Emerging Trends in the Italian Housing Market

The Subprime mortgage crisis has been contracting the liquid assets capacity in many countries, causing an economic-financial recession with problems that differ depending on the market sectors and geographic areas. As a consequence, the typical risk inclination of the investors’ profile, which was the rule in the recent years, has been progressively reducing. It follows that today, in order to satisfy the greatly increased demand for even more updated and reliable information, a more frequent strategic monitoring of the local real estate market trends should be carried out. The study proposes a time – series analysis of the Italian housing market from 1967 to 2008, a year in which the Italian real estate market faced a conjuncture and cyclic slow down within the deeper current structural crisis in the international economy. In particular, apart from the main cities usually monitored by the most important half – yearly Official Reports, this study examines less important cities as well, dividing emerging trends, at the same time into “urban rank”, “geographical location” and “inner district area”. In particular the result of the analyses shows that, while the major Northern city centres tend to be losing attraction, performances are increasing in some Southern urban centres, probably due to belated start up in redevelopment policies (See: Sicily, Calabria and Apulia regions). This paper aims to find out, if there are particular locations (central, mid-central or outlying urban areas) in the Italian housing market, in which it is still possible to make an appropriate investment in real estate, contrary to the general national situation.