The 30th Scenari Immobiliari Forum was held in Santa Margherita Ligure, Italy on September 16th and 17th, 2022[1]. The theme of the forum was “The Future is Now”[2][4], with the goal of providing operational recommendations to help define business strategies and facilitate communication among stakeholders[3]. The forum provided an overview of what might be in store in the short and long term for the Italian real estate market.[2]
The forum focused on topics such as the current state of the real estate market, the impact of digital transformation, and the role of sustainability in real estate investments.[2]
Here are Scenari Immobiliari’s 2023 predictions for the European and Italian real estate markets.
Italian Real Estate Market
Positive predictions for the Italian real estate market, although there will be a decline in 2023 with an increase of 6.5% to 148 billion euros (2nd place in the top 5 European real estate markets). Mario Breglia, president of Scenari Immobiliari, commented that the market is going through a delicate phase within an economic scenario facing a storm that includes war, inflation, post-pandemic, and political crisis, which hit in 2022 and will continue in 2023. After two particularly positive years, real estate companies are structured and have significant financial capacity, demand remains solid thanks to product innovation and not speculation, but negative external conditions are trying to change the direction of the market.
European Real Estate Markets
According to Scenari Immobiliari, the robustness of real estate markets in the major European countries, compared to the future economic scenario, which is expected to decline and still full of uncertainty, is confirmed by the revenue predictions of the top 5 countries (including Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and the UK).
In the average of the top 5 countries, the growth in 2022 is estimated to be 12.1% compared to 2021; if the average revenue generated at the end of 2022 is extended to the 28 countries of the EU, it is estimated that there will be a 9.9% increase compared to the previous year. This would be a significant contribution to the growth of global revenue in terms of value derived from the positive change in price recorded this year, which has obviously contributed to the growth of inflation in recent months.
European House Prices
In the residential sector, house prices in the top 5 industrialized countries are expected to increase by an average of 4.5% at the end of the year, while the estimate for the following year is set at +6.5% on average per year. On the residential real estate transactions front, Italy, after the exceptional performance in 2021, is expected to close 2022 with a slight decline in trading activity of 5.3%, settling at 710,000 purchases and sales. For 2023, a further decline is expected that will remain below 6% and around 670,000 transactions.