Covid-19 has literally turned the world economies and our lives upside down. It’s not surprising that we’re all used to consider 2020 like a kind of year zero, 2019 the “pre-Covid year” and 2021 the year of the great recovery.

In all this mess, how has Lake Como property market reacted? Has it survived?

Well, to be precise, it has flourished even further.

With the aim of drawing a snapshot of the last two (pretty unforgettable) years, our Managing Director Sara Zanotta has prepared an in-depth analysis based on our internal sales data of that timeframe, and some really interesting insights about our homebuying market came out.

An unprecedented boom in the annus mirabilis

With the challenges brought about by Covid-19, Lake Como in Italy has proven to be a sound market: while many locations in Italy have been suffering significantly in the past two years and reported an impasse in property sales, Lake Como has pretty much never stopped, boasting surprisingly growing prices and proving once again to be a safe investment.

Our 2020 presented flat sales compared to 2019, and that has been an encouraging data considering the difficult context of our economy; on the other hand, in 2021 we recorded an outstanding +54,3% YoY increase in property sales compared to 2020. We can say that what has been defined as the annus horribilis for the world economy has driven for us sales momentum in the following year, the annus mirabilis for our property market.

Personal use Vs investment

The most interesting trend we’ve been witnessing since 2019 has been a distinctive shift in the reason of buying: while before people specifically used to buy investment properties, i.e. properties to be put on the local rental market (what we call “buy-to-let properties), now buyers intentionally opt for houses for their personal use, to be enjoyed with family and friends.

Just a figure to let you have an idea of what happened: in 2019 the clients buying for personal use made up the 38% of our total sales, whereas in 2021 this value has moved to 76%. That’s really a sociological trend that speaks pretty clear about the new priorities people have in their lives.

Apparently, the pandemics has reshaped the importance people are now giving to second homes. This is not surprising, considering that we all have been totally unable to travel overseas in the last two years: the lack of freedom of movement has left many wanting a retreat where feeling good (and free) again.

House prices index on the rise

In 2020 we reported an overall stability in property prices, with a very little increase (+4,5%) only in some areas of the central lake and in the last quarter of the year (from September 2020). Conversely, 2021 showed a more significant price increase that ranged from +9% to +10%* due the exceed of property demand over the available supply (*these percentages have been calculated on sales valuations/prices of a range of properties, considering the sale of the same property in 2019 and 2021).

In other words, the low housing inventory has raised the stakes on the housing market at Lake Como.

The number of people looking for a house has been going up while the supply (aka sellers’ market) has been going down, driving prices up and creating a shortage.

Likewise, waterfront market prices have increased up to +32,5%.

According to our data, long term rentals requests have been dropping down to 37% from March 2019 to May 2020, to increase again starting from summer 2021.

Volatile permanence of properties on the market

The permanence time of properties on the market has become increasingly more volatile: less properties available, sold with faster transactions.

In 2021, the average number of days houses have been on the market has lowered compared to the standard: we’re talking about an average of 35-65 days. In 2019, properties for sale used to stay on the market for about 90-120 days.

Speed of buying

With the pandemics, internet has dramatically increased the speed of shopping for homes: looking at our sales in the past two years, international homebuyers from July 2020 and the whole 2021 spent only 3-4 weeks looking for homes before buying. They looked at an average of seven properties, and only saw maybe 2 or 3 of them in person (or neither, buying through video calls).

International clients

International buyers make up around 75% of the whole pool of our clients.

More in detail, in 2021 we have witnessed a significant increase in the number of clients from Central Europe, with Germany to the forefront.

lake como italy buyers — © Lakeside - internal data 2019-2021

Italians are back again

Interestingly enough, Italians - mainly coming from Milano, Como and relative provinces - have started again to be part of the pool of buyers, accounting for an average of 25% of our clients based on our data of the past two years.

Once again, the “rediscovery” of Lake Como as an interesting gateway from the major cities (Milano first, being just 1 hour and a half drive away) is one of the major effects of the pandemics.

Italians tend to buy properties in the price range between € 180.000 and € 250.000.

The down payment keeps being the biggest obstacle for more than the 21% of Italian first home buyers.

Demo insights: Generation X to the forefront, followed by Millenials

We love outlining updated demo pictures of our international buyers, and that’s what we’ve done again this year for this study:

65% of our clients belong to Generation X, namely those who were born between 1965 and 1979; the so called Millennials (1980 and 1989) make up the second-largest group of homebuyers; the older generations in Lake Como are predominantly selling.
the number of women and men has always been pretty much equal from 2019 to 2021;
the majority of buyers are families or couples, but we’ve gladly witnessed a substantial increase in the amount of women who buy just for themselves, or for investment goals. Single women accounted for about 8% of home purchases in 2021, and that number is only continuing to grow;
almost all clients are first-time buyers in Italy.

Average prices of sold properties

Since 2019 we’ve been recording an interesting increase in the properties sold within the price range € 200.000 - € 500.000 (generally corresponding to apartments) together with the ones in the range above the million.

Renovations and new constructions

Since 2019 there has been an increase in the number of new constructions, mainly in the central locations of Lake Como: we’re talking about luxury and ultra contemporary developments built with local materials and featuring large glass doors. The size ranges from 3-bedrooms apartments up to detached villas, fulfilling the need of larger sizes requested by the market.

Likewise, renovations underwent a significant boom starting from 2020, the year when the Italian government launched the 110% Superbonus (aka “Ecobonus”), an incentive to boost environment-friendly renovations.

Mortgages interest rates: from record-low values to a slow increase

From December 2020 including the first semester of 2021, interest rates have been drastically dropping down: this is a quite indicative real estate statistic, explaining why more people have been able to afford a home, and thus why demand has increased so significantly. Interestingly enough, also those buyers who could actually afford to buy a given property applied for a mortgage, given the record-low mortgage rates.

The last semester of 2021 has shown a light increase of fixed interest rates (+1%); this slow growth has been registered by Osservatorio of Mutuionline.it also in the beginning of 2022.

BCE, however, reassures about the situation: for the current year, the fixed rates shouldn’t increase more than +2%.

2022 outlook

With the uncertainties brought about by Coronavirus, making any business prediction has become pretty risky.

However, we can say that we expect 2022 to be a quite stable year from the real estate perspective. We foresee that home prices growth will level, with an increase that won’t exceed +0,6%.

When we look at the real estate market data today - as recently as February 2022 - we can see again an increase in the research of properties available for sale; however, a concern we have is about a significant lack of interesting properties on the market: in order to meet such a pressing demand, new housing projects need to be developed (some of them are indeed on their way on Lake Como) and new properties for sale need to be listed.

It has started to become increasingly more difficult to find waterfront properties: most of the ones available have been sold between 2020 and 2021.

Demographics wise, we predict that 2022 will be dominated by buyers from the Millenials age group. Millenials are slowly coming to the age where priorities shift: they now want to create families and buy their own holiday home abroad.

The mortgages requests from international clients will keep growing, albeit interest rates are now all slowly increasing.
Driven by the continuously research of “secure places” where to let some assets investments due to the economic situation, and the

affordable loans, and personal priorities - we can state that in the past two years Lake Como real estate market has been blossoming even further.

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Lake Como Property Market Insights: 2019-2021 Facts & Figures