Real estate sales Italy plunged 26 percent last year

Real estate sales in Italy plunged 26 percent last year, according to Finance Ministry data. Residential transactions amounted to 88.1 billion euros, Scenari Immobiliari’s research showed.

House prices fell 4.6 percent in the last quarter of 2012 from a year earlier. They’ve dropped 12 percent in real terms from the 2008 peak, reaching levels last seen in mid-2004, according to Bloomberg calculations. Values are likely to fall another 5 percent this year, according to the real estate research unit of the Bologna-based Nomisma institute.

Foreign investment in Italian holiday properties is rising as Germans, Britons and Russians take advantage of a market where locals are struggling to purchase even a first home. Residential sales in the country dropped almost 26 percent last year amid a plunge in mortgage lending, almost two years of recession, and uncertainty surrounding a new tax on primary residences.

Second-home sales to buyers from abroad rose 14 percent last year, with non-Italians spending 2.1 billion euros ($2.8 billion), according to research institute Scenari Immobiliari. Germans, the biggest buyers since 2009, accounted for almost 40 percent of the transactions by foreigners, followed by the British at 18 percent and Russians with 13 percent.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-06/germans-splurge-on-italian-homes-locals-can-t-afford.html