80 Spanish villages offer houses from one hundred euros per month to boost business in emptied Spain.

Population levels are slipping like sand between the fingers in emptied Spain. In our country, 85% of the population lives in 20% of the territory, concentrated in the main cities. According to the National Institute of Statistics, 5,024 municipalities in all provinces have lost inhabitants since the beginning of the century.

Many of the towns with fewer inhabitants in Spain are looking for entrepreneurs, people wanting to change to a less hectic lifestyle and more connected to nature, families who want to return to rural and young people with the ability to revitalize closed houses and empty streets. This is the third edition of the HolaPueblo initiative.

The platform is a project supported by the Red Eléctrica de España, IKEA and Alma Natura. For the third time in a row, it seeks to connect localities with few inhabitants with people who have entrepreneurial ideas and a desire to move, work and make a life in rural areas.

They also collaborate in the Reale Seguros initiative, Correos, Triodos Bank and the Triodos Foundation.

80 Spanish villages offer houses

As explained from Alma Natura, the municipalities are in eight autonomous communities: Andalusia, Aragon, Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, Valencian Community, Foral Community of Navarre, Extremadura, and Galicia.

All of them have minimum conditions to absorb new inhabitants: housing supply, nearby public services such as school and health centre or Internet connection. Half of the villages have already participated in previous calls. Some, with remarkable success, such as the town of Tragacete in Cuenca, in which five families have already settled.

If you decide to join the movement by registering for this third call, open until next October 2022, you will receive advice on the best municipality for your life project, mentoring to start your business and accompaniment to change your life.

The most recurrent profile of the seventy entrepreneurs that HolaPueblo has managed to help to date are couples between 41 and 50 years old with children and who promote a family-type business, normally linked to the services sector (60%).

One of the novelties of this edition is that in addition to freelancers and entrepreneurs, the platform will provide support to people who want to live in rural areas but work for others. To do this, it will accompany unemployed people on a personalized job placement itinerary in companies in the localities that have vacant positions.

80 Spanish villages offer houses novelties

Other novelties are home insurance, entrepreneurship information pills, the possibility of crowdfunding, rental protection insurance with guarantees or the revitalization project of municipal spaces, promoted by IKEA.

In addition, IKEA has opened a call for the revitalization of municipal spaces that serve to energize the population. Two winning projects will be selected that will be designed and planned entirely by IKEA, including the interior furniture.

These are the selection criteria to send your proposal to HolaPueblo.

You can register and fill out the form here

Entrepreneurial idea that shows technical, commercial, and economic viability. It is required to be financially sustainable (MPV), generate benefits for society and respect and protect the environment.
Necessary documentation to live and work in Spain.
Access to a personal computer and good internet connection, as the advice is 100% online.
Ages between 18 and 65 years.
Interest in settling in and developing your life project in rural areas immediately.
Real perspective and life plan in the municipality.
Economic resources to be able to settle in the municipality until the business begins to have benefits and to facilitate the implementation and survival of the business model in early phases.
Time to devote to the development of the mentoring content and the job search process. This means a minimum of 4 hours per week for a correct use of the program for about 3 months.

80 Spanish villages offer houses projects

Between 2019 and 2021, the impact of HolaPueblo translated into 109 municipalities attended, seventy mentored projects, twenty-eight life changes and eighteen new businesses in operation. On their website you can read the stories and get to know the people behind these life changes.