(Finance) – The first six months of 2024 mark a gradual increase in first home purchases compared to the same period in 2023, despite the Fiaip Study Center recorded a general negative trend in residential sales compared to the first half of the previous year. A clear optimism emerges, however, for the end of the year and for 2025 thanks to the renewed confidence dictated primarily by the drops in interest rates already decided by the ECB and those announced.
This is what emerges from the Report “Fiaip Monitors Italy” which photographed the data on the trend of the market real estate in the country in the first half of 2024, surveyed by over 800 professional real estate agents, also compared to the market forecasts for the end of the year and the first six months of 2025, together with the presentation of the Focus on real estate values of the cities of Trent and of Bolzano.
The Report, presented in Trento at the ITAS MUTUA auditorium on the occasion of the presentation of the new agreement between Fiaip and ITAS relating to the professional liability policy, containing a series of important novelty to protect and benefit the citizen, highlights that in the first half of 2024 the overall number of trades residentialfell to around 340,000 (-3% compared to the first half of 2023), but with an increase in first home purchases +10% again compared to the first six months of the previous year, equal to approximately 80% of the intermediated operations, in the majority (65%) of cases purchases aimed at “replacement” (i.e. wanting to sell a smaller house to buy a larger one or vice versa).
The Fiaip Report photographs a greater one trust dictated in particular by a access to credit facilitated by banking policies that reduced interest rates in anticipation of the cuts announced by the ECB, which took place in June and September. There is a clear increase in purchases with mutual (with an average amount equal to approximately 85% of the price) which rose to approximately two thirds of purchase and sale transactions. Also on the rise housing prices +2.5% (always semester after semester) especially in metropolitan cities with a strong tourist, university and work vocation, where the strategic importance of real estate investment in Italy is increasingly confirmed.
Sales of goods are also increasing new or renovated properties (+5%), therefore less energy intensive, primarily as a result of high bills and the effects of EU “Green Homes” Directiverecently approved, which must be implemented by our country by May 2026. Il three-room apartment “used” it is the most common type of purchase and sale (for 70% of the professional real estate agents involved) and there is a return to purchasing in the semi-central and central areas (for 75% of those interviewed) favoring both the distance from rivers and streams, following repeated catastrophic events linked to floods and inundations, and, above all, the proximity to services (school, hospitals, shops, etc.) after the covid and post-covid period which had, on the contrary, recorded a strong desire to live in the suburbs and the first countryside search for greater autonomy and green spaces.
For them locations housing in the first half of 2024 there was a +5% number of contracts, demand increased and supply decreased with a consequent average increase in rents of +8% compared to the first six months of 2023. The most frequently searched typology is the agreed fee contract (45% of cases) in reference to two-room or three-room apartments used in central and semi-central areas. People are looking to rent mainly for work and study reasons but in a good percentage also due to difficulties in purchasing (33% of cases) primarily dictated by the high cost of living and uncertainties about the future due to the fears generated by the military conflicts in Ukraine and in the Middle East.
For theuse other than residential both the trend of sales (shops -1.2% offices -1% warehouses -0.5%) and prices (shops -1.8%, offices -2% and warehouses -0.8%), and the trend of rentals (shops -1.7% offices -1.3% warehouses -0.8%) and related rents (shops -1.1% offices -1.8% warehouses -0.8%) , remain substantially on the same line as the first half of 2023, hence the need for legislative measures that incentivize this sector above all, Fiaip has been proposing the introduction of the coupon dry also for rentals for uses other than residential.
Confidence for the end of 2024 and for the first months of 2025 both for the announced third reduction in interest rates on mortgages by the ECB, than for a newfound desire to improve its own quality housing. In fact, a trend is expected, both in reference to
sales and real estate values, better than the first half of 2024, quantifiable respectively at approximately 5% and +1.5%.
For them locations residential both an increase in contracts of +3% and a further average increase in rents of +5% are estimated, while for use other than residential (shops, offices and warehouses) it is expected, both for sales and for rentals, a further slight decline in the number of transactions of -1% but with a reduction in both prices and rents of -2%.