I see the market for buying property in Italy staying buoyant for the first 2 quarters of 2012. We already have clients booking to view property for sale in Italy, in January, which is something that does not happen every year, as it is normally a quiet month. The last quarter of 2011 is the busiest it has been for 4 years with a surprising amount of enquires and sales of Italian property. These are not all coming from the UK but from an international clientele, including clients from Russia, Canada, USA, Norway, Switzerland etc. The most buoyant market is from €350.000 to €500.000 and then €750.000 upwards, with various clients in the bracket over €1.000.000.
Linda Travella: In general clients are realizing that they will receive less income by putting their savings in the bank or pensions and have seen over the years that by investing in the right type of real estate in Italy they can obtain rental income whilst using the property themselves. We suggest that to obtain a reasonable capital return, clients keep their Italian property for 3 years but 5 years would be optimum as there is no capital gains tax in Italy after 5 years.
I believe that the first quarter of 2012 will show the same sort of levels of interest as the last quarter of 2011 in Italy, save major economic worldwide issues. I am finding that UK clients that have been interested and viewed in the past are returning to purchase as the sterling is stronger against the Euro. If this continues in 2012 I feel that more UK clients may return in the middle and lower price bracket but I see the higher end of the market continuing to fare the best with UK and international clientele.
Other overseas markets
There is a very mix bag of markets at the moment with clients looking for bargains in Spain and finding them, and the American market seeing an improvement. France is fairly quiet with some good buys to be found on the Coté d’Azur. If you are feeling brave you could try Greece whilst Turkey has seen a downturn in the last 3 years which has not yet recovered.
