Rents: agreed rents have risen faster than the market in 4 out of 10 cities

For the tenant, the savings amount to a few hundred euros a month. The landlord, on the other hand, benefits from a slightly shorter tenancy agreement (“3+2” rather than “4+4”) and reduced tax liability:

Between 2018 and 2025, the rent-controlled rents for new tenancy agreements rose in all 103 regional capitals, with an average increase of 24.6 per cent (weighted by volume). Unregulated rents performed better (+27.9 per cent), but in nine provincial capitals they fell, with the largest decreases in Bolzano (-19 per cent) and Gorizia (-13 per cent), two cities where, moreover, there must have been a shift between the two types of rental agreements, given that agreed rents are rising by double figures.

For both types of tenancy agreement, the increase in rent is 5–7 percentage points higher than the cumulative inflation rate over seven years (Istat Foi). It could be argued that, in some cases, the agreed rents have failed in their role as a price cap, causing costs for tenants to rise more than the cost of living. On the other hand, it is well known that, in cities where they are too low, rent-controlled properties are simply not used.

Be careful, however, when claiming that landlords have always enjoyed good returns: if we look beyond the average figure, we see that new unregulated rents outpace inflation for 2018–2025 in only 62 provincial capitals, whilst negotiated rents do so in 49. Furthermore, when considering returns, we must not forget that we are talking here only about new tenancy agreements: for all existing tenancies, landlords who have opted for the flat-rate tax scheme – the majority – have not been able to adjust the monthly rent.

In 2025, in the regional capitals monitored by Omi, 141,000 new ‘4+4’ tenancies were recorded (35,000 fewer than in 2018). New negotiated tenancies, on the other hand, totalled 145,000 (10,000 more). The fact that the latter category has overtaken the former has pushed rent-controlled tenancies from 43.6 per cent to 50.8 per cent of all long-term tenancies. It should be noted, however, that the total is lower than it was seven years ago, because some of those who left the ‘4+4’ scheme have switched to temporary and student tenancies (see *Il Sole 24 Ore* of 1 June).

The proportion of fixed-term tenancy agreements signed between 2018 and 2025 has risen in 71 provincial capitals. In fact, in ten cities last year, the agreed rent was chosen for around 80 per cent of new ‘long-term’ tenancy agreements. This was the case, for example, in Chieti and Imperia. Among the larger cities, Genoa (77 per cent) and Rome (71.6 per cent, with a jump of over 17 percentage points) stand out.