They seem a bit late getting to the action. From Bloomberg via MSN, October 22:
Homes in Italian cities and the countryside have always held an allure for foreign buyers. Now the pandemic is supercharging demand from well-off Americans and Britons.
That’s because a range of tax incentives, relatively lower prices and the potential for working remotely has kindled their desire to buy second homes in Italy.
“There’s been a dramatic change in demand,” said Knight Frank agent Bill Thomson of the real estate market in Italy. His group recorded the highest increase in interest from Britons and Americans in recent times. “As a business, we’ll have the best year we’ve had in the last ten years,” he said.
Andy Isikoff, a 52-year-old investment manager in New York, and his wife bought a two-bedroom apartment in Rome during the pandemic without even seeing it in person. Constrained by travel restrictions but attracted by cheap prices, the father of two decided he could finally enjoy Italy — a country in which he’d spent time in his younger years.
“I think it will prove to be a good investment,” he said, “I’m a big Italophile, so I’ve always wanted to go back there.”
Italy is now the top location for North Americans and Britons to purchase a second home — outside their own home countries — according to a September 2021 Knight Frank survey. Relatively lower prices at a time when global housing markets are booming are helping Italy beat France and Spain — other countries favored for overseas second homes.
“People overall want to buy sunny, beautiful places around Europe. In Italy, they also get very cheap prices,” said Savills real estate analyst Jelena Cvjetkovic.
The average price of a property around Rieti, a city next to Rome, in September was 96,000 euros, according to data from real estate aggregator Idealista. In Pavia, near Milan, it cost 123,000 euros. By comparison in Santarem, near Lisbon, Portugal, a house costs 147,000 euros on average. In Spain's Guadalajara near Madrid, it’s 147,300 euros.
Savills and Sotheby’s noted that they’ve sold more properties in the first eight months of 2021 in Italy than the whole of 2019, with Britons and Americans being their top clients.
Savills oversaw as many contracts in Italy this January-September period than it did for the whole of 2019. Sotheby’s sales grew 74% in the first eight months of the year compared to the same period in 2019. Knight Frank recorded an 19% increase in the homes sold between April 2020 and March 2021 versus the same period two years prior, and 108% more than for the same period last year.
Tax Advantage
Tax incentives could be a contributor to the surge in demand, said Gianluca Mattarocci, a lecturer at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. There is no capital gains tax for non residents if they sell their houses more than five years after they bought it.
Transaction costs for buyers are lower in Italy than in Spain or Portugal, although they are higher than in France, according to the 2021 Knight Frank report. A “super-bonus” policy was also introduced this year to support house improvements, the government paying extra for renovations that increase homes’ energy efficiency levels.
A flat tax regime caps income tax at 100,000 euros a year, attracting rich expats looking to invest a lot of money in Italy, Knight Frank’s Bill Thomson said.
Knight Frank estimates that 683 people with more than $30 million in net worth have applied for residency under this tax policy between 2017 and 2019, most of them coming from the U.K., with a rising number of people applying from the U.S....
....MUCH MORE
It was only a few years ago (2017) we saw: "Italy is giving away over 100 castles for free – there’s only one catch".*
On the other hand in 2018 this one was not given away: "80-Room Medieval Italian Castle To Be Sold for First Time in its History" [$40 million reserve at auction]
And by 2019 the secret was out:
"Super rich buying up Italy's mansions under new tax regime"
Italy is giving away over 100 castles for free – there’s only one catch
Over the years we've gathered a few tips for castle buyers, some of those links after the jump....
Here's the latest, from The Guardian, May 11:
‘You get the same sort of tax savings you get in Jersey but you get to live somewhere you actually want to live’
Luxury Tuscan estate agent Ian Heath is developing a taste for private jets. “It’s not that unusual anymore,” Heath says of hitching a ride on a billionaire’s jet to the Italian Riviera last week to give the wealthy client a tour of some of the most luxurious and expensive homes....
We commented on two of the Italian offerings in the 2017 giveaway:
Castello di Montefiore has pretty much everything you are looking for in
a castle including machicolations under the battlements at the top of
the towers for dropping your flaming pitch or whatever on the besiegers:
Castello di Blera on the other hand is what is known in the trade as a "fixer-upper":
