Houses in Sicily
A 1,000-mile coastline, brilliant almost year-round sunshine, some of Italy’s most affordable property…little wonder that increasing numbers of house-hunters are beating a path to Sicily.
  Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean and has its most outlying outpost – the isle of Pantelleria – barely 50 miles from the North African coast. It helps explain why Sicilian tradition and architecture show the imprint from cultures as diverse as the Arabs and Normans to the Romans and Greeks.
This is a land that has a rare natural beauty, from its endless sandy beaches to its stunning mountain ranges. Then again, there aren’t many places in the world when you can wander onto your apartment terrace and gaze at the splendour of Mt Etna.
Little wonder that as far back as the 1700s, the poet Goethe sang its praises as “a land unutterably beautiful”. Two centuries later, Marlene Dietrich, Sophia Loren and Truman Capote were just some of the star names to fall under its spell. Even more recently, fashion guru Giorgio Armani, screen star Gerard Depardieu and singers Peter Gabriel and Mick Hucknall are some of the celebrities who have fallen so in love with Sicily that they now own homes here.
As well as the island’s immense beauty, one key factor that draws in foreign homebuyers is the affordability of properties here. A few years ago the town of Salemi made world news when its mayor put rundown homes on the market for just €1.
At Homes and Villas Abroad we can’t promise similar cut-price bargains. However, we can tell you that prices for Sicilian townhouses can start at a scarcely believable €7,500.
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