Rents, year-on-year increases of +12.7% (and 17% of listings find tenants within 24 hours)

Rents are still rising. Still very high mortgages, the difficulty of matching asking price and availability for purchase and a demand that presses on a lacking offer are still the reasons that confirm the phenomenon of rents prerennially growing. According to Idealista, rents in Italy increased by 2.9% in May, reaching an average of 13.9 euro/sqm. This is the highest price recorded by idealista since 2012, the year of the first survey: a year-on-year increase of 12.7 per cent.

The cities with the largest increases include Campobasso (8.1%), Catanzaro (6.5%), Rimini (5.3%) and Caserta (5%). The main Italian city markets also showed an increase in rents, such as in Turin (3%), Naples (1.9%), Milan (0.6%), Palermo (0.3%) and Florence (0.2%). Only Rome recorded a marginal decrease, of 0.1%, while the most significant decreases for the month were recorded in Barletta (-9.9%), Trani (-7.7%), Chieti (-5.8%) and Asti (-4.9%).

Milan remains the city with the highest rents in Italy, with an average of 23.5 euro/sqm, followed by Florence (20 euro/sqm), Bologna (17.3 euro/sqm) and Rome (16.5 euro/sqm). Como, Naples and Bolzano also record values above the national average of 13.9 euro/sqm per month, with 16 euro/sqm, 15 euro/sqm and 14.7 euro/sqm respectively. In contrast, the cheapest cities for Italian tenants are Caltanissetta (4.6 euro/sqm), Reggio Calabria (5.5 euro/sqm) and Cosenza (5.6 euro/sqm).

Increases were seen in all Italian regions, with the exception of Trentino-Alto Adige (-2.2 per cent) and Friuli-Venezia Giulia (-2.1 per cent). Positive trends for all other regions with the largest increases being seen in Molise (11 per cent), Calabria (7.5 per cent), Liguria (6.1 per cent) and Abruzzo (5.6 per cent). The remaining increases range from 5.1 per cent in Basilicata to 0.6 per cent in Emilia-Romagna. Lazio (4.4 per cent) and Lombardy (1.6 per cent) also increased.

Valle d'Aosta remains the region with the highest rental prices, with an average of 21.4 euro/sqm. It is followed by Lombardy with 19.9 euro/sqm and Tuscany with 18.2 euro/sqm. Latium (14.3 euro/sqm) and Emilia-Romagna (14.2 euro/sqm) also record asking prices above the national average of 13.9 euro/sqm. The regions with rents below the national average range from 13.3 euro/sqm in Trentino-Alto Adige and Liguria to 7.1 euro/sqm in Molise, which remains the cheapest region for Italian tenants.