Bayárcal town hall, which is offering three free homes to anyone with kids who wants to go and live there, has been swamped with offers in the first week.
In a sign of the economic times, 50 families from across the province have so far filled in application forms.
The idea was to attract more families with young children to the tiny village to keep the school open. There are only 377 people left there, a third of whom are retired, and just 14 kids attend the primary school.
Jacinto Navarro, the Mayor, told Ideal newspaper he was delighted at the response.
The “lucky” three families will live rent free, with rubbish and water paid for, whilst their children attend school in Bayárcal.
Bayárcal is in a lovely spot, up on the mountains near the border with Granada, but is, to be frank, a backwater with few stable jobs, something admitted by the Mayor himself when he recommended that applicants be prepared to do oddjobbing around the village to make ends meet.