Americans are increasingly looking overseas toward Italy when it comes to buying a second home.
U.S. buyers made up 11.3 percent of foreigners who inquired about buying high-end homes in Italy during the first quarter of the year, according to a Knight Frank report cited in the Wall Street Journal. That was up from 6 percent during the same time in 2011 when Knight Frank started covering Italy’s luxury home market.
“The love affair with all things Italian, history, culture and art, continues for many Americans,” said Amy Redfern, the report’s author. “They’re generally heavily involved in properties of historic nature and of architectural merit.”
Sales of super-prime Italian homes – those priced at or above $12.38 million – have increased significantly over the past three months, though the report didn’t offer specifics on the number of sales. Inquiries into luxury homes climbed 133 percent year-over-year, suggesting Italy’s political and economic uncertainties weren’t dampening buyer demand.
Potential buyers from the U.K. made up the largest swath of overseas buyers in Italy at 44.8 percent. Prices in most of Italy’s hottest locations either declined or remained flat in 2017.
A number of small Italian villages with large numbers of empty or neglected homes are looking to sell them to foreigners for one euro. [WSJ] – Rich Bockmann