STOCKHOLM: A town in western Sweden has suspended land sales after being overwhelmed by requests for offering land at less than 10 euro cents ($0.11) per square metre, its mayor told AFP Monday.

“We launched this campaign in mid-April. It was a bit of a crazy idea, but also a joke to be honest. It was a marketing operation,” said Johan Mansson, mayor of Gotene, a town of around 5,000 people.

Thirty plots of land, abandoned for decades, were put up for sale at one Swedish krona ($0.095) per square metre (10.7 square feet).

The idea was to build more housing in a low-density area and help the region grow, the mayor said. The plots range in size from 7 to 1,200 square metres.

By buying a plot, the buyer commits to building a house on it within two years. This involves additional costs, including the building permit at 30,000 kronor, connection fees for water at 170,000 kronor, electricity at 40,000 kronor, and internet at 30,000 kronor.

A few weeks after the campaign started, Gotene managed to sell three plots. “A great success for such a small community,” said Mansson. “But we could never have imagined what was in store for us.”

A local television report in late June started a snowball effect. Several Swedish media picked up the story, a video was posted on TikTok, and millions of people discovered Gotene and its cheap plots.

A few days later, it became “a global success”, said the mayor, when two English-language media outlets covered the story.

Since then, the municipality has been inundated with emails and phone calls from potential buyers. Gotene had to temporarily suspend sales to consider all the offers.

“We have had interest from Europe, Asia — mainly India and Pakistan — as well as the United States, Australia, and even South America,” said Mansson. With this campaign, “we have succeeded in putting Gotene on the world map.”