Like many other rural areas, Götene has struggled with an ageing population and low birth figures in recent years, and particularly wants to attract families.
The municipality's campaign had already picked up traction within Sweden around June 2024, but a few weeks later it exploded worldwide – which Götene's mayor Johan Månsson believes is due to an article in The Local. The municipality was fielding calls from all corners of the world from people interested in buying plots of land, and was so overwhelmed it was forced to pause sales for a few weeks to catch up.
Over a year later, we got in touch with Månsson again to ask what has happened since.
He told The Local that they refer to it as a saga in the municipality, the Swedish word for a fairytale.
“It really does feel like a saga,” he said. “Even more so the more time passes.”
During the campaign’s absolute peak, Månsson was interviewed by CNN, with the article on Götene’s plots appearing on their website directly below a very high-profile story ‒ an election debate between former US president Joe Biden and current president Donald Trump, which eventually led to Biden stepping down.
“This article about a little forgotten pearl in northern Europe taking all these measures to attract new citizens, with beautiful pictures – it was almost too good to be true,” he said, adding that the media interest in the campaign “reached a new level” at that point.
“Our mailboxes were completely overflowing. Our phones were ringing constantly for weeks, and it was the summer so we only had the summer staff on. More or less everyone working in the town hall ended up working on this campaign – we’re a small municipality so there are relatively few of us working here.”
The municipality went into crisis mode to handle what Månsson described as a “positive crisis,” and staff have learnt a lot about how to handle extraordinary situations.
“We had one person on the phones, so we had to get the whole building involved, loads of people sitting here and answering calls," he said. "At first it was mainly India and Pakistan, then it moved to parts of Africa, north America, south America and then even to Australia. Japan, South Korea, then the big media giants snapped this up. I even did a live interview on CNN’s Quest Means Business with Richard Quest.”
Quest Means Business is one of the broadcaster’s flagship programmes, which according to the company’s own figures reaches 400 million viewers in over 200 countries. That's over 40 times the population of Sweden.
Only a few Swedes have guested the show, such as former prime minister Carl Bildt and ABBA member Björn Ulvaeus – and now, Götene municipality mayor, Johan Månsson.
Månsson said that he barely remembers anything from the actual interview due to the nerves, but that it made the campaign snowball even further.
“It was almost five minutes long. Beautiful pictures of Götene which we’d sent in, fantastic in all ways and very positive, talking about Sweden’s quality of life, 'Sweden is so amazing' – it was a great advertisement for Götene.”
The story was also picked up by Australian public broadcaster ABC who visited Götene, as well as French public broadcaster France 2. As recently as August 2025, a Polish newspaper visited to cover the story.
“It’s just kept rolling with big international interviews, of course less frequent as time goes on, but it hasn’t stopped. It’s the piece of news which never died.”
Månsson added that the international interest in the municipality has increased local pride in the area.
“That’s been the biggest win in all this. The publicity we’ve received and above all, the pride and sense of fellowship it’s built in our community, among our citizens. We’ve been seen in places we never thought we would be, people have called it a paradise, a pearl of northern Europe. We’ve got proof of the fact that our nature and [local mountain] Kinnekulle is something that stands out, internationally.”
The municipality has even updated the signs seen when driving into the area with quotes from foreign media.
"We’ve tried to make the most of this in all ways possible and ride the wave as much as we can," Månsson said.
He added that the whole story has contributed to a general feeling that things in the area are moving in the right direction.
“That’s the most important thing if we’re going to grow in the long run – making people proud to live here.”
But what about the big question – how many plots have been sold?
Despite the huge media attention – the municipality received over 5,000 inquiries for plots – only seven have been sold.
This was partly due to the fact that many of the foreigners interested in buying a plot did not realise that they would also need a residence permit in order to live in Sweden, and that buying a plot means committing to building a house on the site within 24 months.
“That was one of the issues, but there was also a lot of misunderstanding about what it means. One of the most common questions was ‘I want to buy a plot, I’ll buy now’, ‘okay, well you need to build a house’, ‘how much does a house cost?’”
He added that some people wanted to buy all of the plots as a speculative investment, in order to sell them on at a higher price, while others offered to buy the plot and set up a tent in order to meet the building requirement.
After explaining the other costs related to building a house on the site, Månsson said that “99.99 percent” of potential buyers withdrew their offers.
In order to combat money laundering and make sure potential buyers were serious about building on their plots, the municipality also introduced extra requirements. This included documentation proving that they would actually be able to buy a house in the area, as well as a stipulation that buyers have a Swedish bank account, which proved too high a hurdle for many foreigners to meet.
“We were obviously a bit worried that we could end up attracting the wrong kind of buyer, who bought a plot and then never showed up, or who couldn’t build a house. So we set up a lot of extra requirements. Did we set the bar too high? Yeah, maybe, but the most important thing is that we only got serious buyers, and that we were completely sure that they would be able to finish their build.”
A year and a half after launching the campaign, the municipality is still receiving calls “every week” from people interested in buying plots of land.
“If we’d wanted to, we could have sold them all overnight,” he said, adding that almost all of the plots have been under offer at some point or another.
Despite selling fewer plots than expected, the municipality still considers the campaign a success.
“Of course, it might not sound like a lot, but when we started this campaign we said we would be extremely happy to just sell one plot. So selling seven is a great result.”
He also expects that more will sell once the Swedish economy picks up pace.
“Things are moving very slowly when it comes to the construction industry in Sweden at the moment, including here in Götene. So we’re very interested to see what happens when the economy improves and the market gets going.”
The campaign was originally scheduled to expire at the end of 2025, but in good news for anyone interested in moving to Götene, the municipality is considering extending it into next year.
“There’s no chance that we’re just going to drop this now. We’re currently working on how we can keep this going and maybe update it in some way at the end of the year. There will almost certainly be a chance to buy plots from next year as well.”
On top of the seven sold plots – which have all been sold to Swedish families, albeit from all over the country – a number of families have also moved to existing houses in the area in the past year or so, which Månsson believes is in part due to the positive media attention it has received.
There’s also another positive effect of the campaign. Götene’s population has risen, and is now at its highest since 1997 – that’s almost 30 years ago.
“We need more young people. More families. In 2024 we saw a major increase – this may not sound like a lot if you live in a bigger town ‒ but we saw an increase of 90 people, which is a huge amount for us.”
Månsson admits that that’s probably not entirely due to the one krona campaign, but he does believe that the positive attention made people considering moving to the wider area choose Götene in particular.
Buyers had 24 months to build on their plots, and the first house is already finished, with more under construction.
Månsson, along with a colleague from the municipality, has also started travelling to neighbouring areas to give talks about Götene’s campaign and how it has revitalised the community.
Recently, Götene has received another kind of positive media attention. Last autumn, it won a competition to be crowned 2025’s Donald Duck municipality, beating Gävle – a city with ten times the population – by over 12,000 votes.
This means that the municipality will be featured in an upcoming issue of Sweden's biggest comic Kalle Anka & C:o (Donald Duck and Company), where Donald and his friends move to Götene, tempted by the cheap price of land.
“We’re still trying to find ways to put ourselves on the map in a bit of a fun way that doesn’t cost too much,” Månsson said.
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