Maenza/Bhubaneswar: A picturesque town in Italy’s countryside is selling off houses for as little as one euro or approximately Rs 87.

According to CNN, the town of Maenza has prepared a long-term project to repopulate Italy’s villages and boost tourism in the countryside.

The only catch is the fact that if you manage to land a property in Maenza, you must restore it within three years. Buyers will also have to pay a 5,000 euros deposit guarantee which will be returned once the restoration work is complete.

There are many empty huts and abandoned houses in Maenza that will be put up for sale soon. Applications for the sale of houses will close on August 28 but more huts and houses will be made available in the near future.

"We're taking it one step at a time. As original families get in touch and hand over to us their old houses, we place these on the market through specific public notices on our website to make it all very transparent," Maenza’s mayor Claudio Sperduti said.

Located 70 km southeast of the Italian capital of Rome, Maenza’s local administration wants to "combat the abandonment of the ancient medieval village of the city centre", as per details on their website.