In the central England city of Stoke-on-Trent, the cost of a cup of coffee could buy you a three-bedroom house.
The city's council is offering 35 derelict houses for sale at just £1 ($1.53) each, attracting the interest of 600 would-be homeowners, reports the BBC. It's an attempt to breathe new life into two particularly run-down streets in the Cobridge area of the city. According to council data, as of 2011 there were around 4,000 empty houses in Stoke-on-Trent—a city hit hard by industrial decline, with high rates of crime and unemployment—and many of those properties have become targets for vandalism and arson.
"We want to revitalize these areas, build a community spirit and turn these places into thriving neighborhoods again," writes the council on its web page. There are high hopes for the plan: within five years the council expects the area to become "a thriving community with good quality housing for people with a choice of owning or renting their home."
The terraced houses have two to three bedrooms and are in a variety of conditions ranging from liveable to all but falling down, writes the Daily Mail. Buyers will be contractually obliged to renovate the properties and bring them back into use, at an estimated cost of up to £30,000 ($45,773) per building – for which they can take out a loan from the council. That's still a pretty good deal, though: the average price for a terraced house in Stoke-on-Trent is £68,878 ($105,091), according to the Land Registry of England and Wales.
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