Ellis Island records show that about 1,700 Gangi residents landed in New York between 1892 and 1924, he said. Starting in the 1930s and 1940s, Argentina became the preferred destination.

Many family homes left behind were the so-called pagglialore typical of this town. The squat, tower-like structures housed donkeys on the ground floor with the paglia, or straw. Chickens and goats were kept on the middle floor. The farmer’s family lived on top.

These structures are now among those that the city has made available, with the local government acting as real estate broker of sorts, facilitating the convergence of the town’s considerable supply of abandoned dwellings and the growing demand. Some have been given away, others sold for a nominal price. The owners decide.

The community has gone one crucial step further, radically streamlining the intricate and often convoluted bureaucracy that accompanies buying and renovating a home in Italy.

“The bureaucracy is what worries people most, but we don’t sell a house and leave people alone,” said Alessandro Cilibrasi, a local real estate agent who assists the municipality in the initiative.

A website for British investors, shelteroffshore.com, advises would-be buyers to get advice from English-speaking or non-Italian lawyers well versed in Sicilian legislation; if property has been handed down through generations, “the path of ownership is not clear,” and there may be outstanding taxes, or debts and loans.