Students, mix of tax incentives to lower rents (and favour 'smaller' universities)

The tax lever to favour rent for off-site students. According to the latest survey by SoloAffitti and Fiaip, for a single room you can pay as much as 630 euro. The average rent, which has risen by 23% in a year, is 372 euro. For a double room the average rent is 283 euros: in the latter case the increase, compared to 2023, is 26 per cent. Therefore, advantageous taxation for both landlords and students is needed to encourage an increase in housing supply and at the same time make rent payments more sustainable. On these two elements rests the bill, presented this morning in Rome, at the Chamber of Deputies, by Fiaip (the Federation of real estate agents and brokers) and SoloAffitti.

The proposal envisages, on the one hand, the exemption of Imu for landlords who rent to off-site university students through the stipulation of contracts of a transitory nature (from 6 to 36 months). The tax lever is intended to provide an incentive to rent to off-campus students, referring to those landlords who, to date, choose other types of lease or even prefer to leave their homes empty (according to ISTAT, out of 35 million homes in Italy, there are 9.5 million vacant). On the other hand, we call for an increase in the deduction, in favour of the student-tenant, from 19% to 30% on the annual rent up to a maximum of 6,000 euro and not 2633 euro (bringing the annual saving from 500 to 1,800 euro or a benefit for the student of 150 euro per month and not 40), maintaining the current income limits and extending the benefit, as already happens today, to parents or those who actually pay the rent and even in the case of renting a single room.
"The lack of student housing, especially in large university towns, is a real problem that fuels the rise in rents," says Fiaip national chairman Gian Battista Baccarini. "This is why we have brought two proposals to the attention of the legislature aimed at introducing concrete tax benefits designed, on the one hand, to increase the housing supply on the market and, on the other, to make rent payments more sustainable by facilitating students' access to housing and, indirectly, to the right to study, especially for economically weaker families.

As emerges from the snapshot taken by the SoloAffitti study centre, in cooperation with Fiaip, while demand for rent has increased by around 30 per cent in one year, supply has fallen slightly by 10 per cent. The number of people looking for a house to rent has exploded, in the face of insufficient supply to meet demand. This situation has led to a gradual increase in rents in recent years.

There are over 1.9 million students in Italy in the academic year 2023/2024. There are 110 universities in our country and 54 provinces with universities. The number of out-of-town university students - according to data from the Ministry of Universities - is 446,600, an increase of 14 per cent compared to 2023. Turning to accommodation, there are 85,000 beds in student halls of residence (about 19 per cent of actual need). The highest price for a single room is paid in Milan (average rent of 630 euro), which is also the only city that has seen an albeit slight fall (- 2 per cent), partly because last year rents had already reached a level close to the maximum sustainable for the market, and partly because of the calming effect of the new Territorial Agreement in Milan, which has extended the agreed rent to student rooms as well. In Rome, the average rent for a single room is EUR 600 per month. The capital has recorded a +34% increase compared to 2023. 500 the average rent in Bologna (+5%) and Florence (+15%), 433 the average rent in Turin (+31%) and 400 that in Naples (+15%). Things are going better in provincial university towns, where the average rent for a single room falls to between 200 and 350 euros. In some of these cities, the university population has a significant incidence on the number of inhabitants: this is the case, for example, in Ferrara, where students represent 16.2% of the population and where the average rent for a room is 350 euros per month, and in Pisa, where the incidence reaches 39%, with an average rent of 300 euros.

"Today Italy has a widespread university network," declares Silvia Spronelli, CEO of SoloAffitti Spa, "with faculties, branches of major universities and independent universities distributed in over 170 cities. The valorisation of these poles, which often propose a high-level educational offer, and the creation of a system of services for students in provincial towns, would allow a more homogeneous distribution of the demand for accommodation for off-campus students, enabling students to contain their rent expenditure and enjoy a better quality of life"..