The interviews for the Italian Housing Market Survey were carried out between 25 June and 24 July. A total of 1,269 estate agents took part. Information was provided on house sales, rentals and prices in the reference quarter (April-June 2014) and on the outlook for the future.
Main results
House prices
In the second quarter of 2014 the proportion of estate agents reporting a fall in selling prices was a large majority, although it was down to 67 per cent, from 70 per cent in the April survey, while the proportion reporting stability rose from 29.7 to 32.5 per cent.
Sales
The proportion of estate agents that sold at least one property in the second quarter of 2014 rose to 68.1 per cent, from 64 per cent in the April survey, the rise occurred above all for existing buildings. By contrast assessments of demand recorded a worsening: the balance between respondents reporting an increase in potential buyers and those indicating a decrease worsened to -20.5 percentage points, from -11.8 points in the previous survey.
Mandates to sell
The balance between responses indicating an increase and a decrease in the stock of mandates to sell rose to 28.4 percentage points, from 24.8 points in the previous survey, while the balance with reference to new mandates declined slightly (to 18.1 percentage points). The gap between asking prices and offer prices remained wide. Estate agents were of the opinion that the loss of mandates continued to be considerably affected by buyers’ offers being deemed too low by sellers (the opinion of 55.1 per cent of respondents) and by the absence of offers because asking prices were deemed to be too high by potential buyers (the opinion of 62.4 per cent of respondents). On the other hand the proportion of estate agencies that attributed the loss of mandates to the difficulty of obtaining a mortgage decreased, from 41.7 to 34.2 per cent.
Negotiations and selling time
The average discount on sellers’ initial asking price remained basically stable (16 per cent), as did the average time between the award of a mandate and the sale of the property (9.4 months).
Financing house purchases
The proportion of house purchases financed by a mortgage loan remained virtually unchanged at about 63 per cent. After rising gradually over the four previous quarters, the loan-to-value ratio rose further, from 61.5 to 62.1 per cent.
Rentals
Overall, 83.8 per cent of estate agents reported that they had rented out at least one property in the second quarter of 2014, as against 81.6 per cent in the previous quarter. Among these operators there was a small rise in the proportion that reported an increase in rents, from 0.9 to 2.4 per cent. The negative balance between estate agents expecting an increase in rents and those expecting a decrease in the current quarter contracted slightly, from 56.6 to 55.3 percentage points. The average margin for reductions in rents compared with initial asking prices remained virtually unchanged at 7.7 per cent. New mandates to let were reported to be stable by 61 per cent of operators, while the positive balance between those expecting an increase and those expecting a decrease was almost annulled, falling to 04 percentage points from 5 points in the previous survey.
Outlook for the agents’ own markets
Estate agents’ assessments of the short-term trends for their own markets, despite worsening compared with the previous survey as a result of the seasonal factors that influence the assessments for the summer, were much less pessimistic than those of the year-earlier survey: the negative balance between favourable and unfavourable expectations decreased to -26.9 percentage points, from -43.5 points a year earlier. The balance of expectations of a rise and a decline in new mandates to sell was down compared with the previous survey but was at much the same level as that recorded in the year-earlier period (4.2 as against 6.1 percentage points). A majority of operators continued to be pessimistic about the trend of house prices: the proportion expecting a fall in the current quarter rose to 55.8 per cent while the proportion expecting stability dropped from 46.3 to 43.6 per cent.
Outlook for the national housing market
The assessments of the short-term outlook for the national market, in comparison with the year-earlier period to remove the effects of seasonal factors in the summer, indicate an attenuation of operators’ pessimism: the negative balance between expectations of an improvement and a deterioration narrowed to -34.3 percentage points, from -53.3 points last summer. The outlook for the medium term (two years) shows an improvement on a year earlier but a sharp decrease in optimism compared with the situation in April.
