In Italy, mortgages are mainly given to Italian citizens, but property financing for foreigners is gradually increasing. This was announced in a study by the Tecnocasa Group, which has been analysing the mortgage market.
Place of origin
83% of mortgages in the country were granted to people of Italian origin, while almost 13% were granted to other European citizens and 4.1% to non-European immigrants. The European nationalities most represented are Romanian (31.2% of the total), Albanian (16.5%) and Moldovan (10.8%); among the non-European nationalities, however, the most present are Peruvian (3.6%), Moroccan (2.5%) and Indian (2.3%).
In the context of the Italian macro-areas, and comparing the results between them, it appears that banks tend to grant more mortgages to foreign nationals living in northern Italy.
Age
The average age of non-Italian borrowers who received a mortgage loan in Italy in the first half of 2016 is 38.7-years-old. Four out of ten borrowers are between the ages of 35 and 44, while those under 35 account for 34.2% of the total.
Reason for the loan
The large majority of the mortgages are used to buy homes, accounting for almost 95% of the total, while substitutions and subrogation account for 4.5%.
Profession of the borrower
Economic security is one of the fundamental elements required by banks to grant a mortgage. This is reflected in the data: 91.2% of the sample is made up of employees with permanent contracts and retirees, and only 7.5% by people with a flexible work contract (self-employed/freelance workers and business owners). In contrast, temporary workers make up just 1.3%.
Type of mortgage
Almost 40% of foreigners take out fixed-rate mortgages and just over half opt for a variable-rate loan. On the other hand, mortgage loans with a constant payment method are taken out by just 6%, while mixed mortgages are even less common at 2% of the total.
Mortgage length
The average length of mortgages taken out by foreign nationals is 24.3 years. In percentages, 71.5% have a duration of between 21 and 30 years and 28.5% are in the 10-20-year range.
Amount of the mortgage
During the first six months of 2016, the average mortgage amount in Italy to non-Italian borrowers was approximately 96,400 euro. Half of the loans given out have a value of between 50 and 100,000 euro, while 36% are in the range of 100-150,000 euro. Only 7.3% of borrowers obtained a mortgage of over 150,000 euro.
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