An anonymous bidder has bought an entire village in the eastern German state of Brandenburg. The locals, who have seen most of their neighbors and children leave since the fall of the Berlin Wall, are hoping some meaningful change will ensue.

The small, sparsely-inhabited village of Alwine, located some 150 kilometers south of Berlin, was auctioned off on Saturday in the German capital for €140,000 ($165,000), local media report. Karhausen auction house had set the minimum bid for the 16,000-square meter village at €125,000 ($147,000).

The buyer turned out to be the only bidder at the auction, and is now the owner of six homes and numerous barns and outhouses. The buildings have fallen into disrepair since the village was acquired by two brothers in 2000, one of whom has since died. The village is hidden in the middle of a pine forest, there are no shops or public services and coaches along the only road in the vicinity pass the settlement without stopping.

The population of Alwine, described by Karhausen as a “settlement in the form of a village,” has dwindled to just 15 people since the closure of a nearby fuel briquette plant – said to be Europe’s oldest – following German re-unification in 1990, Spiegel reports.

Dorf Alwine für 140 000 Euro versteigert https://t.co/Cw6NKar5EMpic.twitter.com/wxA2bHGKAB — News by Larry (@NEWS_by_Larry) December 9, 2017

“Many interested parties made inquiries, including from abroad," said Matthias Knake, a Karhausen spokesperson, according to Deutsche Welle. “The winner wants to do something good with this purchase — for the welfare of the people who live there,” Knake said.

The news was not universally welcomed, however. Andreas Claus, mayor of Uebigau-Wahrenbrueck, the town to which the village belongs, told Germany’s NTV outlet: “We are very angry that it had to come to this.” He said Alwine’s houses, are in urgent need of repair due to leaking roofs and broken wooden windows. The mayor added “we’d surely like to talk to the buyer about his future plans.”

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Some observers speculated what the bidder could do about the village. “You could make a rural community out of it,” a real estate dealer from Munich told NTV. He said the owner should not expect much of the purchase because the property prices in the area will certainly not go up. “If you do nothing, the last tenants will also soon be gone,” he cautioned.

Locals expressed mixed feelings about the news. “I cost more than 125,000 euros,” villager Paul Urbanek, 71, told Spiegel. He added, however, that the roof of his house now needs replacing. “The most sensible thing would be to flatten all the houses and put new buildings here,” he said.