This year, as in the last, Italy has been recognized as a country with the most expensive mortgages in Europe. While the average rate for the euro area amounts to 2.7%, in Italy it is 3.07% per annum, according to ee24.com citing immobiliare.it. Though, there are significant regional differences. Buying a house in Sardinia is the least accessible to European borrowers, because banks are asking to pay 4.12% per year.
Desire of credit institutions to protect themselves is due not only to the adverse economic climate, but also due to the reduction of housing construction by almost 30%. The only thing able to please customers is the countrywide fall in prices. In Q1 2014 property in Italy was worth nearly 5% lower than a year earlier. The most expensive real estate is located in the Valle d'Aosta, Liguria and Lazio (more than €3,000 per sq.m), the cheapest - in Molise and Calabria (less than €1,500 per sq.m). But the decline in prices is "compensated" by another inconvenience for customers: the burden of ownership (cost of maintaining the property and taxes) has increased more than 2 times for several last years.