.

I can see children leaving from their homes to go to school, farmers going to work through hillsides, women washing clothes in the river and the village feeling people, animals and the wind. What a pity!

See you.
Saturday, 24 December, 2022
Graham said…
Good evening Joseph,

I've added a vocabulary exercise and some related tweets.

Even if I was a wealthy man and could afford it, I doubt I would invest in this village.


Salto de Castro isn´t a village, but a lifeless, poor and unfortunate place. It´s a hill with edifices which is far away from civilisation. It´s sad but that's the way it is. There are a lot of villages without people in Spain and when you go through them you feel melancholic. Politicians have called these places "empty Spain" but, as it´s tradition, they are not going to do anything to avoid it and without votes even less.

I think no one is going to buy this village because he would have to invest a lot of money. If anybody would want to spend so much money, in my opinion, he would invest in other places like urbanisations or places near towns, seas or rivers with services and supplies of electricity, gas and water which Salto de Castro does not have. It seems that it would be worth more than this place.

Wednesday, 28 December, 2022
Sir Joseph said…
Hi Graham,
1. Improve.
2. Tiny.
3. Triumph.
4. Disrupt.
5. Plummet.
6. Reservoir.
7. Inquiry.
8. Maintenance.
9. Wealthy.
10. Profit.

See you.
Monday, 02 January, 2023
Graham said…
Hello Joe,

They are all green words.

1. flourishing
2. sparsely
3. eventual
4. put on hold
5. Plummet.
6. Reservoir.
7. Inquiry.
8. upkeep
9. well-heeled
10. Profitable
Monday, 02 January, 2023
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