Pursuits

Italy's Home-Buying Party May Be Over as Pessimism Spreads

  • Residential sales up 19% last year, may be ‘flash in the pan’
  • Growth and employment prospects signal risk to revival
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Italy’s home-buying recovery in 2016 will probably be short-lived and won’t pave the way for a much-awaited increase in prices, owners and real-estate experts said.

“Last year’s performance might well be a flash in the pan,” Giorgio Spaziani Testa, chairman of property owners’ association Confedilizia, said Monday at the Rome presentation of a real-estate market report. Home prices kept falling last year and perceptions of lower-than-expected economic and employment growth don’t bode well for the real-estate market outlook, Spaziani said.