A new positive mood permeates the Italian real estate residential sector. The optimistic sentiment is due to the increasing number of house sales in the first part of 2015. The forecasts are now less grim than before.

In the opinion of Moody’s, Italy’s housing market shows a slow pace in the ongoing gradual recovery.

All real estate Italian experts agree on the partial recovery in 2016, when the house sales could increase between 6% and 10%. The first nine months 2015 have registered 317,072 house sales, compared to 300,859 sales in the same period of 2014, and at the end of the year the market could reach 440,000 transactions. It remains far away from the goal of 500,000 sales.

Italian think tank Nomisma remains cautious. Massive sales of public buildings or bank portfolio disposals could depress the market. The drivers of real estate could be low interest rates, economic recovery in Europe and a fall in unemployment.

The government has just decided to cancel the Imu-Tasi taxes on Italians’ primary residences. But this measure won’t cause an increase in transactions. Nobody decides to buy a new home to save 0.1% of the value (this is the average amount of the tax).

A better way of boosting housing sales would be to introduce the Golden Visa, the possibility for foreign citizen to receive the permanent residence after buying a €500,000 house. But Italian government has no plans to do so.

It is important to bear in mind that the Italian real estate residential market is unlikely to reach the 860,000 peak of sales it scored in 2006. The crisis that began at the start of 2008 has completely changed the Italian market. Buying for investment is now beginning to increase at a slow pace after many years of crisis and the second homes sector is suffering for high taxes. Italian buyers have preferred to purchase houses abroad in the last years.

by  Paola Dezza
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED