Spain

Abandoned villages in northern Spain snapped up by foreign investors

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• published: 31 Jul 2015
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Taramundi 1. Wide of abandoned village for sale 2. Close-up of Pepe Rodil, head of Aldeasabandonadas.com opening one of the houses for sale 3. Wide shot of Rodil opening a window in the house 4. Mid of Rodil looking out of window 5. Mid of Rodil walks out of room 6. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Pepe Rodil, head of Aldeasabandonadas.com in the north of Spain: "You have a village with, let's say, 17 owners who want to sell and 3 other who do not agree. In villages people always speak to each other, and this one knows his neighbour is being paid this much, and the other one this much, and the other one that much, and they all consider their own should be the most expensive one. Making all those people to finally agree is the most difficult issue we have to deal with." 7. Wide pan of buyer, Neil Christie's village 8. Wide of one of the houses 9. Wide of Christie's house being built 10. Close up of Christie driving his digger 11. Wide of digger 12. Mid of Christie 13. Wide pan of digger 14. SOUNDBITE (English) Neil Christie, owner of village: "Eventually we came across this one, which is a completely abandoned village and, literally, this house you can see behind me was a hole in the ground and it had a tree growing out of it about 5 metres high. It had been abandoned for 30 years. I said wow, that's a lot of work and thought well, how much is this going to cost? Well, I couldn't believe it. The whole lot� do you want to know how much? 45 thousand. Euros! Not pounds, euros." 15. Wide of one of the houses in Christie's village 16. SOUNDBITE (English) Neil Christie, owner of village: "If you have some skills and you are prepared to get into it yourself, then I would say yes. But you've got to be dedicated because there are times when you think: why am I doing this? And there are times when you come here and look around and think: I know why I'm doing this, now." 17. Wide pan Christie's village Pontenova 18. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Dario Campos, Pontenova mayor: "I guess every town hall has a way of seeing it, but I would definitely recommend this iniciative, specially in places like Galicia or Asturias where there is one basic problem on rural areas: depopulation, emigration, lack of people. People die and they can not, let's say, generate other people, there are no kids. So this is a good thing for places where this problem exists, also to restore the houses and sustain the environment." 19. Wide of path STORYLINE: An ageing population and dire economic prospects have emptied the remote villages and rough stone houses of the northerly Galicia region in Spain. After years of negative demographics and constant migration from one of the country's poorest regions hundreds of small hamlets, many country houses are now at the mercy of the elements. The cycle started to turn slightly during Spain's decade long economic boom: the villages were bought-up buy affluent Spaniards as a property investment, riding on the seemingly never ending property wave. This however has come to messy end with record unemployment and a stagnant economy. It is now foreigners who are snapping-up picturesque properties at discount prices. Pepe Rodil is the sales-representative of one of the most successful websites in Spain selling abandoned villages, www.aldeasabandonadas.com. He looks around one the site's most interesting offers, a huge country house with electricity and water with over 20 acres of land, its asking price is approximately 100,000 euros (131,000 US dollars). It is just north of the major town of Lugo and just 17kms (10.5 miles) from the stunning coastline between Galicia and Asturias. The principle purchasers of the villages are now foreigners. He thinks the move is vital to help start repopulating deserted villages. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/e1b081ffc135e0822c0e13af4c88d625 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork