WASHINGTON: Following Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election, many Americans are looking to leave the country, and the Italian village of Ollolai has offered a potential opportunity.
Located in countryside of Sardinia, the Ollolai town is offering affordable homes – some as cheap as $1 – for US citizens who want to relocate.
Europe could soon be welcoming a wave of well-heeled Americans, as Democratic voters facing the prospect of another Donald Trump presidency eye refuges abroad. Interest in so-called “golden visas” has skyrocketed among US citizens since the election, reports CNN.
Golden visas allow people to effectively buy foreign citizenship or residence through sizable investments, including in real estate, government bonds or startups.
Henley & Partners, which claims to have invented the concept of citizenship-by-investment in the 1990s, said inquiries by US nationals via its website spiked almost 400% the week of the election compared with the prior week.
Many of these individuals don’t plan on permanently relocating to a new country, however. “The main focus for most Americans is just having the optionality… like an insurance policy,” said Dominic Volek, head of private clients at Henley & Partners.
Arton Capital, another investment migration consultancy, said it received well over 100 inquiries the day after Trump’s decisive victory was called, five times the typical daily average.
“A very small percentage of these people are actually relocating, but they all want to have the option as a Plan B,” CEO Armand Arton told CNN. “We will definitely be very busy (over) the next six months with the US market.”
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One Italian village is trying to make the most of the sudden spike in demand: Following the election, the village of Ollolai, on the island of Sardinia, launched a website offering ultra-cheap homes in the hope that those upset by the result will snap up one of its empty properties.
Ollolai mayor detailed three levels of accommodations offered by the village and free temporary homes to certain digital nomads, One-euro homes in need of renovations, ready-to-occupy houses for up to 100,000 euros or about $106,000.
The mayor has reported 35,000 requests for more information on the houses, most of which were from the U.S.
Historically, residence- and citizenship-by-investment programs have attracted emerging market elites — including from Nigeria, South Africa, China, India and the Philippines — who typically face higher levels of political and economic instability at home or who want a second passport to enable visa-free travel.
Americans were not a major source of demand for golden visas until the pandemic, when Covid lockdowns meant they were unable to visit Europe without a European passport, even if they owned second homes on the continent or could travel by private jet, according to Volek.
“A lot of the very wealthy families… were a little bit more exposed than they realized,” he told CNN.
Demand has been rising ever since, with increased political division and social tension in the United States also driving interest, according to a Henley & Partners report published earlier this year. Since 2020, US nationals have been the firm’s single largest cohort of applicants for investment migration programs.
Inquiries about golden visas from Americans have increased 33% so far this year compared with the same period last year, with programs in Europe the most sought after.
Portugal’s Golden Residence Permit Program tops the popularity list because it is relatively affordable, requiring a minimum outlay of €250,000 ($265,000) in support of the arts or national cultural heritage. It also offers a path to European Union citizenship after only five years, as opposed to seven to 10 years in countries such as Greece, Spain and Italy, which are also popular choices among Americans.
With golden visas out of reach for most Americans, social media platforms are ablaze with chatter about other avenues for moving abroad.
A YouTube video on “countries for Americans who want to leave the US,” posted less than two weeks ago by a couple who help people move abroad, has received more than half a million views and 4,000 comments, including from Americans who say they are urgently exploring options for living overseas.
