The fourth semester sees the residential markets grow in Florence and in Milan, the only two Italian cities to register an increase in the number of house sales in the last three months of the year. According to statistics from the Osservatorio Immobiliare dell’Agenzia delle Entrate [Revenue Agency’s Real-Estate Observatory], while the comprehensive outlook for the sector again showed some flection at the end of 2013 – due in part to the new fiscal regime in effect since January 2014 that suggested buyers delay their purchases – the capital cities of Tuscany and Lombardy reported countertrends, with an increase of nearly 13% in house sales.

Specifically, transactions in Florence increased by 12.7%, which allowed for an attenuation of the overall flection for 2013 to -2.3%, with 3,300 transactions: when considering Italy’s eight major cities, only Milan (+3.4%) and Bologna (+1.5%) closed the year with positive numbers – according to the Revenue Agency’s data – while Florence is the one that suffered the most contained contraction. The picture offered by the rest of the Florentine province is [quite] different: the fourth quarter saw a new drop in operations (-3.7% to 3.845) compared to the same period in 2012, whereas the same indicator for the entire year approached 9%.

Florence maintains the Italian primacy in terms of house prices. The mean value for a house sold in the second half of 2013 in the Tuscan capital is 310,400 Euros, a figured that despite a flection measured at approximately 2.4% compared to the first half of last year, keeps Florence at the head of rankings for Italy’s twelve major cities, ahead of Venice (307,600 Euros) and Rome (295,000 Euros). In terms of footage, prices in Florence indicate 3.139 Euros per sq m (according to this index, Rome and Bologna have slightly higher mean values) with variations that range from a mean of 3.400 Euros per sq m in downtown to the 2.712 Euros per sq m in the municipalities bordering Florence.

The analysis conducted by the Osservatorio Immobiliare also analyzed the real-estate market of Italian cities with more than 150,000 people, naturally excluding the twelve major cities: in this case as well, Tuscany tops the ranks in terms of prices. The mean cost for the purchase of a house reaches nearly 240,000 Euros in Prato, which leads in this category ahead of Cagliari and Parma. Livorno ranks fourth, with a mean house price of 215,000 Euros. In the fourth quarter, the variation was contained under 1% flection for both of Tuscany’s centers. As for prices by the square meter, Parma confirms its primacy (2.321 Euros) followed by Prato (2.210 Euros).