According to the Italian Housing Market Survey carried out between 1 and 31 October 2018 based on 1,441 real estate agents, in the third quarter of 2018 the share of real estate agents that reported downward pressures on house prices decreased again, while the share of replies indicating price stability increased. The share of agents that reported unchanged demand conditions rose, but this was at the expense of the share of those indicating an improvement. Selling times increased, while the average discount on the initial asking prices returned to the average values of last year.
The share of house purchases financed by mortgage loans and the loan-to-value ratio remained high. The cancellation of listings was mainly due to the gap between asking prices and offers; the share of real estate agents that attributed this to the difficulties experienced by buyers in obtaining home purchase loans remained low.
Expectations regarding the outlook for the real estate market continued to be favourable, in both the short and medium term, with an improvement in short-term expectations.
