Italian Second Home Market Holds

The market of the second homes in Italy is standing the crisis and the value of properties in the tourist market has been growing for the last five years, despite a slight increase of the number of properties poured into the market (+ 4.2%) and a decrease of the number of sales (-10.8%) which reflects the whole  Italian property situation.

In the second half of 2008, according to the Italian real estate association FIAIP, the values per square metre of the properties on the second home market swung between €2,580 and €6,210, and the number of homes for sale increased by 4.2% against a 10% decrease of the number of sales.

Analysing more into detail the report we see that the gap between minimum price and maximum price goes from €2,580 to €3,545 per square metre for outskirt or semi central properties and €3,490 to €4,840 for central properties whereas new or prestigious properties are included in a price range between €3,945 and €6,220. Compared to the last study done in 2007 there has been a reduction in the gap between minimum price and maximum price; this is due to a slight increase of the minimum values and a slight decrease of the maximum value per square metre for each of the three property categories analysed.

Within all the tourist areas taken into consideration in the report throughout Italy, there are five of them where properties registered a maximum price above €10,000 per square metre for new or prestigious homes for sale; they are Courmayeur (Valle d’Aosta) and Madonna di Campiglio (Trentino Alto Adige) as mountain areas and Santa Margherita Ligure (Liguria), Forte dei Marmi (Tuscany) and Porto Rotondo (Sardinia) as coastal areas. Within these five areas, Madonna di Campiglio is the only one that registered a price increase, both minimum and maximum, for all the property categories, and reached between €10,000 and €14,000 per square metre for new or prestigious homes, between €8,000 and €11,000 for central properties and between €5,500 and €8,000 for semi central properties. Forte dei Marmi, Courmayeur and Porto Rotondo have remained stable whereas Santa Margherita Ligura has registered a slight decrease in the value of its homes, especially for prestigious properties.

The rest of Italy sees, along with the areas where there has not been registered nearly any variation in their home market, such as Desenzano del Garda (Lombardy), San Benedetto del Tronto (Marche), Montesilvano (Abruzzo), Vieste (Puglia) and Policoro (Basilicata), only four tourist areas have seen a price decrease of their homes: Sestriere (Piedmont), Termoli (Molise), Tropea (Calabria) and particularly Rimini (Emilia Romagna). More peculiar are the cases of Todi (Umbria), Sabaudia (Lazio) and Amalfi (Campania) where there has been a price increase for some property categories within a general situation of price decrease.

Within all the areas analysed in the report the only ones which have registered an increase in their property values are Jesolo Lido (Veneto), Lignano Sabbia D’Oro (Friuli Venezia Giulia) and Cefalù (Sicily).

The report highlights also other very interesting data: the average time passed from when the estate agent gets the mandate to sell the property to the final deed is 8 months (a bit longer than 2007), the gap between the seller's asking price of the property and the actual price that the property is sold for increases and reaches 12.3%. Mortgages, that have been required for the 40% of the purchases, have been used to finance the 65.26% of the value of the purchased property with an average length of 16.2 years.

Half of the homes purchased in the tourist areas of Italy have an habitable surface of about 60 square metres, followed by medium size homes (36.3% of the purchases) and properties measuring over than 120 square metre have been bought the 13.7% of the times. Regarding the home buyers the 80% are Italian, EU buyers the 9.3% and non EU buyers the 7.1% of the total of the properties purchased.

If we consider the data since 2004, when FIAIP started monitoring the Italian homes for sale in the tourist areas, the market has registered an increased for all the property categories: prestigious homes have increased by 9.2% and 27.2% for the minimum and maximum price range, by 28.5% and 36.8% for central homes and by 25.7% and 33.6% for semi central properties.

Regarding 2009, the FIAIP report foresees a slight price decrease, stronger for semi central and outskirt properties (-2.15%) and weaker for prestigious homes and properties located in central positions (respectively -0.85% and -1.25%). The variation at national level for second homes for sale in Italy will see a -1.4%. This value includes areas where a price decrease is foreseen, for instance Santa Margherita Ligure, Termoli, Policoro and Vieste, along with other ones where is foreseen an increase which has been already registered in the first half of 2009, such as Amalfi in Campania and Lido di Jesolo in Veneto.