Houses, prices still rising: +4% estimated for 2026

The rise in house prices in Italia shows no sign of stopping, on the contrary, it could accelerate. It is still the scarcity of real estate supply that weighs heavily, particularly in the larger urban centres, their hinterlands and metropolitan cities, where housing pressure is greater due to the arrival of students away from home, mobile workers and - in some specific cases - also the expansion of short rentals where tourist flows are more sustained. It is here that rising real estate values - accomplices of wages that have been at a standstill for several years now - make access to a home increasingly complex.

According to the fourth observatory on living by Scenari Immobiliari with Abitare.Co, of which Il Sole 24 Ore can anticipate an excerpt, housing prices in Italia will increase by about 3.1% in 2025 and could rise further, touching +4% at the end of 2026. The strongest growth concerns new construction properties, a still small share of the national housing stock, especially outside large cities: here growth rates stand at +6.5% in 2025, with an estimate reaching almost +7% in 2026. Despite the upward trend in prices per square metre, the number of purchases and sales closed last year in Italia describes a healthy sector, once again confirming the upward trend in volumes that began during 2014 and was interrupted only by the contraction in 2023 attributable to high interest rates following the inflationary flare-up.

In 2025, transactions grew by 7% to 770,000. According to the report by Scenari Immobiliari, the path taken may be able to restore sales to the levels reached before the financial crisis in the second half of 2000 as early as the end of this year. In the course of 2026, sales should in fact rise by another 50 thousand units, reaching a total of 800 thousand transactions (+4%). The numbers on Italy's residential market also tell of a growing interest on the part of funds, investors and operators who are returning to buy, develop and transform properties for residential use. An audience of players on which the third pillar of the government's Piano Casa (House Plan) wants to focus, while trying to expand the offer of projects with low rents. In 2025 investments in living grew by 40% (to 950 million), doubling the national average for the sector. And now estimates for 2026 point to further growth to 1.2 billion. Transactions on multifamily and new housing formulas, both for sale and for rent, are increasing.

In addition to direct investments, indirect ones are growing: hotels, offices or commercial properties that change use to become homes. These operations could have generated a further 470 million investments in 2025, bringing the living to over 1.4 billion (with almost 700 million earmarked for future homes for sale).