The high interest rate beats credit and reshapes the spending plans for the home of Italian families.
This is what emerges from research by the Autonomous Federation of Italian Bankers (Fabi) on the increase in interest rates and the impact on mortgages.
The surge in the cost of money, raised to 4.5% by the ECB, has tripled the rates charged by banks on mortgages granted to families.
At the end of last December, the average interest applied to real estate loans had reached 4.40%, i.e. exactly triple compared to the 1.45% of January 2022, the lowest level in recent years.
The dizzying rise of 295 percentage points in just 24 months has led the stock of mortgages to decline, during 2023, by 2.3 billion euros (192 million per month on average) after the increase of over 35 billion recorded in previous two years, thanks to the 18.3 billion more in 2021 and the growth of 17 billion achieved in 2022.
As a result of the increase in rates, the Italian brick and mortar sector is in "free fall" with families asking for fewer and fewer mortgages to buy a house : in fact, the share of people who go into debt to buy a property decreases from 50% to 41%.
"It will be fundamental for banks and also for families that the ECB accelerates the start of the process of reducing the cost of money", says Lando Maria Sileoni, general secretary of Fabi.
"The easing - he adds - of monetary policy, now expected by most observers, is essential precisely to put the banks themselves back in a position as soon as possible to be able to support the real estate market again".
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