The OMI - Observatory of the Real Estate Market recently published the latest update data on the evolution of the Italian residential sector, highlighting how the positive numbers of the fourth quarter of 2018 allow that quarter to be celebrated as the fifteenth consecutive quarter of trend expansion, with growth of 9.3 percent.
But how did individual Italian macro areas do? And which major cities achieved the most satisfactory performance? Which size classes performed best?
Northeast, more dynamic growth
Summing up the most important data, we first highlight how the most significant growth dynamic is being confirmed in the Northeast, with + 12.5% continuing the similar trend of the previous quarter. Also very positive is the development in the Center, with + 12.4 percent, clearly accelerating from + 7.0 percent in the previous quarter.
Also good was the growth in the Islands, pushing more than the national average (+ 10.5 percent), while slower was the progression in the South (+ 4.3 percent), where, however, a discrete acceleration from the quarter before (+ 3.0 percent) is satisfactorily affirmed.
Good for big cities
Regarding the different categories of cities, the trend growth in the capital municipalities (+10 percent) is higher than that in the smaller municipalities (+9 percent) in contrast to the previous quarter.
On the front of the large cities alone (Rome, Milan, Turin, Naples, Genoa, Palermo, Bologna, and Florence), growth turns out to be + 9.7% over the corresponding quarter of the previous year, with a very different pace within that cluster. If in fact Bologna brings its transactions up by 20.9%, and Palermo manages to close the fourth quarter with + 18.5%, it is also true that Florence slows down from + 7.2% to 4.8%.
In absolute terms it continues the largest absolute significance is intuitively that of Rome, with 9,325 transactions in the quarter, compared with 7,078 transactions in Milan and 3,794 transactions in Turin.
Leap of smaller houses
Finally, breaking down the OMI statistics for the number of homes bought and sold by floor area classes, it shows that the average home traded in the quarter has an area of 106 square meters, in line with what was recorded in the same period in 2017.
It emerges, however, that the expansive dynamic that is characterized by the strongest growth (+10.8 percent) is in this quarter attributable to smaller homes (less than 50 square meters), thanks mainly to the North and Islands. In any case, nearly 60 percent of the national market continues to be taken up by intermediate choices, for dwellings between 50 and 115 square meters.
It is also of interest to note that-contrary to previous survey seasons-no size class shows negative trend changes, with discrete homogeneity affecting all macro area/size combinations in terms of area.
According to a good portion of analysts, the positive close of the latter part of 2018 should bode well for a first quarter of 2019 that can fit into the same trend trend development. The date for such observations is, however, postponed until next quarter.
