This is a guest post from Matteo Starri, business analyst for Italian property search engine Nestoria Italia. Matteo blogs regularly (and in Italian) on the Nestoria Italian blog.
State of the market
The Italian market has been affected by the recent economic crisis, with the buy-to-let investments suffering particularly. Owners typically try to sell their properties both privately and through agents, usually setting a higher price in the latter case to cover the agents’ expenses. Agents don’t have exclusivity in negotiations. As a result they typically try to disguise or be vague about the listing content, particularly the location of the property. Because of this portals and search engines often don’t show listings on a map, or do so only approximately.
Market Structure
The majority of Italian estate agents are local players, with some of them moving in recent years towards a franchised model, in partnerships with the few nationwide brands.
The online property portal market is clearly lead by two major players, casa.it and the Immobiliare network, competing closely for the first spot. casa.it has been member of the global REA Group since late 2006. immobiliare.it and eurekasa.it form the Immobiliare network, founded and run by ex-Ebay.it executives.
Relevant databases are also offered by trova-casa.net (which mainly works on a free model), Homebit, the parent company of brands prendicasa.it and attico.it, and immobilmente.com, which started in two provinces in 2005 and now covers the entire country.
The big traditional publishing groups are only slowly moving online. Among these the biggest are trovocasa.it and repubblica.it belonging to the RCS and Manzoni groups respectively.
Geograhically Milan is the centre of the online property world with almost all major groups based there or near by. The exception is Immobilare which is headquartered in Rome.
Good sources of information about the market are Agenzie Immobiliari and Immobiliare Blog, focussed respectively on the agents’ and the users’ needs. The Italian market is interestingly analysed “from abroad” and in English by Italy Magazine and KeyItaly.
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I would mention the importance of free portals. There are everyday new portals and some of these having enough success to italian public
I would mention the importance of free portals. There are everyday new portals and some of these having enough success to italian public