For Sale: Deserted French village, pool included

The village of Courbefy has rustic buildings with fireplaces and exposed beams, a horse stable, a tennis court and a swimming pool. Sound nice? It's for sale. The saga of the abandoned hamlet is a story of flight from rural France, bad economic times and real estate schemes gone awry. It's turned the mayor of the village next door into a minor celebrity whose office fields inquiries from places as far flung as Qatar and China. The village in Limousin, about 280 miles southwest of Paris, was put on the block last week because its latest owners, who had run it as a luxury hotel and restaurant, had long stopped paying their mortgage. The entire hamlet — with more than a dozen buildings — carried an asking price of just €300,000 ($400,000) — about the cost of a studio apartment in Paris.