The main Italian cities and larger towns on the coast and by the beach are usually the main destinations for property searches among foreigners, but today we are going to focus on the Italian towns with less than 5,000 inhabitants where the interest in buying property is higher from abroad than from within Italy. To mark the start of summer, the research department at idealista, Italy's leading real estate portal, has compiled a ranking of these towns and villages under 5,000 inhabitants most popular with foreigners for buying property in Italy.
To carry out this study, idealista measured the number of visits received by properties for sale on its portal in municipalities with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants, over the last three months. The study was drawn up taking into account the locations that received more than 5,000 visits during the period of analysis, a number of interactions considered sufficiently reliable for a correct assessment of the trend.
According to the analysis of the areas in Italy that are most popular with foreign buyers, there are 41 towns where foreigners' interest in buying a home exceeds that of Italians. The municipality attracting the most interest from foreign investors is Positano (Salerno), where foreigners make up 72% of visitors to idealista listings.
Behind the exclusive Amalfi Coast resort, Campione d'Italia (Como), and Portofino (Liguria) complete the podium, both with 65% of total visits from abroad. Next come Tignale (Brescia) and Apricale (Imperia) with 64% of foreign searches. The next village on the list is Perinaldo (Imperia), again inland from Imperia, with 63% of searches, followed by the lakeside resorts of Colonno (Como) with 62%, Tremosine (Brescia) with 61%, Brienno (Como) and Oggebbio (Verbano-Cusio-Ossola) both with 60% of visits from foreigners. The historic village of Maenza (Latina) also attracts the same percentage of visits, 60%.
idealista users' searches reveal a clear prevalence of locations in Lombardy (20 out of 41 surveyed in the study), ahead of Liguria (9), Campania and Piedmont (both with 3). Most of these (23) are located near lakes in Northern Italy (Lake Maggiore, Lake Como and Lake Garda), but there is also no shortage of seaside resorts in the ranking. The most popular coastal towns in Italy for foreigners are represented by the exclusive seaside village of Portofino and the pearls of the Amalfi Coast, such as Positano, Ravello (53% of visits from abroad) and Amalfi (50%).
As for the rest, foreigners are oriented towards characteristic villages, far from the most fashionable Italian tourist destinations. For the most part, these traditional Italian villages are much more affordable and buying is within everyone's reach. In some cases, houses are also found for sale at a symbolic price of 1 euro to repopulate historic areas and counter depopulation.
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