Spanish village for sale is back on the market

This time, the price has gone up, but it can still be considered a steal

About a year ago, the Spanish hamlet of Salto de Castro made the headlines for the unusual fact that it was offered for sale in its entirety. The entire village was bought for 300,000 euros by Oscar Torres, a construction businessman from Toledo whose aim was… well, we’re not entirely sure what he planned to do it with it.

There seems to be some clarity on the last question after news came out last week that the village is back on the market, appearing once again as a listing on the Spanish property website idealista. This time around, however, the asking price is 580,000 euros, which means that the property might have been part of a house-flipping action.

House-flipping refers to the act of buying a property, doing renovation work and improvements on it in order to increase its value and then putting it back on the market for a higher price with the aim of also making some profit from the deal.

What does the potential buyer get?

Indeed, the claim goes that Mr Torres has completed some architectural improvements on the complex of buildings and is now ready to sell it off to a person or business that would actually be interested in doing something definitive with Salto de Castro.

The village is located in the Province of Zamora, near the Spanish-Portuguese border. In fact, it’s just 100 metres away from Portugal’s easternmost point. It consists of 44 houses, a tavern, a church, a school, a swimming pool, a sports centre and a former police station – basically all the things you’d expect to find in a standard Spanish village. The only thing it lacks is inhabitants.

The entire village was constructed in the 1940s to house workers building the dam adjacent to it, however, once that grand-scale project was complete it was abandoned and has stood empty for more than 30 years.

Depopulated areas in that part of rural Spain are a common sight – distant as they are from the country’s vibrant cities and sunny costas. That’s why, even at the current asking price, the whole village still costs as much as a nice flat in Madrid or Barcelona.