How long does it take to sell a property in Italy? As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a slight deterioration in residential sales times in the first part of 2021 compared to 2020. The parameter of the time needed to see a house in Italy, which had reached a low the previous year, now stands at 118 days compared to 109 in 2020, limited to large cities, according to Tecnocasa. Let's find out more.
House sales times are an indicator of the health of the property market. The analysis conducted by the Tecnocasa Studies Office from 2010 to the present, limited to large cities, shows the peak in 2012, the worst year for the real estate market, with a gradual improvement from 2013 to last year, 2020.
Large cities, their respective hinterlands and provincial capitals were taken into consideration: in these areas it now takes 118 days to place a house on the market and close the deal compared to 109 a year ago, when the pandemic had not yet broken out. In Italy's provincial capital cites, the average is 146 days, and in the outskirts of large cities it is 157 days. The former recorded a drop of 3 days, confirming that small towns are holding up well compared to larger ones.
Among large cities, the greatest amount of time needed to sell a property was recorded in Bari (162 days), while the "fastest" metropolises were once again Milan (60 days) and Bologna (57 days). The Lombardy capital showed a slight deterioration compared to last year. These figures reflect a situation which, after a fast start in terms of timings immediately after last year's lockdown, slowed down in the second half of 2020 due to greater caution on the part of potential buyers, fears linked to a second lockdown, job security and greater attention on the part of lending institutions to the analysis of borrowers and their employers.
Buyers whose income situation had not been affected by the pandemic-induced economic crisis and those for whom the purchase of a home could no longer be postponed were the quickest. As a seller, those who needed to change their home or who needed to raise liquidity were those who sold in the least amount of time.
