Notary transactions fell 8.7%, real estate sales and mortgages fell 29.5% in the first half of 2023.

In the first half of 2023, the Italian real estate market showed negative results. According to the Notary Statistics (DSN), the volume of real estate transactions fell by 8.7% compared to the same period last year. Home mortgages also fell by 29.5%. Notariate presented an analysis for the nine largest Italian cities regarding mortgages, replacements and residential real estate transactions.

Real estate transactions

In the first half of 2023, Italy saw an 8.7% decrease in residential transactions (from 303,375 to 277,052) compared to the same period in 2022. The volume of transactions gradually decreased over the months, with a negative 2.7% in the first two months of 2023, 4.8% in the first''s fall in transactions (-8.7%), indicating that rising interest rates have forced people to rely more on their own funds rather than financial support.

The decrease in capital provided corresponds to a fall in loans granted from €38.5 billion to €26.9 billion (-30.1%). The average capital granted in H1 2023 is almost the same as in H1 2022 (€170,597 vs. €172,171). Analyzing the "amount of capital provided" categories, negative changes are observed in the €200,000 to €250,000 range (-42%), while the categories from €50,000 to €100,000 and over €500,000 decreased by a negligible 20%.

It is also interesting to analyze the age categories that received mortgages. The reduction affected all''housing between individuals by 13.8% and purchases of primary housing from companies by 32.3%.

Secondary housing purchases from companies fell by 15.3%, but in this case the number of sales is 2.5 times higher (43,798 properties) than the number of primary housing sales from companies (18,515 properties).

When it comes to mortgages,''financing is expected to decrease by 23.8% in 2023 compared to the projection based on data from the first two months of 2023 (-10.1%). The contraction in loans originated (-23.8%) exceeds the negative trend in the real estate market (-10.5%). This strong contraction in mortgage loans is due to higher interest rates compared to 2022 and therefore a greater use of personal funds instead of financing.

Analyzing the age groups that received financing, it should be noted that the reduction did not reach two age groups up to two decimal places (0 to 17 years old and 18 to 35 years old with respective reductions of 9.1% and 9.6%). Other age groups had funding reductions ranging from -28% to a peak of -51.9%''for the 66-75 age group. The surrogate loan market will also decline by 38.2% from 2022, but this figure is heavily influenced by rising interest rates in the second half of 2023 and a low total number of surrogate transactions, leading to significant variation in forecasts.

The real estate market in major cities

The following cities are considered: Rome, Milan, Naples, Bari, Bologna, Turin, Palermo, Verona, Florence. The data show that despite the overall decline in the volume of real estate transactions (Milan -8.4%, Turin -3.4%, Verona -3.7%, Bologna -4.6%, Florence -10.3%, Rome -9.6%, Naples -7.3%, Palermo -0.3%, Bari -12.4%), in the major cities the trend for the purchase of secondary housing remains better than for primary housing, and in some cases even shows''positive results (in Turin secondary housing transactions between private individuals grew by 5.3%, in Verona by 0.5%, in Bologna by 0.9%, in Naples by 4.9%, in Palermo by 12.2%, inRome the purchase of secondary housing from companies remained at the same level as in the first half of 2022, while in Palermo this segment grew by 8.9%). The analysis of mortgage loan provision completes the picture: -26.4% inMilan, -31.5% in Turin, -25.6% in Verona, -30% in Bologna, -32.6% in Bologna, -29.1% inRome, -31.4% in Naples, -33.6% in Palermo, -28% in Bari.