Finding a house to rent in Asti is an almost impossible task. The city seems to be for sale, sometimes a fire sale. On «real estate», one of the most popular classifieds websites, the numbers speak for themselves: 50 apartments for rent, 1,236 houses for sale. Rentals thus represent 3.8 percent of the real estate offering. On an empirical level, the number becomes even smaller: agencies that don’t always answer the phone, that say they’ll call back and don’t, adverts left to moulder even if the houses have already been occupied by more fortunate tenants, requests for references at the limits of invasion of the private sphere (even before having signed authorizations for the use of one’s sensitive data). The real estate.it observatory provides eloquent aggregate data: in the province of Asti the offer of rentals in the last quarter fell by 50 percent and represents the most significant decrease in Piedmont (in the province of Vercelli, first in the ranking, there are increased by 37 percent). Assuming that one has all the requirements to find an apartment, then the costs of the first period rise precisely due to a market swallowed up by agencies that ask for at least a monthly payment for the service rendered, to which is added the deposit which can range from one to three months’ rent. Of the 50 adverts, those published by private individuals are 13. At least a couple do not answer the phone and emails and others already rented remain there to feed the meager list. When you try to see an apartment, the agencies do an initial screening over the phone: «Is the house for you? Do you have an employment contract? Is it permanent? Is the salary adequate?”. The answer must be yes to everything, otherwise you won’t even be able to visit the accommodation or ask for more information, for example on condominium expenses, an item not always filled in in the adverts. Once you have overcome the barrier and shown interest, the requests can go even further: “The employment contract, the last pay slips, the last three payment slips of the apartment where she was a tenant in the past”, asks a real estate agent. In short, iron references for a battle that not everyone can face.
«The disproportion between apartments for sale and rent is tangible – comments the president of the Union of small owners, Marco Trinchero –, many prefer to get rid of their property due to negative experiences in the past. Others are elderly people who choose to put up for sale. But there is a lot of uncertainty and in fact the price of apartments has also dropped.”
For Trinchero, in addition to the distrust born from experiences with defaulting tenants or apartments returned to the owner in terrible conditions, «taxes, renovations, the increase in condominium expenses also play a role in the choice: factors that make an owner say “I’m almost putting it up for sale”. “despite the fact that Italy is still one of the main countries in Europe where the house is considered a safe haven.” There are those who don’t pay the rent, «but they are white dots: unfortunately there are those who have lost rent but like all things we have to overcome it. These are situations that happen but you have to rent, we are not a happy island, but cases of arrears are not that widespread.”
