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Notaries report +10% of property transactions in the first half of 2018
27 November, Il Sole 24 Ore
In the first semester of 2018, there have been 443,337 transactions concerning properties of all categories, 334,979 of which reported a 10.72% increase from the previous year following the consistent reduction of prices. If 2017 reported a -17% decrease in the average property values (from 147,000 to 126,512 euro), these values decreased even further in the first semester of 2018 (118,356 euro). Besides the homogeneous increase of property transactions for all the price ranges, the most interesting data is the 26.73% increase in the sales of properties priced above 900,000 euro. These are the main conclusions emerging from the Notary Statistics Data Report for the first part of 2018 concerning transactions for fixed and moveable assets, mortgages, donations, enterprises and companies.
Sales of agricultural land have increased (57,284) compared to those for developable area (13,624)., growing by +2.83% in the first six months of 2018 from the previous year. Sales almost entirely concerned the lowest price range (below 100,000 euro).
Concerning taxation, of 246,539 residential properties, the main residence tax relief has been requested for 177,212 houses. The data confirms the trend that sees over a half of the properties purchased in Italy using this tax relief. The report shows how real estate companies are still at a standstill concerning, as the majority of the properties are being sold by privates. In the first semester of 2018, 90.78% of the residential properties were sold by privates, while companies sold the remaining 9.23%.
For what concerns mortgages, there have been 193,102 new operations with a 5.92% increase compared to the same semester of 2017. Despite the predominance of loaned amounts below 150,000 euro, there has been an 8-10% growth of amounts between 200,000 and 300,000 euro. Subrogations continued dropping, having decreased by 30% compared to the same period of the previous year.
Donations increased by 10% for fixed assets and by 4.6% for moveable ones. Donations of productive assets are predominant in northern Italy, while property donations concentrate in the south.
Newly-incorporated companies have increased in 2018 registering a 6.20% growth, especially incorporated companies (+8.7%) and temporary associations of companies (+20.7%), while cooperatives decreased (-20.6%).
The tax reliefs report for 2016/2017 considers tax reliefs concerning appointments to partners, small agricultural land, primary residences and the corresponding tax revenue. The report compares extraordinary and temporary operations (the relief for appointments to partners concerned only the 2016/2017 period) with the only two tax reliefs currently in place (as these benefits are always available) after the reintroduction of the registration fee in 2014. The impact of tax reliefs for small agricultural properties on the total transactions for agricultural land was equal to 22.88% in 2016 and to 20.84% in 2017. The majority of tax reliefs for land concentrated in Piedmont, Veneto and Puglia, all regions with a solid agricultural tradition. People between 36 and 55 of age represented the majority of the requests, although young farmers (between 18 and 35, 16.88% of the total) were a significant portion along with people between 56 and 65 years (18.52%).
For what concerns first dwelling reliefs, the figures show that the tax revenue collected through notaries have gone from 383,274,036 euro in 2016 to 424,411,523 in 2017, generating revenues equal to 10.5% despite the decrease in transactions for first residences equal to 4.5%. This might be the result of the increased cadastral value of the properties purchased in 2017 due to the update of the Land Registry Income currently carried out by city administrations. The regions that have reported an increase in the transactions for main dwellings have been Campania with +15% and a revenue increase equal to 14.73%, in Marche sales increased by 11.09% and tax revenue grew by 12.16%, Valle d’Aosta with an increase of 18.40% for property transactions and of 23.12% for revenues. The only region reporting negative values has been Abruzzo with sales decreased by -12.50% and tax revenue by -9,95%.
The house types registering the highest number of tax relief request have been those of civil type A/2 (50% of the sample) and those of economic type A/3 (30%), while terraced houses A/7 representing only 10% of the sample.
Source: Il Sole 24 Ore
Translator: Cristina Ambrosi