The market of mortgages in Italy it languishes because of interest rates. Buying a house in our country has become a pipe dream for families, who are increasingly demotivated by an extremely complex situation for brick and mortar. This is certified by a study by the Autonomous Federation of Italian Bankers (Fabi), which recorded a threefold increase in rates and a 12% drop in trades. The latter, observes the banking union, is a process that has consolidated since the fourth quarter of 2022. And it is a collapse that affects all types of homes and the entire national territory.
How many sales are there every year in Italy
In September 2023 the trades were 507.879, almost 70 thousand less than twelve months earlier. 62% of those who take out a mortgage do so by taking advantage of the benefits provided for their first home, which is also a constantly decreasing figure.
The sale of new properties fell by 15.9% as did that of residential homes (-28%). Today the percentage of citizens ready to go into debt to buy a house has shrunk from 50 to 41%.
What can happen to interest rates
The biggest obstacle is the cost of money, which has reached 4,5% with the latest increases wanted by the ECB in the fight against inflation. This phenomenon is especially affecting Italy, where the stock of mortgages fell by 2.3 billion euros in 2023 despite an increase of 35 billion in the previous two years. In fact, the rates of January 2022, when banks applied a rate of 1.4%, seem like a distant memory. In the following months, gradual growth began until the psychological threshold of 4% was breached in March 2023.
At the moment a change of course seems unlikely. The hope is that the European Central Bank, once the storm has passed, will establish a new rate cut which could reignite the real estate market. However, Fabi warns, the reaction of Italian families any move by the ECB is not guaranteed to be immediately positive. It is necessary to ascertain, the analysis concludes, that the decline of the last two months could represent the start of a structural path.
“The easing of monetary policy, now expected by most observers, is fundamental – highlights the general secretary of Fabi Lando Maria Sileoni – precisely to put the banks themselves back in a position as soon as possible to support the real estate market again For Italy it means giving oxygen back to a fundamental piece of our economy which is worth several points of GDP, if we count all the sectors connected to buying and selling and all the so-called related activities”.
2024-02-24 17:45:00
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