You may want to hold off on buying that Italian villa

The Italian central bank conducts a periodic survey of real-estate agents in Italy to assess the state of the property markets. They recently completed this survey, with 1,522 real-estate agents participating across the country. The results aren't great - the Italian real estate market has taken a sharp turn the worse.

Italian Housing Market Survey: The percentage of agents reporting a fall in housing prices during the fourth quarter rose to 66.5 per cent, compared with 51.2 per cent for the third quarter. Once again, extremely few respondents (under 1 per cent) reported a rise in prices. There was accordingly a further worsening in the negative balance between “up” and “down” answers, from 50.3 to 65.9 percentage points. The deterioration was sharpest in the South.

The results for the short-term (current quarter) outlook for prices in their regions are also showing a substantial deterioration.

The balance between “favourable” and “unfavourable” assessments of the short-term outlook for the local market worsened sharply to a negative gap of 45.7 percentage points, from 22.3 points in the previous survey.

Source: Banca D'Italia 

The credit contraction is beginning to take its toll on the Italian economy, with property market deterioration as one of the early signs of this recession. So if you've been looking to buy that Italian villa at bargain prices, it may be prudent to give it a year or two before jumping into this market.

SoberLook.com