Banca d'Italia's second-quarter survey points to a broad slowdown in residential price growth, with the North-West almost flat. Discounts and selling times, however, remain at historic lows, which changes how the figure should be read.
On 12 August, Banca d'Italia released its quarterly housing market survey for the second quarter, produced together with Tecnoborsa and the Italian Revenue Agency and based on roughly 1,500 estate agents polled between 18 June and 21 July. Its indicators point in different directions, and press summaries usually keep only one of them.
The balance nearly halves
The most quoted indicator is the difference between agents reporting rising prices and those reporting falling ones. In the second quarter it stood at 7 percentage points, against 12 in the previous quarter. A clear deceleration, though still above the same period of 2025.
The signal is cooling, not reversal.
The national average conceals four markets
The territorial breakdown is more instructive than the aggregate. In the North-West the balance fell from 11 to 1 point: as many agents seeing prices rise as seeing them fall. The North-East stays at 13, the Centre at 11, the South and Islands at 6.
The slowdown sits in the area that has driven value growth in recent years. The rest of the country holds.
Discounts and timings do not follow
Here the picture becomes interesting. The average discount on the initial asking price stood at 7% and selling times were broadly stable, both at their lowest levels since the survey began. Some 86% of agencies closed at least one sale during the quarter. Retreating demand would produce the opposite: widening discounts and slower transactions.
The more coherent explanation lies on the supply side. New sale mandates continue to fall, as they have for several quarters. A market with little available product and unhurried sellers produces exactly this outcome: less upward pressure on prices, because there is little occasion to push, but no softening of terms, because a seller who fails to reach the target price withdraws the property rather than discounting it.
Credit is not the constraint
Despite the rate increase decided by the ECB on 11 June, the share of agencies citing credit access difficulties among the main causes of mandate termination stopped at 18%, the lowest level in the entire series. Monetary transmission to the residential market, for now, remains slow.
Rentals follow their own path
On the rental side, the balance between reports of rising and falling rents stood at 32 points, broadly stable nationally but diverging across macro-areas. In the North-West it fell further to 17 from 30, while the South and Islands rebounded to 49 from 39 and the Centre to 41 from 29. The share of agencies letting at least one property rose to 83% from 79%. Short lets remain relevant for 54% of the sample, peaking at 65% in the Centre and the South.
What the indicator actually measures
The survey produces diffusion balances, not price changes. The distinction matters more than it seems.
A balance falling from 12 to 7 means the net share of agents observing increases has shrunk, not that prices have declined by some percentage. Reconciling this with Istat's house price index, which showed year-on-year growth above 5% in the first quarter, is entirely possible: the two measures observe different objects.
There is also a perimeter limit. The sample covers only agency-intermediated transactions, a market share that varies over time and is exposed to competition from direct channels and developer sales. Finally, the North-West falling to 1 point may reflect a specifically Milanese dynamic, namely a price run reaching levels local demand struggles to absorb, rather than a generalised cooling across the area.
Expectations look beyond the quarter
Expected conditions in the agency's own market remain unfavourable, with a balance of minus 14 points, and expectations on new sale mandates stand at minus 20. Over a two-year horizon, however, the indicator moved from minus 22 to minus 10 points, its best reading in several quarters.
Slowing prices, discounts pinned at their lows and contracting supply together describe a market where bargaining power has stayed firmly with owners. Product scarcity, rather than weak demand, is now the main constraint on transaction volumes. Which explains why operators, while judging the present unfavourable, expect something better from the next two years.