Square footage, number of rooms and price: in real estate the gap between supply and demand is widening. Here is what emerges from the first study carried out by CENTURY 21 Italia and Wikicasa, which examines the entire Italian territory with a detailed analysis of 8 Italian cities (Milan, Rome, Turin, Bologna, Florence, Naples, Catania, Palermo).
Four-room apartments are sold but three-room apartments are bought
First of all, home buyers and sellers don’t meet on size. If on average, according to the study, those who buy at the beginning of 2024 are looking for a property of approx 118 square meterswith just over 3 rooms, who sells, instead, it offers homes from average square footage of 127 square meters which have over 4 rooms. According to the report, in fact, to a large extent sellers in the first months of 2024 mainly put three-room apartments or even properties with 5 or more bedrooms on the market. A trend, that of looking for increasingly smaller houses, which emerges forcefully by isolating the data relating to requests: just think that at the beginning of 2023, those looking for a house were oriented towards 130 square metres, while at the end of the same year the requests concerned houses with average surfaces of 125 square meters, to fall further, as we have seen, to 118 square meters at the beginning of 2024.
Higher rates, smaller properties
Why is the purchase of a house oriented towards smaller sizes? The answer lies in mortgage rates. “The reasons are many and must be sought in the period of profound change that the sector has gone through in recent months – explains Marco Tilesi, CEO of CENTURY 21 Italia – we went from a period in which the conditions for accessing credit were particularly favorable to a period of strong rise in mortgage rates”.
This situation has had a strong impact on the sales system: “If, in the period immediately following the pandemic – continues Tilesi – the conditions were such as to push the demand towards larger solutions, today we are starting to require solutions increasingly smaller, especially in large cities”.
No less important are the motivations linked to progressive reduction of the family unit or to the investment purpose, which overshadows the choice of a property as a space to live in 24 hours a day.
House prices
Price analysis perfectly summarizes this trend which sees buyers and sellers on two opposite barricades. According to him study in fact, today those looking for a home in Italy do so by settling their application on a average price just under 160 thousand euroswhile the average price for those who put a property up for sale comes to touch the 230 thousand euros. A divergence which, in light of the different supply and demand positions on square footage and number of rooms, is certainly not surprising.
Houses for rent, a market in apparent equilibrium
If supply and demand bifurcate on the buying and selling front – compared to almost 238 thousand sales announcements registered at the beginning of 2024 across the entire national territory, the purchase searches recorded in the same period are, however, just under 30 thousand – the rental market seems in perfect balance. TO 22 thousand requests always registered in the first months of 2024, in fact, they correspond 23 thousand offers.
And here too the data proves it: the houses placed on the rental market are on average larger than those sought by potential tenants, 81 square meters of supply versus 69 of demand. The study also shows that landlords mainly place two-room apartments (7,000 adverts) and three-room apartments (5,000 adverts) on the market. The price remains a litmus test: those looking are willing on average to rent for 700 euros, while property owners aim for average rents of just over 1000 euros.
Milan and Rome, two cities at the antipodes.
If it is true that Milan remains an attractive city, the study shows that the search for houses to buy in the Lombard capital has undergone a sudden stop. If at the beginning 2023 the research stood at 1400 at the beginning of 2024, they will reach 1000, falling by around 30%and this in the face of an offer which, enticed by the now well-known rising prices, goes from in the same period 4751 offers to over 6000.
And that’s right Milan the city where asking price and market supply create a greater gap: owners put properties valued on average on the market 470 thousand euroswith buyers looking for homes with an average value of 268 thousand euros. But that’s not all, according to the analysis, Milan is still one of the cities where the smallest houses are sought, well below the national average: if the average surface area requested in Italy stands at 118 square metres, in the capital Lombardy, those who want to buy a house are looking for one of 68 m2.
“Milan seems to have reached its plateau, its point of equilibrium – says Marco Tilesi CEO of CENTURY 21 Italia – in a self-regulating market we can assume that in the near future, with respect to the dynamics in progress, prices should behave more regularly , in a market that is nevertheless strong.”
Rome, on the other hand, seems to be accelerating with a significant increase in purchase requests going from over 1300 at the beginning of 2023 to 1800 in 2024 and with an average request in terms of square footage, well above Milan, with 89 square meters and with slightly more balanced supply and demand prices compared to the Lombard city: the price is around 260 thousand euros and it is sold starting from 340 thousand euros. But they are the rents the real Achilles’ heel of the capital: “It is in this segment that the phenomenon of short rentalsconnected with the imminent Jubilee, shows itself in all its power” warns Tilesi. Faced with a demand for rental properties, which by the beginning of 2024 stands at 2300, the adverts reach “just” 1300 with average prices of 1400 euros, well above the average request in Italy.
Rent a house in Florence, Naples, Bologna
Finally, what catches the eye in the study are the rental data of Florence which within a year has halved the number of apartments on the rental market, going from 1200 registered at the beginning of 2023 to just over 600 today. But that’s not all, the Tuscan capital is also there cities where rents are most expensive: over 2300 euros for an average size of 82 m2, on an Italian average of 1000 euros. Florence even beats Milan where rentals are close to 2000 euros. Naples it is instead the city, among those examined by the report, where i property sales prices remained more stable in the last year, small fluctuations for houses of the average sales value of 260 thousand euros for an average size of almost 100m2, higher than that of Milan and Rome. TO Bologna from the end of 2023 to today, searches for houses for rent have tripled, reaching almost 900 at the beginning of this year, with average rental prices constantly growing from 2022 to today, which have stood at around 1400 euros.
