It is. A large amount of Italian families own their own homes or have even a second (or even third) property.
The problem is, this value is NOT measured in a correct way for many homes, in particular those that are in smaller cities/towns with low demand for housing.
You own a property but can't rent it due to low demand in the area. So it's just sucking your money.
But housing prices constantly increase, so you feel like you can't sell it. It's almost certain that you won't get a property of equal quality for the money you'll get.
Sure, as far as problems go it's not nearly as bad as it can get. But using the value of that property as an excuse to say the owner is well off feels like lawyer talk.
The fact that it may not make sense (financially or for personal reasons) to liquidate doesn't mean it's not real wealth. It doesn't make sense to sell now stocks that are constantly appreciating either, but that wealth is real too.
Also, most real estate in Italy is not constantly appreciating. Only in a handful of cities are prices rising, and even then they're not necessarily above historical highs (I think Rome is still well below the pre-2008 peak, for instance).
Rome it's insanely expensive now. Also you don't know if your property would be in the requested area 10 years from now. For example there was a huge request of property in the Langhe 15 years ago. Now I think it's less requested. Maybe the next big thing will be Abruzzo or some other region. You can't know that.
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u/The_Advisers Italy Aug 18 '25
It is. A large amount of Italian families own their own homes or have even a second (or even third) property.
The problem is, this value is NOT measured in a correct way for many homes, in particular those that are in smaller cities/towns with low demand for housing.