I Turned A $1 Property In Italy Into My Dream Home — Here’s How Much It Cost

Meredith Tabbone purchased an abandoned $1 home in Sambuca di Sicilia, Italy in 2019. The condition of the property was "dire at best," Tabbone tells CNBC Make It: no electricity, no running water, asbestos in the roof and "probably two feet of pigeon poop on the floor."

Unlocked is a home tour series focused on how much people across the globe spend on their housing, what they get for the money and what they had to sacrifice to make it happen.

Produced and Shot by: Mickey Todiwala
Scripted by: Valentina Duarte
Managing Producer: Beatriz Bajuelos
Editor: Marisa Forziati
Animator: Uma Sharma
Reporter: Jennifer Liu
Senior Production Manager: Kathy Mavrikakis
Additional Footage: Meredith Tabbone

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I Turned A $1 Property In Italy Into My Dream Home — Here’s How Much It Cost

[Paul-psho]

What I learned from this was Italy found a way to get their grandchildren to return home and reinvest their earnings and contribute back into the local economy . Kudos to them for that.

[saquibc]

She designed and decorated it beautifully. Much nicer than many million dollar homes I've seen on YouTube

[kkp]

original budget 40k.
final expense 450k.
remind me not to hire her for budgeting.

[azera]

The price defeats the whole premise but architecturally I found what she did very interesting

[jj-ifit]

It's more meaningful that her family is from that village. It makes it worthwhile

[fc]

The goal of a €1 home is to regenerate the area. I think she’s done that and more. The employment of local craftsmen and using local materials and suppliers, even planning to donate it back to the town!

[susannjarvis]

What I found most interesting was that she purchased a 17th century Italian home (I believe more than one; she mentioned purchasing adjacent properties for more space) and then turned it into a 21st century minimalist American home. But she referred to it as her dream home so I am happy for her. Just not what I expected from the title.

[TekkiTEZ]

So the home cost $500, 001? I think the part we don't know is that Meredith makes 350K as some kind of executive.

[FG-wnre]

Probably one of the nicest homes I've ever seen. Not too big and not too small. Just perfect. And also - what a transformation! Well done to you Meredith. Well done

[lizs]

The library that has like 10 books in it cracked me up 😆

[cs]

It's A LOT of money, but keeping in mind it's 2 houses and seeing the finishes and the luxury furniture that she has, it makes a lot of sense. New electrical, new roof, new waterlines, all the new windows and doors, all the marble (looks expensive!) plus the designer furniture..

[olaf]

As a Sicilian, I'm think she got the tourist price.
500k in Sicily gets you a pretty nice castle with no renovations.

[lisathorburn]

Remember she outsourced all of it. That’s smart if she can make more money working, giving great jobs to people, keeping the towns people employed. And it’s stunning. Well done. If you want to house swap to Ecuador for a season let me know. We did the same thing on the coast of Ecuador.

[hrwmom]

Good for her! I love when people take a chance. How wonderful that it was the same village her great grandfather was from. It’s apparent by some of the comments that others live in very low cost of areas. $400-500k for a 4/4 home seems absolutely reasonable to me! And she cash flowed the whole thing! That’s pretty awesome. Now she has a wonderful property that I’m guessing she can rent out too.

[nsanenthembrane]

Well that’s a much nicer home than a lot of 500k homes in the US

[jj-ifit]

I love that she kept a lot of the original details

[giovana]

I loved what she did. It's so chic and cozy at the same time. Also, seeing the state the house was in initially I think she managed to keep costs quite reasonable as it was all contracted. Seems like it would be a great place to Airbnb for the months when she's back in the US to help offset her expenses.

[Randy_Anonymous]

Wow, what an amazing transformation!! Che bella 😍 Nice to see that you integrated the ancient part into the new renovated parts. You really have style!

[katrinaloughrey]

Looks incredible. But... the whole point of the 1 Euro homes is the opportunity to then renovate it and have a home much cheaper than homes back home. She's crazy to spend 400K on a 1 Euro home, plus fly back and forth so often. She must have an incredibly well-paid job to do this too. I'd more like to see a video of someone who turned their 1 Euro home into something incredible but for like 50K, something the average person could pay off.

[MyName-wlcd]

She did an amazing job and lots of high end finishings.