According to preliminary Istat estimates, in the first quarter of 2024 thehouse price index (IPAB) purchased by families, both for housing and investment purposes, shows a slight decrease of 0.1% compared to the previous quarter, but a increase of 1.7% compared to the same period in 2023slightly lower than the +1.8% recorded in the fourth quarter of 2023.
The annual growth of the IPAB is mainly driven by the prices of the new homes, which increased by 5.4%, although slowing down compared to +8.8% in the previous quarter. Existing home prices contribute less with an increase of 0.8%, showing an acceleration.
These trends occur in a context of declining trading volumes. The Revenue Agency’s Real Estate Market Observatory reports a 7.2% year-on-year decline in the residential sector for the first quarter of 2024, following a 3.3% decline in the previous quarter.
The slight cyclical decline in the IPAB (-0.1%) is due exclusively to the 1.7% decrease in new housing priceswhile the prices of existing homes show a slight growth of 0.2%.
The acquired rate of change of the IPAB for 2024 is equal to +0.3%, resulting from an increase of 2.1% for new homes and a reduction of 0.2% for existing ones.
With data from the first quarter of 2024, the weights used to calculate the price indices have been updated. The weight of new homes decreased slightly, reaching 17.36% from 17.72% in 2023, while that of existing homes rose to 82.64% from 82.28% last year.
In the first quarter of 2024, comments Istat, the growth in prices of homes purchased by families has stabilized on an annual basis, interrupting the slowdown that began in the second half of 2022. This growth is mainly fueled by the increase in prices of new homes (+5.4%), while prices of existing homes show a modest increase of 0.8% . However, the number of home sales continues to decline across the country.
