"A shower and a loo behind a folding door."

The real estate market may have crashed in most places around the world, but the Croatian Times has an article about a centrally located miniature apartment in Rome that’s been listed for 50,000 Euros ($70,000). It’s not quite 54 square feet. Let the bidding begin. (Thanks to Fortean Times and Boing Boing.) An excerpt:

“Described as a ‘compact bedsit’ the property is in one of the city’s smartest districts right next to the ancient Pantheon and with Italy’s billionaire Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as one of your neighbours.

Mind you, all you can see from the one tiny window is an alley, and only after you have climbed up a ladder to get to the sleeping platform and then crawled across the bed to get there.

Downstairs is a standing-room only bathroom with a shower, sink and a loo behind a folding door.

Local media commentators have been shocked by the price ==even in the city’s inflated property market. Newspaper Il Giornale said: ‘In Rome now, people are living like rats.’

The owner, however, refuses to budge on the price. He claimed: ‘People seem to like it. I’m getting three or four calls a day about it.'”