The interviews for the survey covering the first quarter of 2013 were carried out between 8 and 29 April. A total of 1,397 real-estate agents took part, providing information on sales and prices in the quarter January-March 2013 and on the outlook for the sector.
Main findings
House prices
The proportion of agents reporting a fall in house prices during the first quarter of 2013 with respect to the previous period rose further, from 79.3 per cent in January to 83.1 per cent in April. The increase in downward assessments was sharpest in the North. Once again, the number reporting a rise in prices was negligible (0.5 per cent).
Number of sales
The share of agents that sold at least one property during the first quarter was 64.4 per cent, exactly the same as during the fourth quarter of 2013. A decline in the regions of the North-West, South and Islands was offset by an increase in the Centre and the North-East.
Mandates to sell
The balance between answers indicating increase and decrease in the number of unsold properties still on estate agents’ books at the end of the first quarter of 2013 came down by one percentage point with respect to the previous survey, to 36.7 points; the reduction was most marked in the South and Islands. The balance between responses indicating increase and decrease in new mandates to sell also diminished slightly, from 26.5 to 25.7 percentage points.
As to the causes for the withdrawal or non-renewal of agency mandates, for thefourth consecutive quarter there was a decrease in the proportion of agents who cited potential buyers’ difficulty in obtaining mortgages, to 51.1 per cent compared with 55.4 per cent in the previous survey and 63.8 per cent in April 2012. The most common reason continued to be lack of bids owing to prices perceived as too high (63.5 per cent), while 50.2 per cent of the respondents mentioned purchase offers judged as too low by the seller.
Negotiations and time to sale
In the first quarter of 2013 the average difference between the seller’s original asking price and the closing price narrowed marginally to 15.6 per cent, from 16.0 per cent in the previous survey, after a phase of gradual increase. The average time to sale remained practically stable at 8.6 months.
Financing house purchases
The share of house purchases financed by mortgage loans stabilized in the first quarter of 2013 at the level recorded in the fourth quarter of 2012, 56.1 per cent, as declines in the North-East, South and Islands were offset by increases in the rest of Italy. By comparison with the year-earlier survey, the percentage was down by 4.3 points. The average loan-to-value ratio fell for the third consecutive quarter, from 57.8 to 56.1 per cent, a new low since the survey began in the fourth quarter of 2008. Geographically, the decline during the quarter January-March 2013 with respect to the last quarter of 2012 was sharpest in the North-East (5.6 percentage points) and the South and Islands (7.3 points); the ratio remained broadly unchanged in the North-West and increased in the Centre.
Outlook for agents’ local markets
In April the balance between “favourable” and “unfavourable” assessments of the outlook for the local market one quarter ahead, while remaining very strongly negative, improved notably compared with the January survey, from -42.8 to -31.5 percentage points, as negative assessments fell sharply by over 10 points to 39.2 per cent. The balance on expectations concerning new mandates to sell turned back downwards, from 20.2 to 13.0 percentage points, mainly owing to the 8-point fall in expectations of an increase. Assessments of the short-term outlook for prices remained pessimistic, although the share of agents forecasting a decline in the next quarter (April-June 2013) edged downwards from 72.2 in the previous survey to 70.7 per cent, while the share expecting no change increased from 27.0 to 28.8 per cent.
Outlook for the national market
Expectations for the national housing market in the short term, though still gloomy, did recover somewhat during the first quarter. The negative balance on expectations for the national real estate market moderated from -57.4 to -48.4 percentage points, as negative assessments declined and positive ones increased. Over the medium term (two years), the balance between forecasts of improvement and deterioration remained slightly positive at 2.3 percentage points, but registered a deterioration from the 6.8-point difference found in January. The deterioration in expectations involved all parts of the country except the Centre. The North-East is the only area where the balance is still negative (by 7.8 points).
The rental market
Of the agents that rented at least one property in the first quarter of 2013 (79.8 per cent of the total), two thirds reported a fall in rents with respect to the previous period, compared with 58.6 per cent in the previous survey; the percentage reporting an increase remained very low (2.7 per cent). 57.0 per cent expected rents to be unchanged between the first quarter of 2013 and the next one and 41.1 per cent expected them to decline (compared with 35.4 per cent in January).
