Entire Spanish village with more than 40 homes on sale for $400,000

An entire Spanish village comprising more than 40 homes, a church, school and other community facilities is on sale for just €260,000 ($401,000).

Salto de Castro, in north-western Spain, is about a three-hour drive from the capital Madrid and has been uninhabited for 30 years.

But it offers 44 homes, a hotel, a municipal swimming pool, a church, a school, and even a police barracks building, to entice prospective buyers, the BBC reports.

READ MORE: NSW home buyers can now opt to pay land tax under new law

The owner purchased the village at the beginning of the 2000s, with the plan of converting it into a tourist site. But the eurozone financial crisis scuppered the project.

"The owner had the dream of having a hotel here but it was all put on hold," said Ronnie Rodríguez, of Royal Invest, the company representing the owner.

"He would still like the project to come true."

Salto de Castro is listed on the website of Spanish company Idealista and it has received more than 50,000 visits since it was first listed in early November.

A spokesman for the company said that 300 people have expressed an interest in buying, with inquiries from Russia, France, Belgium and the UK. One potential buyer has already put money down to reserve it.

The village was originally built in the 1950s by a power company to house families of the workers who built a nearby reservoir.

READ MORE: Entire town in Far North Queensland on sale for just $340,000

But the occupants moved away after it finished and the village was completely abandoned in the late 1980s.

For about $400,000, you can buy a family-sized house in the outer suburbs of Adelaide, Perth or Brisbane.

But whoever buys Salto de Castro is likely to need plenty of cash to at least attract visitors.

"The investment required in order to make the village 100 per cent workable and to become profitable would not exceed €2m ($3m)," Idealista says.