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Florence: it’s getting difficult to find a house in the old town

07 April, La Repubblica

The property market in Florence old town is officially dead. The latest data from Tecnocasa confirm this view. Of the 100 properties that were transacted in 2017 in the old town, 94 were purchased for investment, mainly with the purpose of renting them to tourists. Only 6 houses every 100 have been purchased by families as their main dwelling. In conclusion, there is no more space left for who wants to buy a house in the centre of Florence to live there. Nearly all the transactions are aimed at tourists.

This striking fact shows the increase of purchases for rentals concluded in 2017 in the city, suburbs included, namely the 33% of the total transactions. This percentage was 27.6% in 2013 in Florence (then, +5.4% over the last 5 years). The performance in the old town still remains shocking, with no equals in the rest of the country.

Tecnocasa confirms: “Florence is high on the chart of the cities where investing for rental is popular. In the city centre, this type of transactions represents the 93.8% of the total. Nowadays, the centre is being targeted by investors that buy properties to turn them into holiday houses. This tendency is so widespread that that has led the people looking for an accommodation for work or study to migrate to the areas nearby. Also, we’re looking at the reconversion into apartments of many vacant offices”.

This consistent pressing by investors in the old town of Florence has had inevitable consequences on the property prices. “Let’s not forget that properties in the city centre of Florence, as well as those in the city centre of Milan, didn’t register a big loss in values during the recession years (-7.9%)”, explains Tecnocasa.

On the other side, there is a strong demand from tourists interested in spending their holidays in Florence and Tuscany, as shown by the analysis by CaseVacanza.it. According to the portal, 30% of the tourists have already secured a holiday house on 31st March. “Tuscany is the absolute favourite among tourists”, states the portal. “The region has attracted over 11% of the early bookings, and Livorno and Grosseto are the most requested provinces”.

Returning to the report by Tecnocasa, even though the first position of Florence city centre is undiscussed, also one every three transactions made in other parts of the city is for investments. “The second macro area that investors are looking at is Novoli-Careggi (34.5%), due to the university, the Court, and many important companies (Nuovo Pignone), as well as the Careggi hospital”. The area is a hub for education and work, as well as offering a couple of attractions, it’s very attractive in terms of real estate investments targeting students and workers, rather than tourists.  Whereas the transactions that concerned Campo di Marte were mostly for the main dwelling, with 82.5% of the total houses, in Poggio Imperiale these were 78.6% and 100% of the transacted houses in Isolotto.

Source: La Repubblica

Translator: Cristina Ambrosi