New homes in the city are worth 40 per cent more than second-hand homes

A new house, in major Italian cities, is on average worth almost 40 per cent more than a used one (exactly +37.5 per cent). It means, again on average, that new is worth almost two thousand euros per square metre more (1,850 euros) than already built. The problem is that there continues to be too little of the new: in the eleven cities taken as a sample, 25 thousand new homes are expected on the market between this year and part of next year. And the delays accumulated with the pandemic, high interest rates, rising costs (which reduce builders' margins), combined with the collapse of mortgages and the normative on construction - recently interpreted (in Milan) in a more restrictive key - will not stimulate an acceleration in supply. Especially the supply of new affordable housing, which is most needed in the cities.

Photographing the mismatch between the housing needs of families, the supply available and its location is the latest 'Rapporto sull'Abitare 2024', which will be illustrated on Thursday in Milan by Scenari Immobiliari, in collaboration with Abitare.Co, at the Forum dell'Abitare.

"It is estimated," explains Francesca Zirnstein, general director of Scenari Immobiliari, "that during 2024, residential purchases and sales will return to growth (about +1.4 per cent and 720 thousand total purchases and sales, of which 50 thousand new homes) and values will grow, overall, by 2 per cent (but for new the increase should reach 3.2 per cent).In 2024, a total of 50 thousand new homes are expected (16.7 per cent less than in 2023, there were 74 thousand in 2022). Which, however, will weigh just 7 per cent (less than last year's 8 per cent) of the overall residential buying and selling pie. Post-covid delays, material and construction costs, and the superbonus, which has diverted the attention of companies and builders, have all weighed in".

"Milan and its hinterland," said Giuseppe Crupi , CEO of Abitare Co, "are consolidating their role as an attractor of the new residential construction market despite the administrative uncertainty that has been slowing down, or even stopping, the city's major real estate development projects since the second half of 2023, with a further limitation of future housing supply in the short and medium term.

Of the 50 thousand new homes, half (25 thousand) will be in the eleven major cities. And Rome and Milan alone, with more than 19 thousand new homes on offer on the market, continue to account for more than 75% of the new construction sector. Excluding the "two capitals" of Italy, only Florence is able to offer more than a thousand new homes (an estimated 1,550). The last three positions in the ranking are occupied by the cities of Venice, Catania and Palermo, with 250 dwellings the former and 300 new units the Sicilian capital, respectively. Naples, Italy's third largest city by population size, is estimated to offer 550 new properties. New homes are to be found in the suburbs (65%), much less in semi-central areas (25%) and very little in the centre (10%, but less).