[Agemegos]

In the nineties you could buy a remote and ruined castle with a few hectares of land for £45,000, and restore it (as a medieval fortress, not an 18th-century mansion) for £400,000. Run-down Victorian mansions in remote areas were under half a million. Estates in Scotland incapable of producing agricultural income weren't selling for millions either. I'd guess that a million pounds would easily have bought Ardtornish in 1995, and another million rebuilt Kinlochaline as a magical worshop and refurbished the mansion as an HQ and accommodations.

Estates and ruined castles are marvellous when that's what you need, but they are hard to make money out of, and hiring staff to maintain them is an incredible money-sink. This being the case, there isn't really very much competition for ones that come on the market, unless they are favourably located and graded to allow redevelopment as hotels, resorts etc. A château in wine country or 20 km from Paris is worth millions, a desolate estate in northern Scotland is not.