Coastal Second Homes: An Average That Conceals Two Markets

Residential values in Italian coastal towns rose 5.6% in the first half of 2026 against the same period of 2025, according to Abitare Co.'s survey of 134 seaside municipalities, with a 15.5% increase over five years. In the same market, the average price of existing homes in coastal locations stood at 1,903 euros per square metre in the second quarter, up 4.1% year on year. Tecnocasa, measuring transactions across its own network, records growth of 1.6% for seaside locations.

Different perimeters, not conflicting data
The three surveys do not contradict each other. The first weights prime destinations and new-build product more heavily, the second captures existing stock on a broad base, the third reflects the mix of a generalist agency network. Read together, they describe a market rising almost everywhere at very different speeds.

The spread
Portofino averages 23,233 euros per square metre, with seafront peaks near 31,500. Capri sits at 16,725, with highs above 32,000. Forte dei Marmi at 11,925. Below them, the Romagna coast forms a compact band between 4,500 and 5,100 euros, from Cesenatico to Milano Marittima. The national average for existing coastal stock remains 1,903.

That is a ratio of twelve to one between the top and the mean. No aggregate index of seaside second homes describes a single market, and sector averages should be used to read direction rather than level.

Flat volumes, moving prices
The least discussed figure is that second homes accounted for 6.7% of transactions completed through the Tecnocasa network in 2025, a broadly stable share. Price growth therefore does not come from more trading, but from shrinking available supply and a shift in the composition of demand. In a market with constant volumes, prices move because the buyer changes.

Foreign demand has become structural
In the strongest locations the international component has stopped being cyclical. In Villasimius, Sardinia, American, German, British, French and Swiss buyers are often retirees or remote-working families choosing the island as a permanent residence, with seafront values reaching 6,000 euros per square metre. Alghero is up 3.4%. On the Adriatic coast the Eastern European share is growing instead.

The change is not only quantitative. It concerns duration of occupancy: a home lived in eight months a year generates a pattern of local spending, and of pressure on municipal services, quite different from one used for three weeks in August. Coastal planning documents rarely account for that variable.

The second tier outgrows the icons
The 2022 to 2026 rankings confirm the point. The leaders are not Portofino or Capri but Arma di Taggia, Lido degli Estensi and Follonica, all at 27%. Ravello, Capri, Santa Margherita Ligure, Rapallo, Positano and Ischia follow in a band between 23% and 27%. Regionally Campania leads at 22% over five years, while Liguria shows average growth of 1.7% in the latest reading, with La Spezia at 5.7%.

Capital that finds no product in saturated destinations moves twenty or forty kilometres along the coast, where entry prices remain accessible and expected appreciation is higher. It is the mechanism seen in urban markets once the centre runs out of supply, applied to a linear geography.

Constraints tightening together
Three variables weigh on returns in this market, all moving the same way. Short-let regulation, which compresses the income component many purchases were built on. Second-home taxation, the only full property tax left in the Italian system. And the running costs of ageing buildings in areas where construction costs have risen faster than values.

Anyone valuing a coastal asset today works in a market where price levels depend on location far more than on the national cycle. Sector-wide growth says little. What matters is where a given municipality sits in the hierarchy of international demand, and that hierarchy is reordering downwards, towards places where entry prices still leave room.