Italy does not have a central authority releasing official data about foreign buyers.
However, Casa.it (one of the leading property portals) published an article last year called “Italy: always more foreigners buy in our beautiful country” (“L’Italia che conquista: sempre più stranieri comprano casa nel Belpaese“)
In Italy, where do foreign buyers come from ?
According to their center of study, foreign buyers from China, Germany, Russia, France and USA are leading the charts as you can see below :
This data is confirmed by a large network of agencies, Knight Frank Italy:
“Knight Frank’s data found that users of 171 nationalities searched for Italian properties on its website during 2015, with British, Italian, U.S. and German buyers remaining the most active.” (source: MansionGlobal article )
What Italian cities are most attractive to foreign buyers ?
According to Casa.it center of study, the cities and areas captivating the foreign buyers’ interest are in order of importance: Milan, Siena, Northern Lakes, Rome, Esmerald Coast, Langue (Piemonte), Lucca, Venice, Tigullio and CinqueTerre, Riviera Romagnola, and Amalfitan Coast.
We can regret that no national authority provides data about foreign buyers in Italy, all the more as official data about the number of foreign residents Italy has kept increasing from 1.3 million people in 2002 to 5 million people in 2016 according to the National Institute of Statistics study. which is 8.3% of the population as you can see below (source) :
How can Italian agencies market properties to international buyers ?
For this, let’s take a look at the top 5 nationalities mentioned by Casa.it: Chinese buyers, Germans, Russians, French and Americans.
How do Chinese browse properties in Italy?
The leading property portals in China are called www.fang.com and www.anjuke.com. The latter has mobile applications downloaded over 100 million times, on which Overseas channel is extremely visible. At ListGlobally, we believe that so far this is the best website available to source Chinese buyers, which is why we stroke a deal with them 6 months ago, to publish our clients listings on Anjuke. This approach is quite successful, as we see dozens of leads each month transiting through our concierge service in China, which translates those leads into English and transfers them to our clients.
How can French buyers look for properties in Italy ?
In a similar fashion, we are publishing our clients’ listings on the leading French portals including SeLoger.com, and Explorimmo.com. This generates hundreds of demands of French buyers for Italian agencies.
We believe that for local agencies to attract international buyers, they have to embrace all of the market. As Knight Frank Italy reported with 171 nationalities visiting its website last year. it is clear that foreign buyers interested in Italian properties are coming from all around the world, which is why we have developed an offer of publication containing 133 property portals in over 60 countries as you can see here. Whether you are targeting American buyers, Chinese buyers, French buyers or any other nationality, feel free to have a look at the list and reach out for any question.
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