In Italy, houses collapsing piles of stone, brick and timber for €1 are still available.
Fixed that for you.
My brother bought a house in Italy. Base price was much more than 1 Euro because it was actually renovatable, even considering the gaping holes in the roof. But the renovation process is VERY time consuming and expensive. It is beautiful now, but it took them something like 3-4 years to get it to a liveable state, and they probably spent mid six figures on it, if not more.
Edited to add (after reading the other replies):
The 1 Euro houses are pretty much all in remote hill towns with very little commercial infrastructure left. That is why thy are selling so cheap -- local governments want to get more people back into the towns so they don't get completely abandoned.
Because of the remote location, you would typically have to drive a LOOONG way to find anything resembling even a small town hardware store, much less a Home Depot.
The bureaucracy is one of the reasons the restoration/building process takes so long there. MAYBE you could do some of the work yourself, but you would have the extra hassle of figuring out how to get permits and inspections and what not on your own, in a foreign language. Example of the land use bureaucracy: after renovating the in town house, my brother and SIL have decided they want someplace that is more age-in-place-able -- this is a hill town, so the house is four stories tall. They did consider putting an elevator into the house in town, but it wasn't feasible. So they bought a piece of agricultural land on the edge of town -- it has a nice olive grove on it already, and my brother wants to put in the one kind of grape that will grow there and experiment with wine-making. They will build a small one-story house to live in as they age on that property. EXCEPT, in order to get the permits to build anything on agricultural properly, they have to get registered as farmers. They knew this going in, and are seeing it as part of the adventure, but one of the reasons they were able to get the property for a reasonable price is that most people would not be willing to jump those hoops to get buildable land.
As far as the actual work goes, what seems to happen in a lot of places (and pretty much what happened with my brother/SIL) is that a few expats find a nice town and settle in/embark on their renovation or rebuilding projects first. They figure out which contractors are more reliable and do good work, often after a lot of false starts, and then those people become the go-tos for all the expats who come in a bit later. Typically those guys already had good businesses beforehand (the expats typically find them through local friends), so they have more work than they can handle. Which means waiting for them, and then scheduling delays when their other multiple projects get backed up for various reasons.
There are some great Youtube channels of expats restoring properties in Italy -- of course they don't show ALL the headaches and hassles, but it can give you an idea of what is possible on your own if you want to try to attempt it. It seems to be mostly single guys and couples without kids who take on these kinds of projects. If you approach it as an adventure it could be great. Or it could be a disaster. I haven't watched all of their videos but this channel is pretty good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8R2UodKA1MIf I were younger and wanting to explore something like this, I would probably try to connect with other people who are buying/renovating properties and offer to exchange labor for a place to stay. Then you can see what it is like and what the problem areas are before you sink your own money into such a project.
I have told my brother if things go to hell here I'll come and manage their kitchen garden and maybe herd a sheep or goat or two.
