Entire Spanish village with 44 houses, hotel and swimming pool on sale for less than $500,000

If you're desperately struggling to get on New Zealand's notoriously out-of-reach property ladder there might be a better option. 

An entire Spanish village has gone on sale for just €260,000 (NZD$441,245) - much less than an average house in Aotearoa. 

Salto de Castro is in north-western Spain and has 44 houses, a hotel, a church and a swimming pool. 

The 65,000-square-foot village is in the hills of Zamora, near the border with Portugal, and is just a three-hour drive from Madrid. 

But there is a catch, the village has been abandoned for more than three decades and is located in an extremely sparsely populated part of the country. 

The owner, who is in his 80s, said he's selling the village because he lives in the city and is struggling to maintain it. 

And there might be some competition with Ronnie Rodríguez from Royal Invest, the company representing the owner, telling BBC the listing has attracted 50,000 views since it was put up last week. 

Rodríguez told the outlet 300 people have also expressed interest in buying Salto de Castro, with enquiries from Russia, France, Belgium and the UK.

Entire Spanish village with 44 houses, hotel and swimming pool on sale for less than $500,000
Photo credit: Google Maps

The village was originally built to house electricity workers in the early 1950s but was abandoned in the late 1980s. 

It's not the first time it's gone on sale, Salto de Castro was previously listed for a whopping €6.5 million (NZD$11 million) but after a lack of interest, and due to the somewhat run-down nature of the village, the price was reduced. 

Despite the low price the village is in some need of renovation with the listing noting: "The investment required in order to make the village 100 percent workable and to become profitable would not exceed €2 million (NZD$3.3 million)."

So while it might take some work, it's a lot less than a home in New Zealand. The latest QV data shows despite house prices steadily dropping, the national average price is still just shy of $1 million dollars, sitting at $951,040.