Listen to the audio version of the article
Rent ballasts salaries. Between 2018 and 2023, the average weight of the rent on employee income in the provincial capitals went from 31.6% to 35.2 percent. Exceeding 40% in six cities, from Florence (46.5%) to Bologna (40.2%). The data refers to the new free-fee contracts registered each year with the Revenue. The fees for the agreed channel are also growing, the weight of which on income has risen from 27.5 to 29% in the last five years, with 15 capitals above 30%.
These are figures that give the measure of the difficulties complained of by tenants and businesses. “It cannot be thought that a rent exceeds 25-30% of the salary that young people earn”, declared in recent days the president of Confindustria, Emanuele Orsini, relaunching the proposal for a “housing plan” anticipated at the Festival of Economics of Trento. A plan to make affordable housing available to workers.
Inflation and dry coupon
The cross-referencing of Omi data (Real Estate Market Observatory) with the tax statistics of the Finance Department shows that since 2018 the pressure of free rents on residents’ paychecks has risen on average by 3.6 percent. With peaks in Vicenza (+8.5%), Bologna and Milan (both at 6.3%). In the Lombardy capital, where the average incidence stands at 37.4%, for new contracts tenants have to face the highest prices: 1,122 euros per month, 267 more than in 2018. Followed by the 967 euros in Florence and the 947 of Rome.
It is interesting to see how the fees brought to the attention of the IRS have moved compared to inflation. In 2018 the average monthly salary in the capitals was 615 euros; last year it was 731 euros. If the increase had been identical to the inflation recorded by Istat at a national level, the latter amount would have stopped at 715 euros. In short, new rentals have risen more than the general price index (which also incorporates the effect of high energy costs). Also due to the rush for short-term rentals and the recovery in demand from university students in the post-Covid period.
Tenants with landlords who chose the dry tax rate emerged unscathed from this round of price increases, because the application of the flat tax suspends the possibility of updating the rent to inflation. According to the latest available data, taxpayers who have opted for the tax rate are 2.79 million, compared to 3.65 million homes rented by natural persons. In short, the flat tax – often accused of being too expensive for public coffers – seems to have offered many tenants unexpected protection after years of near-zero inflation.
